Just curious… look who watches over me in my cubicle.

I’m sure some sage individual in the past has noticed that humans are most excellent at making order out of chaos as well as vice versa.  For most people who first encounter Twitter, when they hear that it’s just about people barking statements in less than 140 characters about the goings on in their lives, they immediately decide that the tool amounts to nothing but horsefeathers and mindless chatter.  A little over two years ago I too was skeptical about using Twitter. Now I have a great appreciation of what a powerful tool it is for connecting with people who are interested in the same things you are. More than that it’s a great way to learn from others and find people in your field to learn from. While others may lament the 140 character limit, I believe that the limit forces you to ‘prune your words’ or carefully think out what you will share.  The medium itself is, after all, only designed for short bursts of conversation. If you want a longer discussion that’s  less constricted go find a forum on the same subject.  The great thing about Twitter is it’s a large body of information sharing, but you can still make relative sense of it by using the search or accessing what YOU want to hear or learn about by using the hashtags (examples: #baseball, #knitting, #instructionaldesign). You don’t have to dig through individual communities and forums to find what people are saying about a topic. Again it’s difficult to engage in a deeper conversation from just following the hashtags, but groups can hold guided discussion by centering the Twitter exchange around a set of guiding questions which people in the group respond to individually. In the next few posts I’ll be sharing more about my own attempt to learn how to use Twitter as a tool have an ‘actual conversation’ with like minds. I’ll review the preparation &  steps needed to hold a Twitter chat, and I’ll also take some time to analyze the benefits & drawbacks of this format of conversation. Finally, I would like to take a deeper look at some of the Twitter tools out there that help both faciliators and participants. Using twitter as a conversation tool can still pose challenges and seem restrictive, but if you leverage it’s strengths and adopt a Zen approach to absorbing with wave of content and thoughts from others, it’s actually a great window into how others feel about the topics you care about.

Twitter chats allow people who want to learn more about a topic to get together and learn things from each other. Before you start diving into holding a chat… there are a few things you need to consider. Ask yourself is there enough to talk about? Consider the topic you wish to build the chat around. Is it broad and deep enough to generate a sustained discussion about? How many areas about this topic can you develop questions around?  I started my chat around the subject of Knitting (and fiber-related crafts). To the non-knitter it may seem that this is not a robust and broad topic, but just check out the activity in a social network site of over 1 million knitters called Ravelry, and you’ll understand that chatter about knitting can seem infinite. Never underestimate the power of previous connections on Twitter. Build a modest following first. If you’re just going to plan a chat and expect people to come, they won’t. Try to start posting relevant information on the topics you are interested in. Don’t over do it though, also make sure you sound human in  your post and not stiff and from a marketing department. Here’s a nice primer on how to plan out your use of Twitter. Expect that the first few sessions might have a limited following or number of participants. Unless you have a large and avid following already, the first few sessions may include only a handful of people who are actually chatting. This is okay. Provided that your topics generate enough interest, and you spend some time promoting the chat both in Twitter and other venues, you will be able to gradually achieve a larger base of participants. Training for participation is key. Try to define what the chat will looking like to your audience. I know the first time I heard of Twitter chats I was indeed mystified as to how they worked. I created a short post explaining the basics of the chat format to my audience to help explain how to participate. Great conversation facilitation is dependent on the quality of the prompts & questions crafted by the facilitator or other members of the chat’s community.  Coming up with questions that keep a conversation going can be a challenge. In the first two chat’s I’ve set up I loosely followed the format of the "#lrnchat" discussion. Introductions first then a set of 4-5 discussion related questions. Questions should be somewhat open ended and not have "Yes" or "No" responses only. A whole separate post or even series of blog posts could be devoted to "how to draft fabulously dynamic discussion questions." Expect "lurkers" not "talkers" at first.  Not everyone feels comfortable diving into a conversation. They may have to observe and before the feel safe enough. They may also be struggling (as I did with the pasting the hashtag into every post).  It was not easy to do this in Twitter the first time I tried engaging in a chat a few months ago, that or I’d not figured out the tools yet. Don’t expect to "hog" the facilitator’s role.  Generate ideas for topics from the participants in the community that you’ve tapped. They after all, are the lifeblood of the conversation. Also, after hosting for several sessions, think about letting others who are interested host or facilitate the chat. These are just some initial thoughts to consider before starting your own chat.  I’ll try to document the steps I took to getting my chat started in a future post. You can build your chat stronger and better

Forward thinking and moving companies usually give their employees actual time to think, learn and innovate. In companies that foster a culture of innovation, this isn’t just some imaginary time-allowance that gets built into the employees’ unpaid overtime, it’s actually built into their schedule. This time cannot impede upon employee’s productivity, but savvy leaders and managers know that innovative and creative employees need time and tools to develop, learn and investigate the answers to problems that interest them. Google encourages their employees to use a percentage of their time to solve problems or develop products that pique their interest or that they feel a genuine need for. Many of these tinkering efforts resulted in some of the signature products that Google is known for today such as Gmail, Google News and Adsense to name a few. In fact, the company estimates that at least 50% of Google’s products are a direct result of this "20% time." Unfortunately, not all companies can aspire to be Google, but with help and guidance management and employees can create their own culture of learning for innovation’s sake. There are at least five things they can do to foster this in their own organizations. Make learning a part of the professional development process Give employees easy access to learning resources Call out life-long learning as part of the company’s charter Model life-long learning Reward employees who demonstrate the behaviors of life-long learning 1. Make learning part of the professional development process: Some workplaces actually allow employees to identify areas of interest for professional development in their own yearly development plans. For many employees with heavy workloads, it’s difficult to find the time they need to explore these interests unless they can be directly applied to their work. Managers can help their employees develop their business plans by helping them identify their professional interests and working with them to integrate these interests in both their current work plan as well as helping them finding opportunities to apply their interests to efforts that may help current business goals. 2. Give employees easy access to learning resources: Management can also provide ready access to learning tools and resources. Not just internal documentation and training, but content that is available from external resources. Some examples include: Skillsoft Books 24×7 For the self-directed learner Skillsoft Books 24×7 presents a virtual treasure trove. This collection has books and periodicals for management, IT professionals and other job areas. Employees can learn just about everything from programming in Ajax to applying the principles from the Book of Five Rings into their work practices. Their company or organization has to pay for the subscriptions, but even if one paid the $459.00 out of pocket, access to this collection is like being able to take almost any book out of Powells, Barnes and Noble and Amazon at any time. Lynda.com At $25.00 a month for a subscription to a huge library of online tutorials complete with demonstration/simulations. You have to pay a larger premium subscription rate to have access to the development files for say a Flash course. Though arguably you can learn just as much by creating the development files on your own. 3. Call out life-long learning as part of the company’s charter: Peter Senge, author of The Learning Organization, coined the term life-long learner. According to Senge the life-long learner spends their entire life acquiring skills and knowledge. Senge also maintained that organizations can embody life-long learning in their culture and practices. An organization can write the goal of establishing a culture of life-long learning into their own mission. This goal can be embodied both explicitly and implicitly in the company values, but the company or group needs to define a list of examples of behaviors and accomplishments that demonstrate the achievement of this goal. 4. Model life-long learning: Leaders of an organization need to be the first to model this behavior of constant learning. Demonstration of their efforts can be presented to their employees both subtly and directly in their communications. They can provide examples in sharing their own professional development goals with their employees in addition to explaining what they wish to achieve with these goals both personally and professionally. 5. Reward employees who demonstrate the behaviors of life-long learning: Sharing one’s own aspirations for professional development may provide an example and possibly inspire employees to take up the cause of learning on their own. However, calling out an employee’s success in implementing their own learning can provide positive reinforcement for the behavior. Management can be coached to give this feedback by giving positive feedback to their employees when they see it developed. They can also recognize employees who exhibit the behavior in staff meetings or perhaps even designate specific awards for employees who demonstrate life-long learning. Here’s an example of one such employee: Jeanie, a web developer in the IT department, expressed an interest in learning more about usability testing. Jeanie took it upon herself to review books and articles from the company online library. She also took some time to take advantage of external sources from the web including community forums on usability.  Jeanie then created a proposal for implementing usability tests throughout different parts of the the web development process. With her management’s approval she was able to implement a simple paper prototype test as well as a formal usability assessment.  Her testing efforts and knowledge gained resulted not only in a more efficient and pleasing user experience for customers, but also the start of a testing process that was later implemented by other staff on the web development team. Jeanie’s manager recognized her learning efforts in a staff meeting by presenting her with a "Life-Long Learner" award and a $50 gift certificate to a local bookstore. While it may be difficult to adopt the Google 20% practice, organizations and companies can still take steps to build learning for innovation into their culture and practices. Not all employers are ready to adopt Google’s 20% rule. Their company culture may not be ready for such a shift, or they simply many not be able to readily adjust their business process and goals to accommodate spending this much time to what they consider research and development. Perhaps Google’s other secret to success is that they seem to be skilled at hiring people who are inquisitive, life-long learners, and natural experimenters.  These are people who take to using the 20% time to explore and discover the same way a duck takes to water.

