Competitive advantage through people has always been a goal of modern leadership and becomes more critical as product and price differentiation narrow.  Traditionally, the role of creating more skilful and focused people has been given to HR and training.

Research tells us that classroom training (whether it be real or virtual) is only appropriate for 15% of development needs  (Rummler 1995).  Not only does this cause concern about the use and abuse of training events, it also raises the tantalising question of what is appropriate if training is not?

The broad answer is workplace rather than classroom development.  To explore this more closely, the researchers seem to indicate that regular interaction, rather than one off events, leads to enhanced skills and increased performance.

The diagramme above has been created as a result of applying a range of performance improvement techniques to varying organisations over a 20-year period (www.prosell.com).  It indicates that with a “clean sheet of paper” (i.e. no preconceptions or bad habits, as with new starters or new roles), people can more easily accept, in a training environment, that specific skills and approaches are correct and need to be mastered.

With individuals that already have a perception of what is right and wrong and in some cases extremely entrenched opinions, a different approach needs to be used.  Not only do we need to explain why new skills are needed, we also need to sensitively reassure people that they and their (old) skills are not redundant, but need to be adapted and updated.  If we are attempting to change behaviour, as opposed to initiating it, coaching is shown to be a more effective tool.

In order to develop further the rationale for this model and the positioning of coaching, we need to be familiar with the relationship between management intervention and performance/behaviour change.

The US organisation Technikron conducted research into the level of intervention needed to drive behavioural change.  (Technikron work with performance measurement and feedback systems in contact centres.  The research was conducted in 1997.)

They concluded that to change behaviour the manager needed to interact with the individual, on average, 2-3 times a week.  This raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of more traditional performance management tools, such as annual appraisal and performance reviews (Appraisals – A Good Investment?  Prosell Research, 1993).

Whereas we accept that most good managers talk to their people more often than just at appraisal time, our experience tells us that this is not a series of regular interactions which are carefully planned to reinforce changes in behaviour and provide input (coaching), when needed.

Coaching also has greater impact in terms of immediacy of resolution and as such, should be a primary development tool.

Danger of re-training 

There seems to be growing evidence that organisations accept that people will go through the same training (level and subject matter) at regular intervals (apart from compliance training).  This implies a number of unhealthy traits within the organisation:

• there is no consequence for not applying skills in the workplace; and

Once this becomes accepted practice it also has an impact on the quality of training delivered.  If people are not measured in their application of what they have learnt, then the training does not need to ensure comprehension, let alone competence.

The other major implication is centred on who is nominated for training in the first place.  Research suggests that the primary reason for training is performance discrepancy or skill weakness.  Those with skill weaknesses or areas for obvious development are not those who implement training well and willingly in the workplace.  There is clear evidence that, “those who need it most use it least” (Dettaman and Steinberg, 1993).

Questions must therefore, be raised about both the economics of re-training and the validity of the practice.

The Skill Development model and its implications

The model opposite shows that individuals go through three stages when acquiring skills.  Typically, the first and last stages, those of awareness and application, are workplace activities and in the main, management responsibilities.

The two figures on the left hand side of the model above illustrate important points.  The 35%-40% marks the point where people end up after training (on a competence scale of 1%–100%).  This means that the majority of the acquisition of competence takes place in the workplace.

This is broadly accepted within the training fraternity.  Whereas training allows people to explore new ways of doing things and hopefully exposes them to “best practice”, it does not create experts.

If expertise is acquired in the workplace and not the classroom, then we must accept that specific things need to happen in the workplace.  Primarily, people need to be coached and given feedback on their competence.

Our 20 years experience tells us that, proportionately, the following time and effort needs to be expended to successfully take an individual through the skill development process:

• Awareness     25%
• Practice         35%
• Application     40%

The second figure (5%-9%) is where the research tells us people end up if nothing is done in the application phase.  This is typically between unconscious incompetence and conscious incompetence.  This typically happens with 4 – 5 months.  This is a startling figure and perhaps explains why many people in business have a cynical view of the value of training.  It seems they are right.  Without specific application strategies, companies are wasting between 91 and 95 cents of every dollar they spend on training.

