Tons of shattered glass, Robert Smithson's Map of Broken Glass at the Dia:Beacon (Augie Ray/flickr.com)

We need learning processes, not just tools

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

Knowledge management and informal learning processes are not resourced, even when the organization may have made a significant investment to build containers for knowledge or its sharing. This “build it and they will come” approach has failed, time and time again.

Yet the seemingly intangible nature of knowledge and learning processes makes it difficult to build a case to resource learning itself. As a cross-cutting, often unrecognized activity that enables work rather than produces results, how do we convince donors that it is worth the investment – paradoxically when donors are increasingly skeptical about the value of formal training?

Photo: Tons of shattered glass, Robert Smithson’s Map of Broken Glass at the Dia:Beacon (Augie Ray/flickr.com)

Shards (Martin/flickr.com)

Wishful thinking cannot fix broken tools

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

“Continuous learning at the individual level is necessary but not sufficient to influence perceived changes in [performance]. […] Learning must be captured and embedded in ongoing systems, practices, and structures so that it can be shared and regularly used to intentionally improve changes in [performance]” (Marsick and Watkins 2003:134).

“I still can’t find it. And I still need to work on it. It’s a mess.”

“That’s a struggle. I don’t have a good system on that.”

In the last five years, we have mainstreamed the use of electronic media for communication and, to a lesser extent, for formal learning.

The tools we use in learning (whether formal or informal) may change, based on need and context. We know that constant and rapid advances in technology and their costs make it difficult for headquarters (center) and field (periphery) alike  to afford or use the latest, cutting-edge tools. Tools that are officially sanctioned or supported may seem hopelessly out of date, too difficult to use, or both. We look for the pragmatic, lowest common denominator that “just works”. Often, we end up using a mash-up of products, some of which have become nearly as ubiquitous as e-mail, such as Dropbox, Webex, Skype or Excel.

Our tools are dated, yet – no matter how clunky or inefficient – their familiarity is reassuring.

Anchoring (focus, ignoring distractions) and filtering (extracting knowledge we need) require either better tools or improved competencies in using the ones we do have. Still, we lose precious time trying to retrieve information we need.

E-mail is the de facto lowest common denominator, but we expend time, energy, and skills to avoid drowning in it. Even though the promise of e-mail is that of a ubiquitous, low-bandwidth, ultra-fast knowledge and conversation medium to connect us, many of us experience it as a “complete anchor”. Because we treat it as formal communication (not conversation), it is not conducive to the informal learning and sharing that build trust in our working relationships.

Is there really an alternative to the time lost on repetitive tasks made necessary only due to their inadequacies? Doesn’t trying a new, untested tool not (yet) supported by the organization add a series of unknowns and risks?

The platforms we have to work with may feel broken, and attempts in the past to build better platforms failed.

We still look for the one best tool – silver bullet or Holy Grail – and continue to wish for the centralized platform that will single-handedly solve our knowledge problems, despite the repeated failure of previous attempts toward such solutions.

New tools are still conceptualized with the intent to manage, control, and direct activities or outcomes – even though we may intuitively feel that this is not what we need most.

Yet, we have learned that the real value of a new tool is not the tool itself, but what the tool enables.

Most of the technologies we use to enable, accelerate or support our work (and, therefore, our learning) are now online. Finding our way through the constantly-changing jungle of new and old technologies online requires constant effort.

We often start by duplicating the functioning of physical activities in an online space. For example, this shift first happened when Skype increasingly replaced the phone, eventually attaining such a monopoly that it will be difficult for better solutions to displace or replace it. It is ongoing with Webex and other conferencing software (free like Hangouts or enterprise solutions purchased by the organization).

We question traditional approaches and actively seek new methods and tools that can empower people in the network to connect to our global community of knowledge.

We strive to adapt to a changing world in which new electronic tools come into widespread use in some places, when they remain unavailable in others.

