THE CONTEXT OF LEADERSHIP IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES

In this first of a series of posts about what leadership of online communities means, I want to explore the contextual aspects of our actions in supporting them. 

Austen Hunter in the Social learning Community (http://bit.ly/iJQzuQ ) asks “... if you understand the broad principles, context and “why”* social learning is important what are the practical steps to making the change in your org?"  

Jane Hart replied “It's not a matter of "implementing" change - but encouraging people to get involved in groups - talking and sharing - and then the change will happen itself. From Command and Control to Encourage and Engage . In other words trying to implement "social" top down just won't work.” (http://bit.ly/roE6a1 ) .  Approaches such as that suggested recently by Tammara Combs (http://bit.ly/qug62p ) will rapidly be seen as attempts to manipulate. They are an anathema to the spirit of open collaboration that is well established in the social learning workplace.

In this, the first of a series of posts that will be concerned with the “gentle hand” of leadership (Harold Jarche) in communities, I want to start with looking at the place online communities have in an organisation.  

What happens in an online community that is working well?. Someone asks a question based on a real need in the workplace. Others engage either out of experience or because they have a similar need out of their workflow or out of interest in the topic. So what happens is the creation of a group within the community. It may be totalyy informal or it may get a name.  Others will join in, either because they are invited or because they are interested. It will always be transient, because people will make their contribution and will eventually leave the topic because this engagement has given all it can. The only question is the timeframe – a few hours to maybe many months. However for a time it is very real and will provide ideas and the opportunity to crystallise peoples thinking around the topic and to move work ahead. It may lead members or the whole group off in a new direction of thought and action. 

When the Social Learning Community (SLC) started with a rush I conducted an analysis of what happened to capture the principles and practices that lay behind the immediate success (http://bit.ly/gAz73N ). The start-up of this community was very fast and for a period extremely busy. Communities can't always be the way this one was for its first couple of months. They have to do what has happened now in the SLC They have to settle down into being a place where people feel free to engage with others across all kinds of boundaries to ask questions, seek help, offer insight, invite critique etc. Jane has alluded to the fact that one day the community might have passed its “use by” date and life will move on.

For the moment, members asking questions, creating threads and offering insights are stimulating a lot of thought and contribution. 

Compare that situation to another Yammer community which I am currently advising. It has had explosive initial sign-up which is great. But now what? The initiators have watched a small number of people amongst the 4000 who have joined it over a 3 month period have recognised that it provides an opportunity for open communication which will support the workflow. About 20 groups have been created by people in the community to support aspects of their and the organisation's work.  

People have seen that the community allows them to cross organisational and silo boundaries in support of their workflow and in doing so to engage with a wide variety of people concerned with their work issues. The groups are providing a way of overcoming blockages that hinder effectiveness in the workplace. They are in their infancy - some will thrive others will wither and die. New groups will be created. Harold Jarche talks about a "gentle hand" being needed to encourage groups in a community so that engagement occurs. This is true social learning. "Drinks after work" is to trivialise social learning.  

In the SLC we have, between the 900 or so of us involved, established a community that possesses and has shared a vast range of knowledge, experience and (most important) a network that is orders of magnitude greater than the community itself. It is capable of adding value to almost any aspect of the community's topic of social learning. That is power indeed and I, for one, will be doing my bit to ensure that Jane is not tempted any time soon to suggest that the SLC has run its course! 

A change management approach is needed to developing the usefulness of a community - most importantly within an organisation development context. I addressed this in my blog a few weeks ago (http://bit.ly/r61iFS) working the issue of the emotional energy needed to get people to engage.

In my shed in the garden I have a toolkit which I use for my DIY. There are many tools in it - some are big favourites. I even instinctively turn to them first when tackling any job - but they are not always the most appropriate ones for the work I have to do. Translating the analogy - if people don't sense the appropriateness of using a social network, they won't use it. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still!"  This applies as much to trying to force senior management to change culture as it does to asking a junior person in the organisation to use a network for which they see no benefit.

The trick has to be to fan the sparks of groups that emerge - by asking questions, giving ideas, seeking opinions etc so that imaginations are captured. Sparks become flames and heat is generated. People become comfortable in their communities - able to share problems, willing to give of their experience, brave enough to supportively critique others. For me these are the things that in the end foster culture change.  