Practice and Feedback

It is commonly understood that people develop skills through one primary mechanism, practice and feedback.  Conventional training tends to be squeezed for time and it is inevitably the practice sessions that are sacrificed.  Too much content and not enough practice creates uncertainty in application, through issues of confidence and competence.  If a person cannot, through practice, feedback and practice again, achieve a point of competence (“I have practiced this to the point where I feel competent to do it in the workplace”), they have no confidence in applying skills.  The implications of this are that many people (over 75% in one study) actually avoid applying skills trained because they have no confidence that they will be effective.  Those organisations that use coaching as a development tool do not seem to face these issues.

Near and Far Learning

Noted behavioural scientists, Detterman and Steinberg, published a book in 1996 entitled Transfer on Trial.  The book focused on the issue of learning transfer (the measurable transfer of learning and skills from classroom to workplace).  Their research had concluded that 86% of training did not transfer effectively.  There were a variety of reasons for this – measurement, support, feedback (all key components of coaching).  They also spoke about the difference between near and far learning as a critical issue.

Far learning means completing exercises which are broad, generic and explore our understanding of principles.  Detterman and Steinberg’s research concluded that people found it difficult to relate broad principles to specific work situations – and as a result did not apply skills effectively.

Near learning produces significantly better results.  Near learning is practicing the specific skills needed, through customised and intelligently constructed exercises, so that the individual is practicing exactly what they are being asked to do in the workplace.  Coaching is the ultimate example of near learning – it says to the individual, “We are going to practice this until you feel you are doing it effectively and then evaluate as you do it live”.  As a result it is significantly more effective in ensuring learning transfer.

Performance Management and Coaching

Performance management practices (appraisal, review, goal setting, etc) all become uncomfortable, bureaucratic exercises if those responsible cannot add value and direction through coaching.  If neither party feels value is being added by the other, then both parties view the process as lacking in worth and tend to avoid it.

This also is reflected in a more serious deficiency that is commonly observed in management practice.  If a manager cannot rectify a performance deficiency they seem to imply that this is not their responsibility but solely that of the individual.

These situations end up with a management style of “I point out your weaknesses and you have to fix them”.  If one considers the fact that research tells us that the main reason people leave jobs is dissatisfaction with the way in which they are managed (Institute of Directors, UK survey, 2001), then managers’ inability to coach and develop may be having a much more serious impact.

Conversely, a good coach does more than just coach.  In order for a coach to be effective they must have a reasonable grasp of:

• Performance management;
• Motivation;
• Counselling;
• Development and support;
• Evaluation and feedback;
• Performance measurement;

Feedback also tells us that competent coaches add value to staff and have much better relationships with their people.  Creating a competent coach therefore, also creates competency in a number of essential areas.

Edward Johnson, one of the founding members of the Johnson and Johnson empire, was famously quoted as saying, ‘Leadership is cause, all else is effect.’  Leaders of people must all be aware that it is their behaviour, not the training department, which determines whether your people will out-perform the competition.

References

Douglas Detterman and Robert Steinberg, Transfer on Trial: Intelligence, Cognition and Instruction, Ablex Publishing, 1993

Geary Rummler and Alan Brache, Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organisation Chart, 2^nd ed, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1995.

Source:

Peter Fullbrook, Founder, Prosell

When it comes to e-mail, there is not a lot of things that shock me anymore.  I have seen inboxes with 28,000 e-mails in them. I have seen people who send e-mails to themselves to remind themselves that they need to action an e-mail already in their inbox. I have seen people who have given up and just deleted the lot!  But in a recent workshop on e-mail management at one of the big four banks, a participant shared how his team had been involved in a project to reduce the size (and therefore cost) of their mailboxes.  All of the support and maintenance for these was outsourced, so the costs involved were very tangible.  In the end, by decreasing the size of 100 mailboxes in the team, they have created a saving of $20,000 to $30,000 per year!  Staggering!  Imagine that across the broader organisation of 22,000 mailboxes.

That must be a drop in the ocean though, compared to the actual cost of e-mail in productivity terms.  Another recent conversation with a senior management team within a global financial institution uncovered the fact that these senior managers, who all wanted to spend more time with their people or working on strategic initiatives, were spending up to 5 hours per day just on e-mail.  They were drowning in a sea of CC’s, distribution lists and inbox noise.  And what about the cost of overfull and messy inboxes, the cost of searching for that critical but elusive e-mail you received last month, the cost of spending the first half-hour of the day deleting enough e-mail in response to the dreaded “Your mailbox is full” message.