Photo: Shards (Martin/flickr.com)

Soon, my pretties... The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, Disney Hollywood Studios (Hector Parayuelos/flickr.com)

Life-work balance

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

Our connections include not only social life with colleagues, but also our personal lives with our partners, families and friends. Parental responsibilities, traffic jams in long commutes, or other challenges we face in our personal lives impact our level of energy and motivation for learning and innovation.

We call for leadership that recognizes the need for better balance between work and family. The wellness of our families has a positive halo effect on our motivation to do more than what is needed simply to hold down our jobs.

Party time (Thomas Hawk/flickr.com)

Party time

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

“Everybody in a fun environment knows more of each other.”

We interact at a human – not only utilitarian – level to form social spaces in which we can build friendships that foster and reinforce the trust we have in each other’s work. Despite frequent mission travel, when and where team members are in the same physical location, they report a variety of shared social activities, described as “opportunities to interact”. The value of such social activities is recognized as fostering trust and friendship. Social events organized more formally by the team during work hours legitimize the value of our social interactions. We also recognize that there may be times when we are not available for socializing.

Photo: Party time (Thomas Hawk/flickr.com)

 

Base of silo (Astrid Westvang/flickr.com)

Learning is in the network

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

“I knew them very well. That’s why it worked. Because we do work together.”

We take responsibility for our own learning, yet keenly aware of the value for learning of engaging with others. It is when we find ourselves alone or isolated that we may best perceive the value of connecting with others for learning.

One of the justifications for working in a silo is a very high level of specialization that requires being fully-focused on one’s own area of work – to the exclusion of others.

We form networks of informal learning and collaboration in our team, with other departments in the headquarters, with the field, and with people and organizations outside the organization.

Asking people is often faster than sifting through information.

Technology facilitates building and sustaining small networks of trusted colleagues, large formal working groups, and more anonymous forms (mailing lists, discussion forums, etc.) that keep us connected.

In our volatile working environment, what we know (usually thought of as content-based knowledge) is replaced with how we are connected to others. That is how we stay current and informed.

Networks are a powerful problem-solving resource that people naturally turn to when they need help. We rely on small, trusted networks to accelerate problem-solving (learning).

Photo: Door at base of silo (Astrid Westvang/flickr.com)

Christakis, N.A., Fowler, J.H., 2009. Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. Little, Brown.

Connecting to the environment

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

“[…] you learn that you are not alone in dealing with a technical problem and sometimes you just need a second technical opinion. Sometimes, it does help if you listen to people who see it from a totally different perspective. To give you an example: [suppliers] are the providers of equipment and we are the demand side. There sometimes are good discussions to come to a common solution, which you don’t get if you sit at your desk […]. This sharing of technical knowledge as well as brainstorming around the technical problem with different stakeholders who see the problem from different sides, I find that really refreshing or rewarding. But that again, this is not formal training or whatever.”

Photo: Christakis, N.A., Fowler, J.H., 2009. Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. Little, Brown.

Silent silos (Indigo Skies Photography/flickr.com)

Against insularity

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

“We came to understand because we have very good global connections.”

How do we connect with other people, with other member organizations in the network, and with those external to it? How do we form and leverage networks? Where is learning in these networks? Beyond utilitarian purposes, how do connections with our colleagues and their organizations enrich our experience?

We cannot afford to remain insular and inward-looking.

Some of us may still feel that itis “more relevant” to “look into what we have internally already instead of looking too much externally”. Increasingly, though, we question the insular and inward-looking aspects of our learning culture.

We cannot afford to remain ignorant of or uninterested in experiences outside of our membership, not when we recognize the need for change. We see that members are now more open to working with external partners and it is our responsibility to embrace and support this.

What are the benefits of learning outside the silo?

We learn from people working in other areas of work, other organizations, or other industries. We access information sources that may or may not be directly related to our work to expand our horizons, stimulate our creativity, or to “see what are the current problems and just try to understand which things have are outside the field of vision of our area of work”.

Although we spend most of our time trying to improve our knowledge performance to drive results, too reductive a focus on utility may stifle our creativity. In some cases, we enjoy learning about issues with no direct relation to our specialization.

“We are all something,” says Blaise Pascal, “but none of us are everything”.