I finally had the opportunity this past week to focus on preparing this presentation for Slideshare. A co-worker and I  presented this at TCC (Technology, Colleges, and Community) this Spring 2011. By the way, TCC is one of the best examples I’ve found of a truly well-run virtual conference, and it’s worth much more than the very inexpensive price of admission. Of all the projects, I’ve worked on in the past year, I really enjoyed working on the Education Award resource the most. It was the labor & efforts of a great team of truly creative people who helped put it together. Also, it’s a good example of how good content can be developed around learning objectives while meeting user needs and user-centric design principles. This was one of the first projects where I was able to use "Paper Prototyping" to help validate the appropriateness of a web design for both user-friendliness and solid information architecture design. I’m hoping to be able to record a mp3 recording to apply to the Slideshare soon, but in the meantime, you can view the slide notes and a rough script of this presentation in Slideshare in the "Speaker Notes" tab. Designing a web resource & learning tool to meet user/learner needs View more presentations from natknit

I think I’ll have more time to reflect and comment on my artefact and the experience of making it in a few days, but for now here it is. http://prezi.com/eaixra1t5vnf/future-of-learning/ Digital Artefact for my "Elearning & Digital Cultures" class  

http://prezi.com/tq_4ud-rokma/information-architecture/ Just experimenting some more with Prezi. Been meaning to try to explain I.A. more in a simpler way. I’d like to go back and apply a metaphor to this. Click the link above to view the Prezi

I wasn’t joking when I tweeted this. And here I am about to take another MOOC course. Though I still feel like a cocoon, I’d like to get here eventually. Reflection on my own engagement during this course Learning is rewarding, but it’s tiring too. This MOOC has been one of the best learning experiences in my recent life and I think it had such an impact on me because it required me to apply what I was learning creatively. This wasn’t a typical course with a set syllabus where you could check assignments off a list. I probably should have engaged more in the other channels, but for some reason I found Twitter to be the easiest to engage in.  I’ll confess that this is most likely due to convenience. In my next course, I would probably choose a different social media to engage with others in the class. But not Facebook. Call me a curmudgeon, but I’d like to keep Facebook in a separate place in my life… like off. Is it right that I don’t want to use it? Or should I succumb and become part of the entity? To be frank and I may lift some of the learning & reflection I’ve taken from the #edcmooc, Facebook does not make me feel human.  I don’t feel like I want to know small details from other people’s lives or share private parts of my life and thinking with others and if I do maybe on my own terms. I like hearing about people tell me about their lives and their children in person. Maybe this makes me less of a digital native. that I want to carve my own little cubby corner where I can still think and be on my own, so be it.  I read recently in a tweet or blogpost of a classmate that they felt that the #edcmooc was both an enriching and lonely experience.  I can see that. For me it was less lonely, but by then end I was really jonesing to be ‘disconnected’ for a bit. I am glad the designers of the course didn’t settle on one channel of social media. If it had been only Facebook I would have been SOL, but I guess that’s part of the point to have multiple channels in which to learn. The flow of good information and thoughts shared by others in this course was overwhelming. I’m still reading through blogposts I favorited from the second week of class. I may never get to all of them, but I am inclined to read the posts of people I connected with in the Twitter feed going forward. This is probably the greatest value I got from the course: connecting with and learning from others. I’ll be honest about one more thing. I took this course, more for the experience of being in a MOOC, not as much for the subject or the prospect of getting credit. This was my first experience in such a large course. I wanted to experience it and analyze it from an Instructional Designer’s perspective. I was incredibly curious about how such a course would work, and for the most part it seemed to do just that. Whether it gave use the ‘traditional’ higher-education experience that was academically rigorous is another matter. You could make that age old argument: "It is what you make of it." While this may apply, I still feel that guidance and feedback from instructors even on a broad scale. On a regular basis would have been more helpful. I did notice a few facilitators really engaging with students in the Twitter and in replies on the forums, but I felt somehow that their feedback wasn’t always there. Or maybe i missed them like I keep missing the Easter Bunny. Would I do it again? Yes. Would it be as engaging and as much fun as in the #edcmooc course? I’m not sure. The artefact experience and consuming custom created content I’ll admit I probably put more into my artefact that I should have. I was dealing with a topic that I feel passionate about and probably didn’t spend enough time killing my darlings. I’m glad that I was able to learn about tools I hadn’t used before for creating content like Prezi or Wallwisher. As I watched many of the videos outside of the assigned clips I realized how much YouTube has been commercializing content, some of which was not meant have a  home despot ad attached to it. It reminded me that even though we’re creating this content for free, if it’s popular, it’s becoming a commercial vehicle for someone else. When you share things online whether it’s a quip or a carefully crafted video, you’re providing fuel for the machine. Whether it’s data to be harvested or attractive electronic flypaper (if your creation is ‘good’) you’re still contributing the lucrative value of web-content. This world of free-wheeling sharing may all seem wonderful and open right now, but I wonder how long this will last. Or will people’s expectations and demands for easily accessible content that is ad-free trump the engines that demand ad capital. I’m not sure. Where do I go from here? Things I learned about learning from this class: Learning is messy. Thanks to @EleniZazani for the image Learning makes me feel human Learning with others and from them is powerful Learning may not bring us to utopia, but it may help us get there Cultures need to continue to put a higher value on lifelong learning I still have links to use, and tools to learn as time permits. I want to use sort my Pearl Trees and really use Storify. I want to explore every tool or website I bookmarked or favorited. And as I wrap this up I realize that I’ll probably still be learning from this course three months from now.   Image by @EleniZazani