E-mails cost time, and not just the recipient’s time, but also the sender’s time.  If the e-mail is internal the organisation may pay twice, if it is not adding value!  My goodness, I thought that e-mail was meant to be making us more productive.  The good news is though, it still can.  Although e-mail volumes have shot up for most workers, and become a large contributor to long hours and stress, it is still a fantastic way to communicate, and get information from A to B (or B, C,D and E all at once).  The trick to making e-mail work for you, rather than you working for it, is in understanding its traps and applying a set of principles to managing it.

The common e-mail traps and how to avoid them

E-mail is a core part of modern work life, and whilst it has improved the speed and efficiency of communication enormously, it comes with baggage attached (excuse the pun).  The common e-mail traps that I encounter with workers across the board are:

Making e-mail # 1 – E-mail has become our prime focus during the workday, and often outside of core work hours too.  We must remember that it is just a part of our role – a tube for getting information from one place to another.  It is not the main game, and not what we will be measured against come the end of the year.  We need to learn to make e-mail management a part of our day, to deal with it at regular intervals, and then to put it away to focus on our priorities and commitments. 

• Turn off e-mail alerts and alarms, they are just distractions from other work
• Check e-mail at regular intervals, between 3 and 6 times per day
• Check handheld e-mail devices at appropriate times, but turn off when it is time to focus

Too many e-mails – 30, 50, 100 per day and counting.  I recently worked with two poor souls who were getting over 1000 e-mails per day! Ridiculous!  Many feel that they cannot control what is sent to them, but with some concerted effort and creativity you can slash the deluge to a more manageable flow.

• Get off unnecessary distribution lists and e-mail subscription lists
• Discuss your expectations with your team about when and what to CC you on
• Set up e-mail rules to automatically delete or move (file) informational e-mails
• Send less e-mails (you will receive less as a result)

Overfull Inboxes – Messy, overfull and back-logged inboxes cause stress, delays, confusion and rework.  Many workers use their Inbox as a to-do list, and the act of checking e-mail is often an advanced form of procrastination.  The inbox ends up as an unruly mix of stuff you have not looked at yet mixed in with existing e-mails that need action, or should be deleted or filed. For the truly in-control e-mail manager, the Inbox is a delivery dock.  And just like the delivery dock of a supermarket, it should be cleared, to zero, weekly, if not daily.

• Set up a simple filing system (1 – 10 folders) to keep necessary e-mail

Poorly written e-mail – One of the stresses associated with e-mail is the irrational feeling that we need to respond to every e-mail.  We know this is not true, but it feels that way sometimes.  But, even with the percentage that we do need to respond to, time can be saved by learning to compose e-mails in a clear, efficient manner.  The clearer your e-mail is to the reader, the more cut-through you will have, and the more likely they are to action your e-mail in a timely way.  Remember, your e-mail for them is probably just one of 100 that day.

• Write clear subject lines with impact – most people scan, so stand out from the crowd
• State any actions required and due dates in the first line or two of the e-mail

In a world where time is money, and human resources account for the largest chunk of any organisations overheads, it seems a no-brainer to get better at managing the effect that e-mail has on our productivity.  Rather than organisations putting pressure on staff to work longer hours to get things done, why not focus on helping them make their core workday more productive.  The savings could be huge, and I promise you, everyone will be happier!

Source:
Dermot Crowley - Founder
Adapt Training

Policy makers everywhere should focus on the competitiveness of individual sectors

The other day, I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr David Skellern - CEO of NICTA (National Information & Communications Technology Australia).

Since 2005 David has been working on the redevelopment of NICTA's DNA.

With over 600 staff, David is in the business of developing spin-offs. Their 5th spinout 'Cohesive Data' already has been gathering a lot of interest with technology that compresses xml - seriously.

To give an idea - Wikipedia could be reduced in download size by up to 90%.

All of this owned by 3 entrepreneurs who have been under the management of Raymond Wong from the University of NSW.

The road ahead looks valuable given the first spinout from NICTA is already in 750 million mobile phones and was last year formerly proved 'system correct' - which is a scientific achievement.