Photo: Silent silos (Indigo Skies Photography/flickr.com)

6509s. A work in progress (Bob Mical/flickr.com)

What is a connector?

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

Where some believe that the value of their network is based on its exclusivity, connectors are people in the organization who have developed large networks of people and who see their role in introducing people in their network to each other.

This connector role is closely related to the knowledge brokering process that recombines existing knowledge and facilitates knowledge transfer.

The relationships leveraged by connectors may be personal or based on prior experience rather than ascribed to the current role, especially in the context of decentralization.

Building a dense network of relationships is a prerequisite for the connector function. As connectors, we are empowered toward the collection vision in which can act as knowledge brokers to foster, replicate, scale, and harmonize innovation by National Societies.

Photo: 6509s. A work in progress (Bob Mical/flickr.com)

Wire (Kendra/flickr.com)

What does it mean to broker knowledge in a network?

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

Our network function requires that we interact with the network. We observe profound changes in the nature of knowledge, how it circulates, and this affects how we work (learn).

Members in the network, too, have changed. We struggle to keep up with and adapt to these changes. In working with them, we prioritize results against their own expectations as well as those of donors and governments.

Hence, it is difficult to justify learning approaches that take us away from such priorities. We wish for time after delivery to reflect on lessons learned, but such wishes may be swept away by the next urgent task.

The alternative to this frustrating cycle of task delivery at the expense of reflection is to adopt a knowledge brokering approach. We broker knowledge when we link learning with innovation in the context of the long history of work done by the network.

When trying to solve a difficult problem, especially in emergencies, our “fear of failure” drives speed and urgency in finding innovative solutions. We trade off certainty for speed. By contrast, in most of our work, “fear of failure” inhibits speed and risk-taking, as we seek to execute what has been previously established as normative. Therefore, innovation processes require different indicators and metrics than those of execution.

Knowledge brokering provides a model for how we might be able to embed innovation and learning into work, by recombining our past and current knowledge, leveraging the old to do new things in new ways.

The historical model is for the center (headquarters) to produce “trickle-down” knowledge to be consumed by the periphery (network), with feedback as an occasional and exceptional event. For example, even though we know the importance of currency, we wait years before we consider updating guidelines, because making knowledge current requires stopping other work and concerted effort that is difficult to organize and resource.

This traditional model in which members of the network request assistance from headquarters becomes increasingly difficult to sustain when there is more knowledge and everything is faster, calling into question traditional models of expertise.

When we look for commonalities between network members, we question our assumptions about how different they are. In our new role as knowledge brokers, by working with many in the network, we facilitate access to the ideas, artifacts, and people that reside within one member or domain yet may be valuable in others. From this existing knowledge (which also considers existing trainings, guidelines, and tools), we strive to discover new combinations and new ways to transfer experience. When nodes in the network are thus empowered to “do for themselves”, the nature of our expertise changes and we change too.

If members do for themselves, what then is the role for those of us who work in headquarters?

Reference: Hargadon, A.B., 2002. Brokering knowledge: Linking learning and innovation. Research in Organizational behavior 24, 41–85.

Photo: Wire (Kendra/flickr.com)

Danger of death (Lars Plougmann/flickr.com)

How do we learn from the network?

Reda SadkiLearning strategy

When our organization’s hierarchy prohibits direct contact with the field, indirect and informal contact becomes more important than ever. Global and regional meetings, bilateral programmes, and various kinds of informal events provide opportunities for staying in touch. In fact, decentralization raises the stakes of informal and incidental learning – activities “flying under the radar” of decentralization’s hierarchical relationships may become the primary mode for learning about, with and for the field.

How do we overcome barriers to learning from the network? First, when we reframe new ideas and possibilities, we ask how this aligns with the current characteristics of the nodes in the network (“the membership”). Second, we need to leverage continual learning to innovate, recombining and inventing new solutions (knowledge brokering). Third, we need to consider indicators other than the volume of programming, and consider how we can scale up quality.

Photo: Danger of death (Lars Plougmann/flickr.com)