6 constraints to innovation - image from Leading Strategic Innovation Course Yes, I’m taking another MOOC. This time it’s Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations taught by Prof. David Owens via Coursera & Vanderbilt University. Owens is the author of the book Creative People Must Be Stopped and he’s worked as an engineer and project developer at IDEO. Because of work and time constraints I’m not taking the studio project track for this course (requires group participation in a project). I do think that I would probably gain much more in doing so, but considering the limited amount of time I have in the next two months, I’m opting out of the course project (sad about it). My first impressions of the course I’m having a difficult time feeling engaged with the course community because the forums are overwhelming. Imagine a attending lecture hall inside a football stadium, that’s what it feels like in there. And I don’t have a cheese hat or giant foam hand to wave around. It’s probably best to join a study group, but Yogita (former #edcmooc or Elearing & Digital Cultures student) has started a G+ Forum and I’m hoping that more discussion will take place there.  Despite the lack of engagement in the course community, I’m still enjoying the lectures a great deal. Professor David Owens and his supporting staff or crew have done a fairly good job making the lectures more visually engaging.  He’s interjected himself in the lecture videos and sometimes interacts with the slides using props or himself.  Even if you’re not interested in participating in the course activities or following through with the entire course, I highly recommend checking out the lectures. I plan to use Owen’s arguments when framing proposals for innovation within my own group at work. David Owens Participates in the Visual Presentations of his Lectures Course Content So Far This week Owens has provided an introduction to how the course is structured around overcoming six constraints to innovation as he has them outlined in his book: Individual Group Organizational Industry/Market Society Technology Seems like he’s maintaining that one of the keys to successfully implementing innovation is not just to overcome these constraints but to pinpoint the sweet spots where these constraints overlap and cherry pick the ones that will have the greatest impact. It’s these constraints that you should focus on overcoming to solve the problem of making the innovation or idea viable in your current situation. I’ll admit when I first started taking this class, I was skeptical about how the book frames innovation around a negative: "Creative People Must Be Stopped." Even after reading the course introduction I asked myself why are we structuring how we innovate around constraints or why "we can’t innovate." Now it makes a little more sense to me, as Owens is taking not just the "glass half full" view, he’s looking at the constraints as a possible puzzle to solve instead of an impossibility that restrains you.  I like that way of thinking. Discussion about Overrated Innovation Companies In week 1 we were asked to participate in the discussion and point out leading companies who are overrated innovation-wise. If I were to continue with Owen’s line of thinking around overcoming innovation constraints, it seems that any company can be innovative or appear so simply by overcoming the constraints to making their products or services viable: Nike promoted their products and overcame public accusations over unfair labor practices by courting & using the Olympic Idols of our day to promote their products. Though the fall from Olympus has been a long drop for a few of these idols lately. As Owen’s Pointed out in his lectures. The inventor of the walking sausage grill in Germany overcame the problem of having good foot-traffic accessible space by making his food vending carts more than just mobile. They  made them ‘ambulatory.’ And finally Apple overcame a number of constraints as noted in my forum post lost in a sea of posts: Sorry about the size. You can click on it to read at a reasonable size. My challenge to myself in the next few weeks is to look at the constraints within both my own workplace and my life and try to pinpoint which constraints I want to focus on overcoming. I also want to work on my ability to frame and sell my ideas using arguments that work with the different audiences I face. I’m also hoping to do more reflection on how I’ve adapted and sometimes even thrived working in corporate culture in addition to some avenues for participating and influencing this culture even as a wee little cubicle person. I’ll admit this freely here: I like change at work and problems to solve. I’ve never been one for finding that ‘secure’ job where you mindlessly go with the flow, and part of me believes that the world is changing so fast that that formerly pervasive sort of job mentality may be going the way of the dinosaur. However, this may not be the view of many people tied into the traditional view of work and I have to temper this as well as explain how opportunities for innovation and change can benefit and their end value out-weigh the perceived or real fear and chaos that change brings to some. At one point this too was a good design. Image from the Morguefile

David Owens has his students come up with as many uses for a paperclip I saw this somewhere, maybe it was part of a TED talk where people are given paper with a lot of circles on it and then are asked to draw as many pictures as they can incorporating or using these circles. The Paper Clip exercise shared by Prof. Owens in this week’s lectures (from Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations) inspired me to create my own worksheet for this activity. I’ll share it with you here.  For those of you who are not taking the class. Owens asked us to take a paper clip and a piece of paper and list as many uses as you can think of for a paperclip. Strangely, I haven’t kept paper clips in the house forever so I could NOT find one, but I made due with my imagination. Print a few of these pages for yourself and go ahead and give yourself about 5 minutes to complete the exercise.  Go ahead if you’d like and comment on your results or observations. How many recognizable options did you create? What did you notice about the flow of your ideas? What do you think limited you? How is this similar and different to Owen’s paperclilp exercise? Click the link below to open the worksheet. Circles  