So what does it mean when you have all this success, with companies like IBM knocking on your door for introductions to your staff?

"Well, firstly you may lose a few staff. That has not been unusual with staff growing, moving, developing and invited to Stanford and the like."

But that is what NICTA is all about - encouraging the best and brightest to tackle problems and be challenged. This is a core theme of responsible leadership.

This has been where David has taken the focus - all staff are encouraged to tackle problems - social and world problems

People are pointed at problems, encouraged to be objective and consider:

"Is it going to work?" and "Is it copyable?"

If it's going to work and isn't easily copyable, then let's start considering the commercialisation prospects, which obviously involves the legal IP aspects.

Currently NICTA have about 270 PHD students. The level keeps changing, though all are introduced to the culture that encourages research via commercialisation. Research is encouraged for breakthroughs that will create commercial results.

So how does NICTA manage staff performance? Well, they have been continuosly improving their performance management system. This is combined with a bi-annual staff engagement survey. From there a roadmap is developed that provides annual set of activities with bottom up goals. A top down system also reviews as milestones are met.

It is much more about the qualitative than the quantitative analysis.

NICTA also trained 10 staff in TMS (Team Management Systems) so then they can oversee the future management of staff internally. This has been much more cost effective than training everyone in TMS which would have been unaffordable.

So what is the future?

Well, all staff are continuously recommended to search for opportunities to improve life on the planet. This is a highly engaging and motivating focus and will form the backdrop of all future management and team building and works exceptionally well with a predominantly younger workforce.

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Yesterday I interviewed Robert 'Bob' Bloom. You may know Bob as the now retired CEO of Publicis Worldwide which was built to a $4.6billion+ business under Bob's leadership.

Currently Bob is at his Italian home and doing some traveling in Europe before his return to the publication launch of his new book ' The New Experts' in the US on September 7th.

I read Bob's book and found it an interesting read that ties in very much with the services Total Executive offer in the digital communications arena. Though let me provide the review below as what I found highly engaging in my conversation with Bob was the subject of 'Responsible Leadership' - highly relevant with Total Exec's July newsletter that will go out this week.

Enjoying life in Italy Bob has been reminded that we are all mortal and just as flawed as every one else. He believes it makes you more sensitive living in other cultures - not just traveling through - actually living in them - in some ways especially for Americans who as the worlds economic leaders can see thngs from a little - self centred perspective.

Italy is a contrast in every way to New York and as Bob looked up at the full moon in Italy last night (as I did on the southern beaches of Sydney) Bob was reminded of the special elements of being human under a cloudless sky - an experience he doesn't endure  regularly in New York.

So comes our conversation to responsible leadership - a discussion that commences with remiss at the epidemic of irresponsible leadership - both in business and in government with leaders who continue to refuse to not accept responsibility.

Americans saw it clearly in the Bush era and alas the Obama era is not proving to be the 'era of change' American's (and the world) looked forward to.

Now Zimbabwe has diamonds they are generating global interest - but the inaction on human rights has been a huge turn off for the majority of people on the planet.

This turn-off and disinterest causes so many more problems and when we have additional concerns like the gulf oil spill and Afghanistan - well in some ways you can understand why people shirk responsibility.

Read the rest of this post »

Even though they were a wildly diverse group, the stories they told had common threads. Radical transparency, disruptive innovation and policy alignment were reccurring themes at the Turning the Tide conference last week near San Francisco, a forum that strives to connect human health and environmental health issues while exploring bold steps to affect societal change.

The speakers were accomplished leaders from five fields: Integrative medicine, business, sustainable communities, environmental conservation and the media, and the conference provided an expansive view of how those sectors influence one another.

Healthcare

Driving disruptive innovation in healthcare is Andrew Weil, a pioneer in integrative medicine among Western-trained physicians and founding director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. Weil has trained over 700 practicing physicians through a fellowship program, and his philosophy places emphasis on the body's self-healing capacity, mental and spiritual health and its relation to the physical, the restoration of the patient-doctor healing relationship and a broad array of therapeutic options.

Weil is developing and implementing integrative medicine programs for "family practice" medical residencies with the intent of having the programs eventually included in all residencies. Ultimately, his goal is to have integrative medicine taught as part of the medical school curriculum, changing the current emphasis from "disease-management" to a wellness and prevention model.