I believe that in our social networks we have the chance to very subtly effect the necessary culture change through application of the "gentle hand". Good behaviour, seen as supportive to the individual in giving of their best in the workplace, has a habit of spreading.  Whilst in many organisations there is a negative, constraining or even a blame culture, that does not repeat itself in the cultures of online communities that survive and thrive.  They are more characterised by support, openness, willingness to help, listening and a longer list of similar characteristics that most of us would recognise as being likely to make us want to be part of them.  

Well nurtured, online communities and groups within them will undoubtedly enhance workplace performance and people will learn to cross boundaries and work smarter.  People in the communities will grow as a result, feeling progressively more comfortable to share and to listen to the advice and experience – and the critique – of others.  But we have a further and greater opportunity – that of establishing in the communities such a powerful culture that it spills over into the whole of working life.  If it can do that it will help the evolution of the workplace into the networked collaborative place that it needs to be to align with our wider social environments.  

As change agents within our organisations, let us recognise the channel that online communities provide to us and let us use them to help business leaders in the on-going process of reinvention of the organisation that is essential to survival in today’s environment. 

I will be blogging about some of the “how to’s” of online community leadership in a series of posts over the next few weeks.

Supporting one another in Online Communities - Encouraging the right Behaviour

My reading and thinking and my experience over the last few days stimulates this post.  It’s about online behaviour which sounded a discord either for me or for others.  I may even have unwittingly been the cause of one or more difficulty for you in my enthusiasm to explore and to learn.  If I have, I apologise. The occurrences lead me to discuss how we use our online learning communities. 

I have written before about the fact that every community in every sphere of life has some kind of boundaries and a set of norms (spoken or unspoken) for what’s “OK” in that community.  So how does this work out in practice? 

I’ve mentioned before that I live in a small but very inclusive and welcoming rural community.  In that community there are unwritten norms that one is expected to adhere to in order to be seen to be a “member in good standing”.  They stem from values of respect, politeness and a recognition that the community needs to be mutually supportive.  However it is not as simple as that! Someone in the village said to us that even in a small and caring community like this great care needs to be taken about what is said and done in order to maintain the unity and the supportive environment “It’s like treading on eggshells!”  If you have lived in a village you will know what I mean! 

So how is this relevant to our online communities – often far bigger than our little village, faster moving, impersonal, limited mostly to our work lives, frequently transient, invisible to one another and so on? 

The principles of social learning are based in an open culture of mutual support, transparency and a willingness to give in order to receive.  It’s one to which we all sign up almost unconsciously by registering in or joining our communities in expectation and excitement. Harold Jarche quotes the helpful metaphor of the rules and norms of dancing (http://bit.ly/nDjPgw).  We have all experienced the huge benefits that accrue when we are in this kind of environment.  

But with the instant and sometimes fleeting nature of the communication in an online community it is very easy for that atmosphere to be broken down and for it to become fractious, dysfunctional and hurtful to the point that participants are put off and withdraw (“I didn’t come here to be talked to like that – I came to share and to receive).  A perceived snub, a careless word, a treading on toes to continue Harold’s metaphor, (probably nearly always an accidental omission) through not attributing a contribution that is quoted, a failure to separate the substance of a disagreement from the person so that the matter becomes personal, a breaking of the unwritten community rules by doing something which is not fair or transparent, a hidden conversation (via another platform or a back channel)  which crosses the boundaries of our “circles” within the community – all of these are behaviours that can inhibit, damage or destroy that which we are all striving so hard to achieve. 

The moment we take each other for granted and fail to consider the reactions of all those who will read our messages and posts we risk alienating and causing discords that will distract both from our own message and the usefulness of the community.  It will become a more dangerous place to be. 

As L&D and Performance Support professionals seeking to understand and exploit “working smarter” we have a wonderful opportunity through our various “places” of contact to learn for ourselves. In them we can identify and practice in the virtual environment  the behaviours that need to be nurtured in the communities we seek to foster in the workplace. 

As our journeys in our communities progress and our understanding develops, so will we each gain insights that may differ from what was initially a commonly held belief.  It is then that sensitivity, respect and a care for the language we use in our Tweets, posts and other messages becomes important if we are to continue to have the confidence in one another to share what we are learning and to be able to comment honestly on each other’s work. 

I have written this in the context of “I” and “we” because I am aware that I am a member of a number of communities – some consciously, some by association and some of which I am unaware, taken into them by people even whose names I do not know.  This blog has an expanding readership of several hundred  for each post – which means its potential reach is many thousands.  My language and sensitivity may influence many. 