It’s the 2nd week of Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations and the focus this week has been on individual constraints to innovation. According to Owen’s there are three main individual constraints to innovation: perception, intellection, and expression. I’ve taken a cue from the last course I took (#edcmooc) and I’m making an attempt to define what I’ve learned this week visually (see the image above). But what I’ve really taken away from this week’s content are the following three bits: Lesson 1: "There is no such thing as a creative personality." In other words, creative people aren’t born, they’re made or developed by their learning and experience. Numerous studies have shown that children are naturally open to experience and creative. But arguably our education system and life experience shapes or constrains this ability to be creative. We are taught the proper way to solve problems or how to keep our ideas and thoughts in check. What Owens does argue is that there are personality traits conducive to creativity, and these are: Agreeableness Extroversion Conscientiousness Openness If neurosis is so bad for creativity - how does this explain Woody Allen? Logically, if you are open-minded to multiple ways of seeing a problem you’ll come up with a number of different ways to solve it. If you’re agreeable and able to connect effectively with others, you’re better able to explain your solutions to them.   Neurotic behaviors and thinking on the other hand can negatively affect one’s ability to be creative here’s an example of how neurotic thinking can prevent creativity and innovative problem solving. "I can’t share that solution or express that that in front of others, they’ll think I’m a.)wrong, b.)stupid and I’ll just embarrass myself."  In order to be a truly effective at innovation, you need to be able to share your ideas freely without fear of being judged.  Perhaps that’s ultimately what makes Woody Allen one of the most creative storytellers of our time. He’s portrayed himself as the lovable neurotic, but he has never flinched at attempting to portray this neurosis in stories that examine the human condition from different perspectives. Lesson 2: It’s important to always approach the problem from multiple perspectives. In reading through Chapter 2 of "Creative People Must be Stopped, I ran across the story of a playwright who purchased different "odd magazines" for hobbies or topics foreign to her. Her purpose was to "see" things from that particular magazine audience’s views and therefore reinterpret what might be seen in her own vision portrayed in her plays.  Of course, your savvy marketing professional would simply call this focusing on your target markets, but there’s something so simply empowering about this approach to seeing other’s views of the same situation or problem you’re attempting to solve. Here are some questions to ask yourself when you’re analyzing a problem: How would someone who is completely polar opposite to me see this problem? How would they describe it? Why might they not see it as a problem? What solutions may they came up with? Lesson 3: It’s not how cool your idea is, it’s how you sell it to your audience. Sometimes, and I admit I’m guilty of this as well, when you come up with what you think is a ‘great idea’ its logic seems to inherently obvious to you and therefore everyone else should see it that way. However, other’s way of viewing things may NOT be aligned with your own.  I feel that this is one of my greatest Individual Constraints to innovation. I’m not always adept and explaining or selling my solutions to others.  In actuality, I am really the Asian guy in the image above from Kathy Sierra’s blog post from years back. I often have hunches or feelings about when things are right or wrong, but I’m not always able to explain them to other people around me. This is where exercises and questions from my previous lesson would come in handy. Or… Developing a ‘common language’ might be helpful. Reminds me of that meeting game "B.S. Bingo." I had to laugh when Owens made a dig at using ‘buzzwords.’ As he noted, they may make you feel important, but they’re not a great way of gaining common understanding of both the problem and your proposed solution.  At one of my former jobs, a former colleague of mine and I played a game called B.S. Bingo in meetings that seemed like more verbal exposition than development or planning (or action).  Though arguably, these same buzzwords are the common language used by people in the corporate world to talk with each other. I do agree with Owens that when they’re bandied about to elevate your business klout or savvy they’re simply about posturing. However, I should consider that if this is the ‘speak’ that’s being used by people who are using this language, I should develop translations of my ideas in this language. I’ve decided to create a template for writing out my ideas to better articulate them. It’s pretty simple. I would take the idea as I see it and then translate it into at least three or four different perspectives including the intended audience or end user, my peers, my boss, and my boss’s boss. This may take a little more discipline than I’m used to. MyIdeaTranslationTool Click the link above to view/download the worksheet

Being to married to process can prevent use from looking to new solutions or be married to the old ways of doing things In this week’s lectures and materials we tackled the group obstacles to innovation as well as the often misused innovation tool: Brainstorming. In speaking of the group we’re referring to the immediate work-group or direct organization that one works in whether it’s a division, subgroup, project group, etc. Within the group Owen’s identifies 4 major constraints: Emotion Culture Environment Process Emotion These constraints include relationships that prevent trust, free sharing and productivity in the group.  Sometimes even loyalty can cloud our judgement about people’s actual skills or capabilities. Also the emotion of fear (of rejection) can prevent us from willingly volunteering new ideas. If we’re afraid that we may be ridiculed or even ignored, we will stop sharing. Fear of being blamed for mistakes acts as an innovation killer. Emotional and relationship conflict can cause team dysfunction. Lack of trust can destroy group dynamics. Culture Culture includes how the group both perceives and behaves. Culture defines what the group values. Here’s a really simple parable of how events in the past effect a group’s view of change. This view may prevent a group from finding new solutions. For example, let’s say Group X tried a new implementation Method Y to produce  Product Z under the leadership of a new manager who had good intentions. Unfortunately, the group was not properly trained or prepared in the implementation method, and there was an old guard who was quite married to their way of doing things and the decided to openly resist using the new methodology. Consequently Product Z failed miserably. Upper management decided to blame not only the new manager and those who advocated for Method Y. From this time forward, in order to avoid conflict or shame, employees in this group avoided suggesting new ways of doing things unless they were blessed directly by upper management. This group consequently became married to ‘their tried and trusted ways’ of doing this.  This account may be slightly exaggerated but I’d be willing to bet many people working in business have seen a similar scenario some time in their career. Cultural constraints can be the hardest to overcome when suggesting innovation or change because there’s some real hearts and minds stuff behind people’s investment and even pride in how they do things. Also, as in the example above, fear of the consequences of making mistakes within a group’s culture can be a negative constraint. Environment This constraint is quite simple to explain if you don’t have the right environment and tools, you may have a difficult time collaborating. Even having a document management system or an online collaboration system or tool that meets the group’s needs is important. Also, if there is no comfortable physical space to meet and work together the group will have a difficult time being productive as a group. Process Owen’s in his lectures this week spent a great deal of time explaining this constraint and how to overcome it.  Owens notes that groups can sometimes be so married to their process and focus on achieve efficiency in this process that they get stuck on a track. The problem with this again, is it makes the group less likely to adopt new ways of doing things when rapid change is needed.  This puts the group at risk of experiencing a process that may cause a bottleneck in their ability to change and be innovative. Evolutionary bottleneck: The tens of thousands of Northern Elephant Seals today share genetic material from just a few ancestors. We can experience innovation bottlenecks if we don’t branch out and look at new ways of doing things. But to overcome process constraints Owens recommends a few remedies that make a great deal of sense. First is to use a process, but a simple one that can be adaptable to the group. Owens suggests a Seven phase process that has different levels of engagement from the group as a group and as independent workers. In phase 1 the problem is identified and in phase 2 as many ideas to solve the problem are identified. There’s emphasis here in finding or listing as many ideas as possible.  As you travel down the path, this list naturally will be will be whittled down. But here’s the great part: The group doesn’t have to be involved as a whole in every step of the process.  Those committee meetings that caused projects to inch through the calendar like a limestone parade float - those are forbidden if any true innovation is to happen. Owens’ 7 Step Process for Innovation - details available in "Creative People Must be Stopped." The second suggestion I walked away with was that it is important to analyze the problem or issue that requires innovation and determine if radical innovation is needed. If so, it’s important to assign the right kinds of people to the innovation team. But how do you do this? One answer: assign the right people on your team of innovators. Owens explains that there are two types of Innovators (Team R & Team A). Their qualities can be described as follows: Characteristics of both "R" & "A" innovators The "R-type" innovator can be characterized as the person who often sees radical or even unconventional solutions, They are people who are good at laying a number of seemingly unrelated ideas or solutions down. They might also question how things are done.  Which can be frustrating to co-workers who don’t want to challenge the status quo. The "A-type" innovator can be end-product focused. I worked with someone who was like this in a past worklife. He was highly detail-oriented and would manage the process every step of the way, making sure that each step had a milestone and the group would do want ever it could to accomplish it. I would use him has a springboard to find the possible execution problems in a project because of his broad analytical thinking and his meticulousness. However, not everyone saw his detail-orientation as I saw it and sometimes thought of him as being contrary to their process flow. Initially I thought I was an "R" but then I realized after working at my last group I became the "A" person, always looking for a defined process, measurements, ways to determine or measure our success… because they didn’t seem to follow any process or even understand that one was necessary.   I wanted to have an end product to shoot for. This group was still struggling to define the product they wanted and would often rely on their upper leadership to set the tone.  This was fine when leadership had a clear picture and was well-informed about what they wanted. When it comes down to it, I’m probably a hybrid of the two types. Owens teaches us that as innovation leaders we should be able to tell when to use the "A’s" and the "R’s" in a project timeline. As he illustrated in the diagram below, both the A’s & R’s have their place in a project and should be leveraged by the leader to work in harmony with each other. Now that’s something worth learning.   I forgot to add some resources I found earlier that related to this week’s topics: Article from Fast Company: "Five Ways Process is Killing your Productivity" http://www.fastcompany.com/1837301/5-ways-process-killing-your-productivity How Collaboration can Kill Creativity: http://www.policymic.com/articles/10498/how-collaboration-can-kill-creativity What are the disadvantages of Project Management: One word from the author of this post = "Obsession" http://www.projectmanagementlearning.com/what-are-the-disadvantages-of-project-management.html