Weil, along with other featured physicians including Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, echoed this need to revamp the health care system. The panelists explored how public policy has unwittingly helped to spur the increase of cheap and unhealthy food reliant on the fat-sugar-salt trifecta by subsidizing the corn and soybeans, used to make high fructose corn syrup and refined soy bean oils that are key culprits in the obesity and food-related health epidemics. Solutions emphasized by the panelists included the need for governmental policies that support and incentivize the growth and production of healthy food, not make it less competitive.

But there are far more than policy-related hurdles to healthy food and lifestyles. The physicians at Turning the Tide described how medical schools do not teach nutrition in a substantive way; how most hospitals do not actively promote healthy lifestyles -- 47 percent of U.S. hospitals have fast food outlets on their premises! -- insurance companies don't reimburse doctors for wellness consultations, but do for disease treatments; and even how a significant percentage of hospital revenue is derived from technology-centered procedures for cardiovascular disease, so that changing treatment patterns means reconfiguring the business model.

The brightest spot on the horizon is the fact that people who have access corporate wellness programs have lower medical costs. Because most large corporations are self-insured, they find plenty of incentives to encourage healthier lifestyles among their employees.

Food and Radical Transparency

The physicians discussed the theme of radical transparency in food labeling and the possibility of a food rating system to shape food choices. But it was another speaker, former advertising executive Alex Bogusky, who spoke of how start-up company GoodGuide is the embodiment of this concept.

GoodGuide is led by a team of Ph.D's from MIT and the University of California and other professionals who had worked at data-driven companies like Google and Amazon. The site rates packaged food items, household cleaners, personal care products and toys on a 10-point scale for their impact on personal health, the environment and society. The depth, breadth and accessibility of the data are unprecedented; it is offered free online and on mobile devices, enabling shoppers to make sustainable purchasing decisions from the supermarket aisles.

The GoodGuide example shows how radical transparency can affect not only food choices but the business sector at large through a feedback loop of informed consumers steering companies toward healthful products and strategies by their purchases. But because this data-rich model may not appeal to everyone, disruptive innovation and public policy need to evolve in tandem.

Green Buildings

The CEO of Serious Materials, Kevin Surace, reminded the audience that building operations and material manufacturing are responsible for 52 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. He also highlighted the little-discussed fact that 80 percent of all building materials come from China, where production costs are cheaper due to the lower environmental, health and human rights standards.

Surace offered the recent episode of toxic drywall from China that found its way into Florida homes as a perfect example of the sector's systemic problems and the need for policy to promote or require sustainable manufacturing in the U.S.

Surace believes the U.S. building industry is ripe for change in part because the current, government-backed Energy Star labels do not require high enough efficiency standards -- much higher levels of efficiency are possible with current technologies, Surace told the crowd. Serious Materials won the bid to replace the 6,500 existing dual-pane windows in the Empire State Building with super-insulating ones by reprocessing the glass onsite; this will result in a three-year payback, even though Surace was repeatedly told it was impossible.

Another example of Serious Materials' disruptive innovation is its 2009 purchase of a unionized manufacturing company from which the owners walked away; Surace uses the facility to produce energy-efficient windows, and his efforts at creating green jobs in a tough economy have been acknowledged by President Obama.

Greening the Commons

Speakers at Turning the Tide also represented environmental conservation of the oceans, rivers, and other shared open spaces (also called "the commons"), detailing how they physically engaged with what they intended to protect. For two of the speakers, radical transparency took the shape of documentary photographs or films of their efforts.

Bryant Austin made it his life's work to produce high-resolution, life-size photographs of whales that are currently being hunted in huge numbers, mostly by Japan and Norway. His photographs (a small example is posted at right; for many more visit StudioCosmos.com) are the most detailed of any taken to date and required him swimming just five feet from the whales.

Martin Strel brings attention to ecological crises by swimming the world's dirtiest rivers in their entirety. His last feat was swimming the full length of the Amazon River to bring awareness to deforestation and pollution; the documentary entitled "Big River Man" records his journey. He has also swum the Yangze, Mississippi and Danube Rivers.

