Email

Came across a piece about an organization banning email. Now, that might sound a bit radical, but there you are. You can find the article here. The CEO believes that only 10% of the emails people get are useful. Even if thats a trifle too little, the idea still remains that email may not be the productivity tool that we think it is. Lets look at why this may be.

To begin with, the purpose of email is to communicate, collaborate. Looking at the basic concept of email, we find that email is not a tool for conversation. Most of us would agree that the best way to communicate and collaborate is through discussions, conversations. And email, by its very nature is not meant to be a tool for that. though, quite a few of us do use email in that way. How many mail chains have you seen which run into pages? Sometimes, it seems like an email ping-pong which goes on. At times, you might get included in the email at a very late stage of the mail chain, and its rather a task to be going through the entire mail chain to figure out what its all about. This is because email is being used for conversing when thats something it is not meant to be for.

So, if the essence of communicating is conversation, which is also the tool required for collaboration, then wouldnt it be easier to collaborate if we use tools which are available to us, which are meant for collaboration and conversations?

Tigress

This one is from Jim Corbett’s My India:

I once saw a tigress stalking a month-old kid. The ground was very open and the kid saw the tigress while she was still some distance away and started bleating, whereupon the tigress gave up her stalk and walked straight up to it. When the tigress had approached to wihin a few yards, the kid went forward to greet her, and on reaching the tigress it stretched ot its neck and put up its head to smell her. For the duration of a few heartbeats the month-old kid and the Queen of the Forest stood nose to nose, and then the queen walked off in the direction from which she had come.

Wonderful passage … just tells the sheer grace and elegance which comes with real power.

About Reading and Blogs

A discussion that I was having with colleagues the other day was about why I usually don’t read management books. And I was surprised to think that I haven’t read a management book for a while now. In other words, a few years, I suppose. And I got to wondering about whether I have stopped learning? This is not to say I have given up reading, but the reading I do now has taken an altogether different form from what it was maybe a decade ago.

I have read a number of management books about topics at the edge of management thought … From The Fifth Discipline to The Balanced Scorecard, to Business Process Reengineering, and many more. So, what am I doing not reading now? And this is where I looked at how learning patterns have changed over a period of time. Today, a lot of information, and so learning, reaches us, not through books, but through the social media around us. This isn’t just about millenials, but senior citizens too. A lot more information is available out there in the form of, especially, blogs. And this information reaches us through the social network. A large number of blogs reach me through tweets, and this, to a large extent, has become my learning channel. Whether it is something new, or whether it is something where I need to upgrade my skills, I look more and more online to learn. Let me give you an example. I have been trying to understand Clifford algebra. And I have found the information available out there, without having to read a book.

Does this mean that books are history? I don’t think so. Books are still an important way of learning. Books are still an important form of story-telling. Where I see books today, and maybe in the future, is to give a structure to the learning. This means that I get from books what I need to learn, and the learning from books is supplemented by blogs. For example, why am I studying Clifford algebra? Because I am reading about quaternions. Why am I reading about them? Long story. So, in this way, books are giving the structure, outline, and quite a bit of detail, while blogs are giving a lot more detail to add to them. This is why I feel today, blogs and books go together in the learning process. Another step towards the social learning paradigm, you would say?

Secret of the Unicorn

Quite enjoyed the movie … Te animation is brilliant, the effects amazing. Overall, a nice movie to watch, and a movie I would recommend to anyone who would ask. This was a movie we were looking forward to for months. And the movie was worth the wait.

There are a few thoughts I had about the movie, though. You know what? I women’s feel that cartoon characters, when brought into a somewhat human form, takes away part of the mystique around the character, which is a part of the persona of the character, which we give to it through our imagination. The were a few more things. One, the story wasn’t quite close to the original comic. There’s no sea voyage in the comic, and Tintin already knows Capt. Haddock, while in the movie they seem to meet for the first time on the Karaboudjan, which is a name you will find in another Tintin comic, though I can’t remember which one. Another thing which I thought was that to the best of my understanding, Capt. Haddock was English. He is descended from Sir Francis Haddock, and lives at Marlinspike Hall. In the movie, though, he was speaking with a continental accent, while one would have expected an English accent (though I am told by some that he was Scottish).

All in all, an enjoyable movie, and would recommend it. Ok, time to get back to the comic.

Saprasang Vyakhya

Continuing on the topic of context … anyone who has studied Hindi (i know this of CBSE board in India, though i would think this would be there of other boards too) would not have been able to escape the concept of the Saprasang Vyakhya. So what is Saprasang Vyakhya? Lets translate, and try to see the significance.

Saprasang … prasang translates into context, so saprasang means within the context.

Vyakhya … vyakhya translates into definition.

So, even as students, when we interpreted poetry, or dohe (couplets), we did not just define the meaning of the poem as it occurred to us. Rather, the entire definition was within the context. And this is something important to understand. One thing that comes from here is that the definition doesnt stand outside of a context. In other words, without the context, the definition itself may not be totally clear, or, one could say that without context the same poem could be interpreted in totally different ways by different people. Or, the meaning of the poem becomes a bit obscured withou the context in which the poet has written.

This is true of most stories. the same story, seen from different contexts, or different viewpoints, may lend itself to completely different tellings, and to completely different interpretations. Take it out of its context, and its meaning either changes so completely that you would have difficulty trying to identify the story, or it completely loses its meaning.

And this is the role of context in any form of knowledge. Without it, there usually isnt knowledge. The way i see it:

Information + Context = Knowledge

In other words, context is what converts information into meaningful knowledge, something which we can understand, internalize. And yet, a lot of KM doesnt look too closely at context, or not as closely as we ought to, i suppose. What do you feel?