Hopefully I’ll have time to elucidate more later. 1. You can never have too many strategic tools. It’s just about learning to use them and when. 2. Let other people talk. Listen & learn. 3. So what if you make a wrong comment in front of others, as long as you’re not a hostage negotiator or giving bomb diffusing instructions - you & everyone else will live. Learning from mistakes is part of the growth process. 4. Respect others always! 5. Gather data but act decisively when needed.

Twitter just went public. Some may be mystified by how it will make a profit. Others may remain skeptical. I and I suspect many other content contributors just want it to keep on doing what it does for us. How I use Twitter (the short version) : 1. As an outlet to express myself 2. To connect with others I identify with 3. To explore topics I care about     A. Get information about these topics from other fans or people in my communities (knitting & instructional design)     B. Engage in conversations with these audiences & subcultures     C. Find out what others are thinking saying about my interests using hash tag searches 4. Getting the word out about topics and news I care about to the communities or individuals who follow me 5. Finding others who can relate to my own (perceived or not) weirdness. How do you use Twitter? I’m attracted to Twitter because it was one of the first social networking sites where I really could reach out to an extended community. Also it met my needs and did not prove to be as annoying and invasive as FaceBook. You can get in and out quickly and it satisfies my need to connect or engage online. Plus I can be selective or inclusive about whom I follow as I wish.

Have you ever wondered how much engagement you should have in your team’s projects as a leader and supervisor. This short video on the Bathtub Management Model gives you a new perspective on how hands on you should be with your teams.

Traditional leadership just isn’t going to cut it anymore if we want to build a collaborative and engaged workforce that generates winning ideas that will help us find innovative solutions to achieving affordability while staying ahead of our competition.  We need to re-examine how we lead our people. A few differences between the leaders of the past versus the ones needed today and tomorrow: Traditional leaders tend to hoard information while collaborative leaders embrace transparency & openly share knowledge - Under a collaborative manager, staff get answers and can build solutions faster without having to always ask for information. Traditional leaders drive or lead in offering solutions to their team while collaborative leaders encourage suggestions and ideas from their team - Collaborative leaders sit back and listen and encourage creative solutions from their people. They don’t always drive the solutions or discussion and create a "Yes" culture. More, they trust their people (whom they’ve selected, hired, or developed) to bring the best solutions to the table. Traditional leaders fight fires and focus on symptoms while collaborative ones seek to uncover the root causes of issues - Collaborative leaders are often asking "why?" They also encourage their staff to as why &  find the causes of issues or innovate better and more efficient processes. Traditional ones often are resigned to work with the systems and environment as the are and NOT challenge them.   Read more about the differences between traditional & collaborative leadership  - Differences between Traditional & Collaborative Leaders The Leadership Secret that will Help You Super Charge Your Team - How honing your Emotional Intelligence can help you manage and build a team that’s positive and collaborative. Image from Innocentive

Elon Musk of Tesla has recently noted that Artificial Intelligence poses an Arnold Schwartzenegger sized threat to our well-being as a species. However, for now…People will always be needed when navigating through the complexity of emotions and unpredictable human interaction is needed. I’d like to expand more on the list and its description below or add to it. So this post is just an initial exploration of this subject. So how do you insure that you have value in your organization once the move to automate work and tasks begins? Remember that successful businesses rely on people - Therefore, shine where people, humanity & emotions matter. All that talk on the value of Emotional Intelligence is relevant in the upcoming techpocalypse. Robots or software still can’t manage people. They also can’t read and respond to emotion… (yet. That’s a joke - sort of I think they may be working on robots that can emote and respond to emotion). Demonstrate your ability to make key decisions or act when processes and procedure come up short or doesn’t work. - Any task or process that can be documented or automated is up for grabs where automation is concerned.  - EXAMPLE: Creating standardized reports from excel data.  Become an innovator or connector of ideas or ways to improve process to meet your group’s business needs. Most software & robots can’t innovate or come up with innovative ideas. As the article posted below states your ability to be creative sets you apart from automation.   Images from the Morguefile  More to think about (related posts): Great post - How to Keep Software from Stealing Your Job.  SlideShare - 17 Cartoons That Will Change Your Business by @BrianSolis @Gapingvoid from Brian Solis Slide 18 of this presentation really speaks to the importance of empathy and solving real problems in business. Sometimes the best solutions come from solving human suffering or difficulties and "that requires empathy." 17 Cartoons That Will Change Your Business by @BrianSolis @Gapingvoid from Brian Solis