Alice Waters, co-founder of Chez Panisse and vice president of Slow Food International, has created sustainable communities around healthy food. A tireless advocate of locally-grown organic produce, neighborhood gardens and healthful eating habits, she believes that children should receive "edible education" from K to 12, as the Berkeley school system has adopted.

Waters hopes public policy will support "edible education" programs nationwide to help address the high rate of lifestyle-induced disease among children. The Yale Sustainability Food Project started out as a way to provide organic, locally grown produce to her daughter's dining facility at Yale University. The endeavor quickly grew and it now manages an organic farm which provides food to dining programs across the Yale campus and supports other research and educational efforts.

Human health and environmental health are inextricably intertwined and so the solutions to the critical issues need to be connected as well. Promoting radical transparency, disruptive innovation and public policy alignment across sectors are steps in that direction.

Kathy O. Brozek is a management consultant and writer working with organizations that have a social mission, including firms focused on socially responsible investing. Previously, she held both finance and marketing positions in the financial services industry.

_{Photo CC-licensed by Flickr user (matt).}

_Source:

GreenBiz

The Total Executive Marketing & Sales Newsletter #1 has been released.

• Marketing
• Sales
• Leadership
• Coaching
• Strategy
• and more...
  

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Like many afflictions,the curse of knowledge can manifest itself in a variety of forms and is one of the most insidious and challenging of all barriers to our capacity to collaborate and innovate.

When we know something, it is difficult for us to imagine not knowing it or to understand why others also don't know it. As a result, we often find it hard to communicate and collaborate effectively with others. Equally, it is often difficult for us accept that there are things that we think we know that in fact we don't know.

The unstoppable emergence of the knowledge economy is driven by the speed with which the three core ingredients of economic growth can now move around the globe. Today skills, capital and knowledge can be shuffled from one country or market to another with lightninglike speed. We only have to witness the fallout of the global financial crisis, the emergence of the BRIC economies and convergence of areas such as ICT and transport or health and food to begin to realise the implications for us all.

It was only a few years ago that we were being urged to "innovate or die", but the global marketplace has changed so much so quickly that to survive in today's environment we must have the ability to collaborate successfully across organisations, sectors and borders. Any individual, company or economy that believes it can do it all by themselves is doomed for natural extinction. There is a need for speed and a sense of urgency for Australia to build an open, productive, sustainable and competitive economy through developing our capacity to innovate collaboratively. In the words of Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE, "We are all just a moment away from commodity hell."

I believe the emergence of this new environment for innovation (where constant reinvention and collaboration is a simple imperative) demands a new definition of innovation itself. Almost every government, industry association and academic report we read tends to use a variation of what I regard as an 'industrial or manufacturing age' definition. It is usually described as "doing something new or different to add economic or social value".

I commend to you a new definition of innovation for these new times of the knowledge economy: "Innovation is the novel application of shared knowledge to add economic or social value". The point is that while innovation is actionbased delivering practical economic or social value, it is fundamentally collaborative. It generally requires shared knowledge and/or capabilities, most likely to be multidisciplinary and often sourced externally. Individually, we are capable of being creative and inventive but it is through collaboration that we innovate.

In striving to build an open, productive and competitive economy in the context of the emergence of the global knowledge economy and our response to it as a nation, we must be alert to the curse of knowledge and the dangers it presents. It would seem to me that there are broadly two extremes of those of us afflicted with the curse: those who are 'blissfully ignorant' and those who 'know it all', and then of course there are those in between.

While ignorance may be bliss to most of us from time to time, there is no doubt it is also a major barrier to our capacity to collaborate and innovate. Locking ourselves away in silos and ignoring the rest of the world around us is one sure fire way to catch the curse of knowledge; we have all come across companies and other organisations that are so insulated from the rest of the world that they are almost dysfunctional within the context of the modern knowledge economy.

These 'blissfully ignorant' organisations and their staff are simply incapable of capturing external opportunities through collaboration. They are unable to look outside their current sphere, to see opportunities that may exist across sectors and boundaries. A small university spin-out that IXC has worked with was focussed on providing its enzyme technology to the mining sector. IXC discovered a multinational food company seeking an enzyme solution for a product and introduced the two organisations. This relationship brought the spin-out a new source of revenue and provided the food company with a solution that did not jeopardise its IP.