My desire is for this blog to become an enduring forum where the issues of living in virtual communities that have real value and meaning in our lives can be discussed, argued about and the results shared so that the inexorable and rapid move to the wirearchy, the networked environment, the collaborative workplace is one which is as comfortable for those we seek to help as it can be. You, the reader, like me the writer, can do your part by fostering in your communities those behaviours you value in working with others.  

Only if we can provide an environment that is attractive to the newbie and the shy, the reticent, the uncertain, the technophobe will we succeed in helping them to participate and to share the value that is in all of us from our experience and range of thinking skills. Encouragement, support, patience in explaining, getting “legs” under another’s practical problems to help find solutions, recognition and praise will go a long way in helping one another. If we can live together like this in our cyber space we will be able to begin to unleash for our organisations the enormous and currently hidden potential that lies within them – the ability to work smarter.

THE “DIFFICULTY” OF SOCIAL LEARNING

(Originally posted at http://bit.ly/mRgeeW on 28 June 2011)

Much is currently being written about the problems of embracing the Social media in the workplace.  Yes, of course there are risks, as there are to any major change in the way we do our work.  The fears of loss of Intellectual Property are real and need to be guarded against.  Damage to corporate or institutional reputation and image is a myth – that image is already at risk if the company culture is resulting in unhappy employees.  They have access to media that the company does not and can never control.  The remedy is to pay attention to ensuring that employees are happy, engaged and have some pride in the organisation that pays their salary.

Loss of productivity is often quoted as a feared downside of making the social media available to employees.  But do we in our fantasy world imagine that employees are not already, by covert and overt means, failing to deliver optimum productivity?  Whether it is by “stealing” company time to use personal mobile devices to pursue personal matters or whether the company’s bandwidth is being harnessed for personal gain, the issues are already there.  And how is it that attention is now drawn to productivity issues when in the past these have been tolerated, ignored and even tacitly accepted as part of the culture?  Is it just because the digital age means we can now measure these things and the figures that emerge are horrific?  Or is it a deeper reason – that leaders have recognised the collective failure to create and sustain environments in which people will willingly give of their best?  Here now is an opportunity to “show their teeth”!

I believe there is a different reason and one that, if not addressed, will in the next few years lead to the unravelling of institutions that have for a generation seemed to be impregnable. It seems to me that corporate and other enterprise has not yet grasped that the world has changed.  Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, and others have been alerting the world for years that we now live in a networked society, a wierarchy, a world of communities that interlink and overlap in complex ways.  The reason for our difficulty is in failing to grasp a change that has happened – not one that is happening, or that will happen.  It is one that has happened!

The truth is, paradoxically, that actually nothing has changed!  We have as the human race always lived in communities.  What happened over the industrial period was that we kidded ourselves that the world of work was different from life outside the factory and the institution.  Social media with its all-pervasive implications have debunked that illusion and, as people concerned with enterprise health, we need to realise and rediscover that, actually, we are all about community.

Community is as axiomatic to us as is our desire and ability to communicate with one another.  Whether viewed from the lowest levels of the motivational hierarchy or the highest, communicating, being with, and interacting with our fellow human is fundamental.  The hunter gatherer, raiding party, defensive unit, feudal farming co-operative, empire builder, crusader, religious devotee, academic, socialite, politician, industrial magnate, trades unionist, revolutionary, voluntary worker, carer, and the list goes on, we have been and are all involved in community in every aspect of our lives. 

So let us now pay attention to re-discovering what community is about, socially, in our working lives and, pervading all, as a powerful means to optimising our potential for our own, our employers and others benefit.  We need to pay attention to our abilities to engage, trust, share, listen and act in collaboration with others.  Organisation culture will be a huge determinant in corporate survival as the power of community is once again realised. Limiting access to Social Media and a failure to embrace the nature and reality of social learning places our institutions at risk – far more so than the risks associated with inviting employees to be responsible and to participate to their and the organisation’s benefit.

There is a need to rediscover that giving leads to receiving and that knowledge being power is not the route to success.  That lies in ways to discover our potential, to fully exploit it, and to manage and apply the knowledge that comes with it.  Our security on our journey is knowing that we have the support and help of others in the communities to which we belong.  Then there is safety in taking the risks.  The potential benefits are incalculable.