21st Century advice: Freedom of Speech  at Work Requires Partnership from Both Ends I have been sitting on this blog post for some time now. And now with the summer coming to the end, I finally find some time to finish it. After working in training and development for over 15 years, I’ve been exposed to a lot of leadership development programs. And some programs really emphasize the importance of an open door policy, but it’s not always possible to exercise it without willingness and buy in on the part of leadership. On the other hand, people who follow need to realize that the open door is a gift that should be used wisely. Leaders should have a truly open door and be prepared to hear the good with the bad One of my favorite stories from Japanese history is a simple story about listening and leadership… One day while walking through his palace grounds with a retainer, the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu met a low level soldier from the ranks. The soldier had a comment to say on his regiment. When the man had finished and walked away, Ieyasu’s retainer commented with shock, "What a waste of time. How dare he address you on such a petty and insignificant manner." The Shogun remarked frankly: "It took a great deal of courage for that man to approach me. If I did not listen to him, he might not ever do it again."   Tokugawa Ieyasu - Japanese Shogun who helped unite feudal Japan With the simple gesture of listening, Tokugawa sent a message to all of his followers low and high, that they could be heard. They could speak up (within reason, of course). The most practical reasoning for this was if he had no true visibility to the workings of his court, he would not be able to guide and manage them effectively. He was probably savvy enough to recognize that his ability to lead effectively could be impeded by courtiers seeking to pander to curry favor. In hierarchical structures and cultures of leadership that are top down, a truly open dialogue is painfully difficult if not impossible. Followers to Leaders: don’t treat us like we’re still in middle school. Encourage an open dialogue with us When I taught middle school students, every year I encountered at least one student who would express their dissatisfaction with rules or my decisions as a teacher aloud. I met one or two who insisted that in expressing their dissent they were expressing their freedom of speech. Engaging in this kind of argument with anyone let alone a young person who’s testing the boundaries around them can seem like a sticky wicket. I’ve met teachers who avoid giving their students choices simply because of this fact. I get this sense from many people in leadership positions regardless of their level or profession that there is a hesitancy to allow people to speak freely because they fear the result of this freedom, namely disagreement and even expression of dislike and resentment. This is old school leadership that can be defined by that phrase: "It’s my way or the highway" or the "buck stops here." In the age or rapid market changes due to technology this management mechanism is too slow and inefficient to allow for the innovation and change needed to keep up and excel the market demands. Collaborative leadership should replace the old school top down model. 21st Century Advice: Don’t fear an open dialogue with people at all levels. Embrace it. However, if we operate with the fear that people will revolt if we give them too much lee-way in expressing their feelings and opinions, then we gain our ability to control and dictate but loose our ability to lead and influence. The first option allows us to have our own way, the second makes allows those we lead to become self-sufficient and make their own decisions or act freely and efficiently to achieve the whole organization’s goals. Leaders to Followers: use the opportunity to speak to share the issues and work with constructive solutions to solve them But there should still be implicit rules of partnership built in any dialogue between leadership and workers and the focus must really be upon collaboration to make the organization’s goals and mission possible. 21st Century Advice: Align yourself with your company’s mission and goals, but also find where you bring value and express this. For those of us who are exercising our "Freedom of Speech" with our leadership, it’s important to not only be fully appreciative of the opportunity to do so, it’s good to be mindful of how we’re framing our words. Are they thoughtful? Are they constructive? Are they forward thinking? Not focused on what happened or how things are with the past but defined by new possibilities for the future. How can we help drive achievement of the organizations success? How can we be an asset? Additional Reading & Resources: How traditional leadership structures can destroy creativity and innovation: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140707105756-681714-13-ways-to-destroy-creativity-and-innovation Ieyasu Tokugawa quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/tokugawa_ieyasu.html The Patience of Ieyasu Tokugawa: http://hanofharmony.com/the-patience-of-tokugawa-ieyasu/

This environment did not train the workforce we need today and tomorrow:   We need to start fostering a learning environment and culture within our own organizations that encourages life long learners. Without this culture & environment we will not be able to generate the innovation and solutions that allow us to be leaders in the market yet alone keep up the pace demanded by changing technologies and a public who demands inter-connectivity via technology.  Learning organizations both grow and attract star innovators and performers. Organizations that refuse to change wisely & rapidly often fade or fail. There are no magic bullets when it comes to developing a learning culture and environment. It’s really damn hard work, that doesn’t seem to pay off immediately, but it does require a vision and courage to change.   Slideshare: Meeting the Needs of a Rapidly Changing Workforce with the Learning Organization of the 21st Century

I tend to explore tools and software selectively, but after I’ve discovered their uses, I like to work the heck out of them.  Christy Tucker inspired me to write a post on my favorite tools for learning and instructional design. The only ones that are new to my repertoire from over five years ago are Twitter & Storyline. To enrich my own learning Twitter - through hashtags & twitterchats I still am able to remain connected to new or trending conversations in my field. I also get to explore and hear other’s voices on topics I care about or am interested in. Yes, sometimes it seems that the chats provide a meeting ground for those who want to collect followers, but they do allow me to connect with others on Twitter who have similar interests.  While engaging in a few MOOCs I found the Twitter backchat most helpful in getting help or being directed to help during the class. The backchat also provided a great channel for starting conversation about topics. I began using Twitter five years ago and I still seem to be engaged with it.  I have wondered what my choice in primary social media says about me, and apparently according to this article: "long-time Twitter users are found to use the site for cognitive simulation by uncovering information w/o much socialization."  Considering my introversion this makes sense. Though to be frank, I have been attracted to the character restriction on Twitter because it forces you to be concise and pointed in your use of language. I imagine masters of literary wit from the past loving Twitter. How would Mark Twain or Dorothy Parker used it to hone their sharp observances or comebacks? What would Dorothy tweet? Diigo I still use Diigo to curate and organize resources I find on the Internet, especially when I’m trying to make a case for something I’ve tried using it to share resources with others, but I really only have one or two peers who gets the use of this tool, so I haven’t used it collaboratively. LinkedIn I’ve started using linked in more, to learn about what my professional peers and connections are interested in and sharing. I have used the discussion and participated in groups in the past, but not as much today. For Design/Creativity Articulate Storyline is my primary tool for developing online courses. The software itself allows me to easily create paths and experiences for learning content. It allows Instructional Designers like myself to focus more on design and delivery rather than programming functionality. Thankfully there’s a highly active learning community out there supported by Articulate and its users. PowerPoint, like my former colleague, Christy Tucker, I use it for storyboarding course content. To some extent I’ve used it to create simple designs for online course backgrounds. I’m not a graphic designer by trade, but I appreciate the ability to create simple yet somewhat aesthetically pleasing backgrounds and containers for my content without a lot of fuss. No it’s not perfect by design standards, but it will do in a pinch and I can easily import into Storyline. Sample of course page designed in PowerPoint For Creativity Outside of Work SlideShare - Slideshare allows me to port and share my presentations to the public and also apply audio to them. I also use the entire site as a resource for design inspiration in creating and developing presentation and course content visuals. And While Prezi seemed at first to have a slicker design & delivery, I eventually got tired of using it because the constant zooming left me a little motion sick. I never bothered to figure out a way around it.

