This document summarizes a workshop on adapting to complexity in human networks. It includes:
- An agenda for the workshop that covers topics like networks, communities, teams and sense-making models over time blocks that include exercises and discussions.
- Descriptions of the workshop facilitators' backgrounds and areas of expertise in workplace learning and adapting organizations.
- Definitions and diagrams explaining concepts covered like personal knowledge mastery, communities of practice, and the dynamics of networked teams.
- Notes on challenges of knowledge work like complexity, rapid change, and tools overload, and frameworks for network-based leadership and collaborative culture.
Adapting to complexity - critical practices for human networks
1. Adapting to complexity
Critical practices for human networks
Catherine Shinners & Harold JarcheWorkshop for
KM World 2018
Washington, DC
2. Harold Jarche providies
actionable insights for
workplace learning.
He works with individuals,
organizations, and public
policy influencers to
develop practical ways to
adapt to the technological,
demographic, and societal
changes facing us today.
Harold Jarche
Workshop facilitator
@hjarche
In our networked world
we’re more connected to
our organizations, society,
environment - and each
other.
Catherine brings her
background as a change
agent, marketer and
technologist to help
people & organizations
build new agilities and
adaptations to the way
they network, learn, lead
and create value.
Catherine Shinners
Workshop facilitator
@catshinners
collaboration-incontext.com
3. Time Topic Tool
8:45-9:00 Settling in – tools survey Easel
9:00-9:20 Introduction exercise
Quick discussion
Easel
9:20-10:00 Networks
Network mapping exercise
Triangle exercise
Network mapping
10:00-10:15 Break and mapping exercise wrap-up
10:15-10:30 Network mapping discussion & reflections
How could your network help with resilience in job
disruption, opportunity for career growth
Easel
10:30-11:00 Agile sense-making & models for sense-making
Networks, communities and teams
11:00-11:30 Communities
11:30-12:00 p.m. Teams
Workshop topics and activities
4. § Growing knowledge work
complexity
§ Rapidly changing environments
§ Geo-dispersed teams
§ Dynamic shifting roles
§ Diverse reporting structures
§ Workers engage w/ 10-20
people/day
§ Burgeoning organizational
information flows….
Pre-internet mental models
§Work practices
§Management practices
§Knowledge management practices
§ Tools, tools, tools
§ Cognitive overload
Adding more, more, more on old frameworks
Merced Group
5. §Brings web benefits within
SLATES*, mobile, multimodal (video, voice, text), rich
experience, location, visible contribution
§Pull not push
Subscribing, alerts, tagging, social graph
§Contextuality
Immediacy of conversation - Resources, assets are in the
flow. Authentic leadership voices. Socializing knowledge –
learning as we go.
§Behavior, capabilities, ethos
Transparency, networks of relationships, reciprocity, personal
knowledge curation
§Empowered association
Communities of practice, knowledge networks,
crowdsourcing
Elements of workplace digital experience
Merced Group*Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, Signals
It’s all been there for a while, so
why does it seem so far away?
6. Personal Knowledge Mastery
§ Navigating, cultivating networks
§ Observable, narrated work
§ Mastering filtering
§ Personal curation practice
§ Active social learning
§ Sense-making
“Personal Knowledge Mastery
(PKM) is a framework for
individuals to take control of
their professional development
through a continuous process of
seeking, sensing-making, and
sharing.”
– Harold Jarche
Amidst the proliferation of tools, we leave people to stumble through this on their own
Lack of
understanding
of FOW skills
Merced Group
7. PKM: Connecting Work & Learning
seek > sense > share
jarche.com
structured &
hierarchical
informal &
networked
opportunity-driven
& cooperative
goal-oriented
& collaborative
Work Teams
share complex knowledge,
deadline-driven
stronger social ties
Co-creating Value
Communities of Practice
trusted space to test new ideas
mixed social ties
Integrating Work & Learning
Social Networks
diversity of ideas & opinions
weaker social ties
Prompting Innovation
9. Understanding networks, weaving networks, and contributing to networks (the
integration of learning & work) are today’s critical skills. Complex things cannot be
learned except by shared experience and our networks can help us share. In today’s
world, you are only as good as your network.