No particular type of organisation or individual is immune to the blissfully ignorant strain of the curse of knowledge. It can be found strangling the growth potential of major multi-nationals along with well-known Australian companies and can be particularly contagious within public sector organisations. Third sector groups and charities are not immune and, of course, there is more than one entrepreneurial type who has 'blissfully' re-invented the wheel.
Aware of these risks, the managing director of a leading Australian manufacturer commissioned IXC to carry out a three-month review and analysis of external policies, market trends and emerging technologies that could affect its future. With this type of leadership, it is no wonder the company is highly profitable and much loved by the markets.

At the other end of the scale is the 'know-it-all'. We think we know so much about the subject at hand that it is almost impossible for us to understand that others don't share this knowledge. We assume that because something is so obvious to us it is inconceivable that others don't share the same knowledge. It is a no-brainer to me and "you just don't get it!" In many ways this is an especially destructive and particularly wasteful barrier to collaborative innovation.

One of most common areas where the know-it-all form of the curse of knowledge is to be found is among the entrepreneur, start-up and SME communities. Experience the tragedy often described as 'founders syndrome' where a completely viable new enterprise with much commercial or social promise is torn apart, often with great personal and financial consequences for the collaborators involved, because the inventor, creator or founder simply cannot accept that others can't see things the way they do. It can sometimes be a case of my way or the highway.

Another all too common waste is all the great ideas that never make it to social or commercial application because the 'ideators' think that the idea in itself is so important and obvious that others will get it eventually. Here the curse of knowledge can be a major barrier to collaboration between research, academia and industry.

Then there are know-it-all organisations and individuals that are simply conceited about the depth or breadth of their knowledge and capabilities and believe that they already know or have access to all the knowledge they need to innovate. This group has no idea "that they don't know what they don't know" and tend to see collaboration as being something to be done on their terms only.

This attitude can often be found in larger companies with strong research and development budgets and in well-funded public research institutes. Not only do they miss out on valuable collaborative opportunities for new business growth but they run the very real risk of being blindsided by what they don't know. To avoid this predicament, a large international manufacturer approached IXC to find a technical solution to a problem with a new product it couldn't solve itself. IXC introduced them to an Australian university whose research could be applied to the problem. This willingness to look outside the company saved them valuable product and market development time.

To protect ourselves as a nation from the curse of knowledge we must commitment ourselves to three equally important courses of action. We must improve the capacity of our business managers to collaborate. We must educate our workforce from the days of early schooling on the important dimensions of human relations, including respect for the knowledge and ideas of others and the value of sharing knowledge with each other. And we must build a national collaborative platform that integrates the use of both people and technology for connectivity.

There is a need and an opportunity for our policy makers and education leaders to encourage the development of management courses and training programs for business men and women that focus on collaborative innovation. Organisations, such as the Society for Knowledge Economics, the Australian Business Foundation, Innovation & Business Skills Australia and others, are making promising progress in this direction and I have long promoted the need for an Australian Institute for Collaboration.

Traditionally, young people have not been formally taught the importance of human relations as part of preparing for work life. Yes, we were all encouraged by our parents and teachers to share our lollies, to play nicely and to respect others but this has generally been within a societal context and not as a formal part of preparing people for the workplace. When it comes to thinking about work and careers, young people are still more likely to be encouraged to be competitive rather than collaborative.

There is a compelling need to develop school-based pre-university courses in human relations that prepare our workforce for a world where collaboration is based on the application of shared knowledge. There should be no reason why young people can't study the impact of human relations on their potential for a successful career while also studying economics.

It is equally important that as a nation we build the internal and external connectivity that is needed for businesses and the workforce to be competitive. This requires more than simply leveraging or connecting the myriad of research, education, industry support and innovation programs that already exist or the creation of some new web portal or database.

In order to build a national collaborative platform to drive both our productivity and our international competitiveness we need to combine the power of technology and people with new processes and systems for 'on demand' access to knowledge and capabilities. This will require new thinking and cultural change on the part of government, research and business as we seek out how to quickly and safely access, move and share knowledge across traditional legal, organisational and national barriers.

Source:

Total Executive

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It is no longer a surprise that as a result of globalisation, specialisation and new technologies, 80 percent of jobs now involve people participating in human interactions rather than extracting raw materials or making finished goods. Jobs involving the most complex type of collaborative knowledge interaction make up the fastest growing segment.