If websites are like kitchens, then the best sites are the ones where you can get what you need quickly to get the job done. Perhaps none of the idealized websites as kitchens presented in the image above do that. While the third option is the most clean and organized it requires the user to know exactly where things are kept. If you are like many instructional designers that work in corporate environments, at one point in your career you have maintained or kept a learning and development website that is not unlike that messy and unorganized kitchen where you just can’t find what you’re looking for. Many of us have also had the pleasure of curating large bulky ‘link farms’ that require targeted searching (strategic use of "Ctrl + F"). But targeted searching implies that the user knows what to start looking for from the beginning. What about those users/learners who have no clue where to begin? The technology used for content management for the web can allow us to break out of those old-fashioned static content sites and linky boondoggles. There are several platforms available that allow us to effectively design for our learner’s need to find their content, instead of forcing them to use a contrived or even ad hoc designed and confusing structure that resembles a Dr. Suess building. This is the result of building architecture around immediate need or whim vs. actual planning around user needs/goals There are a number of viable options for creating a user-friendly yet flexible web architecture for your learning website that leverages resuable and taggable content (Drupa, Joomla, SharePoint). SharePoint when used as a content management system (CMS) can help provide a vehicle for learner-designed web experiences. However, there must be some administrative and programming customization to your SP platform and some careful planning of use based on well-thought out site usage goals. In the end, good web and user interface design relies on meeting criteria/needs of the end user while fulfilling your business goals. I’ve built a set of questions for sussing out this criteria for my learner/end users. BIG QUESTION 1: Does your site help the learner achieve his or her learning & development goals? What are the learner’s primary goals? Develop their individual development plan? Seek out learning resources, courses or certificates in their fields? What fields? BIG QUESTION 2: Does your site help meet your group’s business goals? Or is the content on your learning and development site relevant to helping learners achieve these goals? This is an age old set of questions that L & D groups who wish to stay relevant to the business should routinely and religiously be able to answer. What are your group’s business goals? How is your learning and development strategy supporting these goals? Can users access content for achieving these goals from the home page? BIG QUESTION 3: Can your site’s content and views be personalized according to the various audiences and learners that visit it? Is your content presented in units that can be tagged by user groups or topics, or types. Are you employing a flexible structure or set of different audience based taxonomies? Or are you using one set navigation structure? Have you identified the specific user groups or user personas who visit your site? If so, have you designed taxonomies based on their specific learning needs? BIG QUESTION 4: Can your users personalize their use of your site content? Can your learners apply their own personal tagging when it comes to organizing the site content per their needs? Can they organize or bookmark content that they like or find useful for easy reference afterwards? Can they contribute to the site’s helpfulness by rating individual pieces of content? BIG QUESTION 5: Do you have a handle of your site content and structure? Is there a tracking or monitoring system set in place that allows you to measure usage of the site content? Do you have an archiving system or regularly scheduled process in which you cull what is no longer relevant? Do you have an approval workflow for enabling, multiple Subject Matter Experts to post new content for approval by a groups of site admin who can monitor and approve content based on set quality criteria? Is this workflow user friendly enough to allow less tech-savvy people to post content for review? Can you iteratively design your content and structure to change to meet both your business and user needs? Per Jeffrey Zeldman’s 10 principles. Good designs and web platforms allow site admin and developers to ‘seamlessly’ and gracefully adapt web-content to their users changing needs (or just to make things look and work better ;)) THE IDEA IS TO PROVIDE BOTH STRUCTURED NAVIGATION AND PERSONALIZED USE OF CONTENT If you can provide different ways to get to the content a learner needs without confusing them, then you’ve put together an effective site. I’ve created learning websites with multiple layers of navigation (easily accessible by users) that allow for the following layers. Each layer is presented as a navigation option at the top of the page linked from obvious labeling ("Group X Top Learning Focal Points," "Most Popular Content,"  "Site Map"). A layer based on business context - what are the group’s business learner goals. For instance if are business driven initiatives for learning (Improve strategic planning, drive use of cost-saving practices, build a more virtual savvy business team). Then the site can be built upon these goals A layer based on usage and user driven popularity of content. This layer would feature relevance driven navigation based on what is most popular (visited or rated) A layer that provides an index of all site content. Kept simple and put in alphabetical order. With proper use of tech, this layer can be built automatically from a good tagging system with set organizational criteria. This is the ‘kitchen sink’ layer Example: This presentation illustrates the process in which we designed a smaller topic focused website that used user personas to create multiple layers of navigation.

"We’re extinct? I must have missed that newsletter." There are tons of articles and proposals out there that tout the benefits of using social media at work to enable communication and collaboration. Companies that are early adopters and embracers of social media for these purposes have learned lessons that can help the rest of us implement social media practices more effectively. These pioneers have help answer some of the questions and arguments against. All the answers are not there, but the dialogue for usage has begun. If I were to propose social media usage to my own group or department, I would want to have a good picture of how it can be used to help the company meet its business goals. I started exploring this topic a year ago and recently spent the time to develop a brief informational presentation to outline my learning. You can view a .pdf by clicking the image below. An obvious use for social media in the work place - communicating news Hopefully the use of social media platforms at work will drive that monthly or quarterly newsletter into extinction. Use of social media platforms as a news delivery tool may provide an more timely effective news channel for employees. Those traditional newsletters that come via email often get shuffled into mail folders or are simply ignored or deleted. I’d like to be able to search for news, past & current, on certain company-wide initiatives via a search engine rather than having to spend 5-10 minutes scratching my head as I wonder where I saw that particular newsletter with the info I’m looking for. Other uses for social media in an enterprise environment Traditional leaders may see social media as a mere distraction, but in reality, it provides powerful opportunities to connect with employees and leverage their knowledge. Statistics show that growing numbers of the world’s population see it as a common way to get the information they need or connect with others professionally as well as privately. According to a 2013 Pew survey, 82% of 30-49 year olds and 89% of 18-29 year olds use social media. For these people, it’s not odd to get news or connect with others this way. Consequently, they would be open to a growing number of uses for social media in a business environment: Carefully guided but authentic application of social media tools such as polling and discussion can empower change management initiatives in an organization It can also be an effective tool in building employee engagement by sharing business goals and asking employees to demonstrate or showcase where they fit in to these goals. Providing sounding boards for authentic discussion and opportunities for executives to listen and respond can build goodwill and engagement in the workforce. (This requires leaders who understand how to effectively communicate using these channels) Highlight and build employee culture Promote interdepartmental collaboration that can lead to innovation Attract new talent (both from sources that are external and internal to the company). Having an outdated social media policy may deter younger talent from applying. Sharing media, information and microblogging can promote learning of concepts, processes and methods within and between departments Before social media usage is adopted, some homework needs to be done It seems that successful implementation of SM requires the company to ask change management questions before implementing or even selecting a tool. Are there enough people out there who are willing to experiment but then use it regularly going forward? If not, do you have a set of super users and ‘mavens’ who would effectively model and proliferate the adoption of the platform? What guidance would we include in our social media usage policy both for external & internal sharing? What sort of things are appropriate for sharing? What are not? What language will you use to communicate these rules to employees? Is the company culture and leadership prepared to provide and use the transparency social media allows? Are they effectively trained in how to do so authentically? What strategy will be used to engage employees and organizations at all levels of the company? These are just a few questions that can be asked as part of a needs analysis. The presentation I’ve linked below examines some possibilities for engaging all levels of a company (Slide 5). Thanks to a very helpful article/whitepaper from EY Performance started a matrix of social media tools that can be used in an enterprise environment (Slide 11). I would caution any group or decision makers who are looking at implementing a social media strategy not to look for that ONE tool or platform that does everything. From my own experience and research it seems that there is not a one-stop-shop (at least today).  In the future, to continue this exploration, I’d like to outline some best recommended practices for both selecting a social media toolset and then recommendations for training all levels of a company in how to use social media effectively and safely. I’m also working on developing most of the content from the slides shared below into an infographic. Creating simple infographics is another item on my own personal development checklist. Using Social Media at Work to Connect with Employees - Google Slides