Network
Mapping
Exercise
Visualize your network
10. Communities A place of social learning
M
ake
sense
Connect
Converse
Adapt
Influence
Learn
Create
Share
Seek
Merced Group
11. seek new
knowledge
make sense
of knowledge
share
lessons
learned
share
knowledge
PKM: Connecting Work & Learning
seek > sense > share
jarche.com
structured &
hierarchical
informal &
networked
opportunity-driven
& cooperative
goal-oriented
& collaborative
Work Teams
share complex knowledge,
deadline-driven
stronger social ties
Co-creating Value
Communities of Practice
trusted space to test new ideas
mixed social ties
Integrating Work & Learning
Social Networks
diversity of ideas & opinions
weaker social ties
Prompting Innovation
12. Communities of practice
The Social Organization: How to use social media to tap the collective genius of customer and employee,
Bradley, A., , McDonald, M., Harvard Business Press, 2011
A networked, stewarded social structure with important dynamics & lifecycle
Participation
value is achieved
through
participation
Transparency
participants see
each other’s
contributions
Persistence
contributions
captured for
sharing, viewing
Emergence
value emerges
from collective
interactions
Collective
created &
expanded from
wide contributions
Independent
engagement
anytime, anyplace,
at will
14. Social roles in community-it’s about people
An environment where people can bring a multiplicity of
approaches and roles
Support people moving in and out of leader, active mentoring
to lower profile roles
Sharer
lurker Writer
CreatorEditor
Connector
synthesizor
mitigator
negotiator
contextualizer
interloper
infovore
monitor
counselor
gossip
critic
expert
broadcaster
re-broadcaster
Thanks to Thomas Vander Wal, Gordon Ross
See Cathexis blog post: The City is Experienced on our Feet: Social Business as the Urban Planning of Enterprise 2.0
Merced Group
15. Cultivate, facilitate spectrum of engagement
Identify leaders, influencers
Varied contributions, recognition
Regular cadence of events, programs, communications
Active cycle of engagement
Internal and external advocacy
Partnerships
Active listening (members, stewards, social leaders)
Support an ethos of transparency, generosity
Foundations for thriving communities
19. Education
program
Access to
new tools
Library of
Applied
Projects
CoP
Dimension
Executive
Education
Connecting
to external
thought
leadership
Members have access to formal
training and tools
Community of practice dimension – for
continued expertise development, awareness
of changes in discipline or field, via peer to
peer exchanges & mentoring
A common library of projects, applied
to the business – brings wider
awareness of impact & opportunity of
new discipline
Engagement strategies to
foster management
understanding of new
discipline’s impact on
business
Curated content & voices
from leading experts
external to the
organization broaden
awareness of innovations
in discipline
Community Management
Community for
Change
Growing knowledge
repository of applied
projects to the
business completed
by members of
education program
Merced Group
21. DNA of teams*
•psychological safety - it’s safe to take interpersonal risks
•dependability - teammates do excellent work, on time
•structure and clarity - we are good at making decisions and have clear goals
•meaning - my work is personally important to me
•impact - our work matters to the company
Merced Group
by Catherine Shinners
*Google teams research & practice
22. Content change
triggers via streams,
alerts, filters, or tags
improve awareness &
accessibility
Visibility of work
expands knowledge
collections and invites
diversity of more inputs
Sharing updates and expanding
connections using robust profiles, brings
richer context and stronger cohesion
Transparent creation and co-creation of
content in the flow of work leads to new
conversations and feedback loops
Networked working
Catherine Shinners, Merced Group
Network-based
group cohesion
& connection
More agility &
knowledge
flows
Content
awareness &
accessibility
Transparent
conversational
flow of work
Dynamics of a networked team
ME
ME
WE
WE
Merced Group
24. Human networks in organizations
Working with a
network mindset
Network-based
leadership
• Posture of transparency,
sharing, awareness
• Activate relationships,
weaving, strengthening
social ties as core
behaviors – working at the
speed of connections
• Amplify individual
organizational reach,
influence
• Master social learning
models
• Exercising leadership through
participation and engagement
• Visible discussion, knowledge
sharing and distributed
decision-making
• Create, support environment
for widespread engagement
• Mastering management of
new collective social
structures like CoPs for
business purpose
• Reciprocal knowledge norms
• Co-create, build on knowledge to
innovate
• Experimentation, iteration –
leveraging platforms that enables
• Harnessing collective intelligence,
engaging diversity of experience,
perspectives
• Permeable organization to
capitalize on innovation
• Tipping point of individuals
working with openness,
transparency
Collaborative culture
continuous learningMerced Group
25. Complex adaptive systems
• Basic network effect – relationships
• Non-determinate behavior
• Presence of feedback linkages, reflexive cycles (positive
and negative)
• Dispersed pattern(s) of coordination
• Ability of self organize, self-regulate, self govern
• Generativity
• Self-similarity – fractal type recursions
• Holistic nature and synergy
26. seek new
knowledge
make sense
of knowledge
share
lessons
learned
share
knowledge
PKM: Connecting Work & Learning
seek > sense > share
jarche.com
structured &
hierarchical
informal &
networked
opportunity-driven
& cooperative
goal-oriented
& collaborative
Work Teams
share complex knowledge,
deadline-driven
stronger social ties
Co-creating Value
Communities of Practice
trusted space to test new ideas
mixed social ties
Integrating Work & Learning
Social Networks
diversity of ideas & opinions
weaker social ties
Prompting Innovation