The reasons are clear. Leading organisations recognise that by improving collaborative knowledge building they can improve real time decision making and competitive advantage. 

The concept of “time-based competition” is driving efforts to accelerate organisational decision making and improve the quality of decisions. By removing time and space obstacles to decision making organisations develop more dynamic, responsive business behaviour. 

A fundamental requirement for collaborative knowledge building is the workgroup’s need to analyse situations, synthesise information, evaluate alternatives, make decisions in real or almost real time, regardless of geographic location. 

Real time decision making takes place in any combination of time and space – same time/same place, different time/different place, same time/different place, different time/same place. 

Early collaboration tools such as email, instant messaging and web conferencing have made the Internet a fundamental component of business.  Consider how web conferencing has forever changed the stereotypical image of today’s business “road warrior”.  This employee left home Monday morning and boarded a flight to meet with customers all week and returned Friday afternoon to recuperate over the weekend before repeating the process the following Monday.

Web conferencing technology gave sales workers back their quality of life by allowing them to rotate face-to-face customer meetings with online meetings, reducing unproductive travel time and dramatically cutting travel costs.  While webinars can be an effective alternative to face-to-face meetings, most web conferencing consists of a slide presentation with commentary, and rarely involves effective workgroup collaboration. 

Yet collaboration is a cognitive activity.  It requires willing people to think and share ideas about problems and opportunities and determine best courses of action.   Today collaboration is viewed by an increasing number of organisations as a key factor in improving enterprise-wide performance and innovation. 

Collaboration improves the way individuals (internal and external) work together on business basics such as improving decision making, reducing coordination costs, leveraging external relationships and sharing expertise.

However, the challenge for collaborative workgroups is having access to tools that enable them to replicate the way effective teams work in face-to-face planning and problem solving meetings. That means having the ability to analyse situations, synthesise information, evaluate alternatives, make decisions, create action plans and capture meeting content and actions in a formatted report. 

Beyond Web Conferencing

Analysts, Gartner, summed up web conferencing meetings this way,

“Without effective meeting discipline, Web conferencing can waste more people's time across a broader geographic range than before. Group Decision Support System (GDSS), tools can cure much of the dysfunction. …We believe most organisations will benefit from combining GDSS and Web-conferencing technologies to enhance meeting performance and to reduce the number of dysfunctional meetings, regardless of the type of meeting.” [i]

If one of the most pressing business needs is to equip knowledge workers with online technology capable of squeezing more time and value out of knowledge work, then it is Gartner’s opinion that the combination of GDSS and web conferencing provides the basis for the rapid transformation of ideas into value.

Consider the example of a global leader in wine and spirits that wanted to improve and integrate the viticulture processes of several of its acquired vineyards located in different countries.  Up to 200 people would work collaboratively in teams to complete the work in six months or less.  Employees were not permitted to travel.

Employees selected an online web collaboration technology that could support working with complex problems and planning issues.  Teams of up to 20 people worked together in real time for up to eight hours in a typical “workshop” format.  The only difference was that instead of being in a room together, team members connected to the online meeting from their office PC and joined a conference call. 

Using a business process improvement methodology, meetings started by using web conferencing tools to present in PowerPoint slides the agenda, objectives and meeting process to be followed. Other web conferencing tools displayed relevant documents and process maps for review by all. 

Once the agenda, objectives and reference materials were clearly understood by team members it was time to start using the GDSS tools to brainstorm ideas and prioritise the best ideas for evaluation.  Action plans were created for ideas that passed the evaluation stage.  At the end of each meeting a report containing the content of the meeting was downloaded to each person’s desktop for further actions after the meeting.

[i] Source: Gartner Note No. G00138101, 13/03/06

Source:

Grouputer

Source: Anne Hudson, co-Founder, Grouputer Solutions Pty Ltd

www.grouputer.com

+61 (2) 9965-3778

Source:

Total Executive

http://www.TotalExec.com.au

Currently complimentary membership to Total Executive is available for 2010/2011 Saving $495:00.

Learn about Leadership Sustainability Responsibility Technology Communication Creativity Coaching Training and Education from our network of leaders and executives

Visit: http://www.totalexec.com.au/membership-benefits/