Leadership Development

Recently came across an article about the top 25 companies for leaders. You can find the article here. Going through the article, couldnt help seeing that there seem to be some practices most of the organizations in the list seem to have, with respect to developing leaders. Thought it might be useful to list out the thoughts i have about these:

1. Organizations with exceptional leadership must have a robust process to identify the leadership pipeline. There must be processes in place which can identify potential leaders across the organization, and across levels of the organization. This process must be person-independant, and must operate in a way where it can identify even junior employees who have the spark, the potential to lead, early on in their careers.
2. There must be well-defined career paths for people who are identified as potential leaders. The important aspect here is that these people must be retained, while at the same time, ensuring they are on track to achieving their leadership potential. Lot of organizations refer to these as fast-track, or star-performers, but this career path approach must go beyond just that, to giving responsibility to these people to manage important projects or teams. This is not just about honing skills, but about giving them the opportunity to continuously prove their potential, both to the organization as well as to themselves.
3. There must be a well-defined development process for these identified leaders. This development process needs go beyond training, and must include a range of other tools, including simulations, coaching, mentoring, special assignments, even including potential leaders as observers in senior management reviews, for example. This is a way of enabling them to not just understand theoretical concepts, but to develop themselves through hands-on experience, and through the guidance of leaders. Important here it is to include the senior leadership of the organizations in this process, especially when it comes to mentoring and coaching. This is where the senior leaders need to invest effort in developing the next line of leaders for the organization.
4. Instead of looking at leadership development as a point intervention, it must be seen as a process which is going to take time, with defined milestones, and ways of evaluating performance while at the same time including feedback mechanisms which could further help enable the coaching and mentoring process.
5. Grooming leaders must a mandatory part of the work of the senior leadership of the organization.

Assuming that different people would have aptitude for different functions, it would also be important to identify the areas of the organizations which different leaders are groomed for. Not every potential leader would be the CEO, thats something we need to accept, but having done that, we also need to define clearly who can play a leadership role in which domain of the organization.

Social Networks, Communities of Practice

There is a discussion at the Gurteen Knowledge Community on linkedin by Tony Pedley about the dividing line between social networks and communities of practice. Juha-Matti Sario mentions that social networking is about online communities, and that communities of practice have an objective. Tim Wieringa mentions that social networks are generic and communities of practice are more specific.

At a basic level, i feel that that social networks are social, they are about connections between people. These connections are people-centric and not necessarily objective-centric, as Juha and Tim mention, and that communities of practice are around a practice or around a topic of interest. As such, social networks are people-centric, while communities of practice are objective centric. At the same time, one could also look at a social network as a tool for developing communities of practice. For example, facebook would be the social network, while groups that you are a member of would be communities of practice or communities of interest. In other words, people have a network, and they belong to a community.

Context

Ever walked into a meeting room which has been used by folks before you, who have left their scribblings on the whiteboard? Even if you can read what they have written or drwan, its usually quite difficult to understand what they must have been talking about.

This is about context. In this scenario, you have the content, but not the context, and it is a combination of the two that helps to understand, thereby creating knowledge. The context, in this scenario, would come from the discussion that would have accompanied the content that went on the whiteboard. There is some meaning attached to what’s there on the board without which the information is incomplete.

I feel a similar thing with presentations. If someone, in replying to a request sends you a presentation, you would find, more often than not, that you aren’t able to understand much. Notes with the slides help to some point, but the context of the information can’t quite be put in the slides.

Why Knowledge Sharing

The other day, I couldn’t find my laptop charger. As someone who believes that a laptop breaking down isn’t altogether as lousy as folks make it out to be, was a little worried about some stuff I had to complete. Well, the question was, how does one find a charger.

Step 1 … Start thinking about where you last saw it. As it happened, the last time I remembered seeing it was two days before, at a meeting. Hmm … So maybe I left it there? Called them up, no charger. Suddenly, there was a brainwave. Me and a colleague were wrapping up around the same time, and we were carrying similar looking bags. Maybe I put my charger in her bag? Improbable, but just to make sure, called and woke up a colleague who actually happened to be on leave that day. Ouch. Tried to find at a few other places I had been to, but no charger.

Step 2 … Try to find out how to get another charger. Having found that out, also found that the charger would take five days.

Step 3 … Tell colleagues that I have misplaced the laptop charger. By now its been two hours.

And that’s when a colleague tells me the charger is with security.

As it turns out, had left my charger at the office, and didn’t remember it. But the point is, by asking, I would have not have those two hours looking for the charger. And this is where knowledge sharing is so important. Need something? Reach out to people, not necessarily only the ones you think can help you, but to a larger audience. Never know where you might find the solution.

Social Media to Social Business

Nice post at HBR blogs by David Armano about social media becoming social business. David makes the point that organizations today are understanding more the value of conversations and hence the value of being social in terms of business functions. Two parts where i feel he makes some important points:

On one hand, the public desires authentic interactions in social spaces from real people. There is now an expectation for real-time response. On the other, a business or organization requires a system to be in place that coordinates activities.

and

Organizations that integrate social into how they do business will embrace social as a layer that’s woven into the fabric of each business function over time.

Look at it carefully, and it seems we are rediscovering something inherent here. Why i say rediscover is because these reminded me of what i understood of Enterprise 2.0, as an organization form rather than the technology which enabled, in some ways necessitated the change in the form of the organization. These discussions were happening not too long ago, something i have written about before.

I am not sure many organizations have reached the stage where they are looking at an E2.0 form of working, and we dont yet have an understanding of of what this form would be. One aspect, for example, is whether hierarchies would remain in the E2.0 era, or would they disappear, or would we see them morph into something different from what they have been.

Are you seeing changes in the organization form? The way i see it, i see changes in the way people are interacting when it comes to work, these interactions becoming more social, but when it comes to organizations, this change would be far more gradual.