In a previous post I posed three questions that one should ask before trying to make change happen in an organization: "1) Who is successful or who thrives? Who fails?" But beyond making change happens, what happens if a group’s make up becomes dominated by the same kinds of people? When a culture starts to dominate a group’s thinking, people in the group start to echo each other. Groups start hiring more people that think or behave just like they do. Whether they form a culture of doers and followers or a culture of collaboration, the impulse to regularly hire for fit can result in homogeneity or sameness. It’s been argued that highly uniform cultures can lead to stagnation. Diverse cultures on the other hand  potentially promote sharing of ideas, innovation, and change. Has your workplace hired itself into a "Stepford" culture? According to Martin Davidson, companies need to break this habit of building cultures of sameness and hire more "weirdos." His chief argument is that it’s the odd-duck who potentially contributes to finding the best innovative ideas or solutions. But it’s the manager’s role to ‘harness’ that weirdness and creativity to provide or bring value to the company’s goals.  As he notes: The key for leaders is to figure out how to support weird people so that they create—not destroy—value for the company. Some of these people have stifled their offbeat creativity out of social fear, camouflaging their true selves because they think it’s not appropriate at work to be as they really are. Hiring the right kind of weirdos is harder that it seems. Obviously, if managers/leaders have been so dialed into identifying and selecting ‘normals’, then how could they identify a helpful weirdo? As Davidson notes, it’s important for the leadership and hiring groups to understand where their own weaknesses lie. Taking an organizational self-assessment can provide a baseline. If you have more planners and doers in your group, perhaps you need to hire or grow more strategists. If you have more big idea people maybe you need more logistically minded individuals. Also, ability to communicate effectively despite one’s weirdness is still a necessity in any eligible job candidate. Though if someone is challenged with communicating effectively, it is possible to learn as long as one demonstrates the willingness and capacity to do so. Also, as Davidson hints, communication style differences can also be mitigated by managers and project leads who are savvy at building collaborative bridges and trust within diverse teams. So hiring and promoting managers for their ability and potential to get various work styles to jive in harmony should be considered when reviewing candidates. For groups with highly proactive employees regardless of their talents, an introverted leader is an ideal manager because introverts often allow these highly proactive and talented individuals to contribute and share before diving in and solving problems for them like an extroverted manager might. Extroverted managers impulse to lead by throwing out solutions can stifle and frustrate employees or event prevent developing their capacity for independent proactive problem solving. Extroverted managers are needed, but with employees or workforces that look solely to leadership for direction or cues for action. My father-in-law likes to refer to them as employees "with a strong back and weak mind." This type of work culture might not be useful in situations where people need to think quickly and not require their boss for guidance on decisions. For example, teams that rapidly develop solutions or innovation for example, can do better with a leader who lets them solve problems on their own. So now I have my diverse dream team? How do I get them to work with each other effectively? In addition to hiring for a diversity of ideas, or behaviors and personalities, once you’ve got a diverse team you need to manage them effectively. Without guidance & trust a diversity of work styles and personalities leads to conflicts and disagreements. This year I observed a training that highlighted Edward de Bono’s Six Hat thinking as a method of promoting different voices in problem solving and collaboration. The Six Hats encourages a structured discussion/exchange between different styles of thinking from the innovator, the planner, the data collector/analyst, the optimist, the empath, and the skeptic.  This choreographed exchange is designed to promote a balanced approach to working cooperatively to accomplish goals. The process leverages different styles of thinking and viewpoints to come up with solid and viable solutions and processes. It’s important to note that building trust between all team members is key to achieving success with diverse teams. As many experienced managers know, this is easier said than done.  Establishing trust takes time and real NOT artificially or forced situations such as that uncomfortable team building exercise or roleplaying activity. In the meantime while teams learn how to work with each other effectively, leadership must constantly orient team members to their common goals to promote working collaboratively to reach their aims. Coming up next… examination of examples of collaborative leadership approaches and how they can help build successful teams in a workplace that demands rapid change. Your diverse dream team does not have to be the "Island of Misfit Toys." It may require the right type of collaborative leadership to get diverse parties to work with each other effectively. Additional Reading: Looking at decision making from all points of view The case for recruiting weirdos Six steps for avoiding group think on your team  Hire the quiet neurotic not the impressive extrovert Everything you need to know about the introverted leader Six_Hats_Definition_Sample_Agenda

Previously I mentioned that I’d like to delve into what leaders can do to develop a more collaborative and innovative culture, but before I do that I thought I should better define "Collaborative Leadership." I did previously write a brief post on this earlier inspired by a blog post on the topic. In an effort to rapid prototype my work I’m putting a rough-cut of a presentation here as a start. This is based off of the infographic from Innocentive. This was my effort to paint a picture of what collaborative leadership looks like vs. the traditional leadership many of us are used to. You can view the draft slides by clicking the image or link below. As I mentioned previously here, collaborative leaders are more likely to focus on leveraging the collective strengths of their teams (engaging all members). I suspect leaders in cultures that are hierarchical in the traditional sense will have to learn or un-learn a few things when it comes to leading this way. But there is a demand for building those collaborative leadership muscles that come from the need to flex and adapt to a market that requires change at a break-neck pace. Click to view the a quick examination of what it means to be a collaborative leader CollaborativeLeadershipGoogleSlides