Build trust, embrace networks, manage complexity
Hierarchies A new model for work is required. Hierarchies, simple branching networks, are obsolete. They work well when information flows mostly in one direction: down. Hierarchies are good for command...
View Articlereflecting on reflection
Missing from most workplaces today is any time for reflection. Even events that are designed to promote learning, like the ubiquitous professional conference, ignore time for reflection. In these...
View ArticleCooking out loud
The simple structure of the company, with its solidly embedded organizational chart restricting knowledge flow, cannot deal with the complexity of the networked economy. It takes too long to make...
View ArticleRising from the ashes of management
If you want to destroy the entrepreneurial nature of work, then make management part of the hierarchy. Removing management from the hierarchy is probably the simplest thing that could be done to...
View ArticleLearning quicker by failing safely
I attended the Community Forests International planning session yesterday. This organization, located in our small town of Sackville, is working on two continents and recently received €1.2 million...
View ArticleBuilding the network era organization
Part of the shift that organizations will have to make in the network era will be not only to add new dimensions, but to retrieve some old ones. Institutional life often required us to leave our family...
View ArticleThe post-hierarchical organization
The way we manage our organizations is largely ineffective for the complex challenges we face, whether driven by the environment, demographics, economics, or politics. Hierarchies assume that...
View ArticleAutonomous learners
When was the last course you took? How about e-learning? When was it designed? Was it current? Did it reflect your current reality? Was it useful? One of the limitations of instructional design is the...
View ArticleCreating the AAA Organization
For an organization to be agile and adaptive, the people in it need to be aware of what is happening around them, have alternative pathways to gather information and knowledge, and must be allowed to...
View ArticleWorking and Learning Out Loud
Working out loud is a way to ensure others know what you are doing and to be conscious of your own work. It is being mindful of your work and how it may influence others. But working out loud is...
View ArticleThe Future of HR
“The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” – Timbuk3 Complication Many of today’s larger companies have overly complicated, hierarchical structures. As they grew to their current size, control...
View ArticleWe are the media, now what?
One of the potential downsides of a network society is that deception, especially by those with power over the communications platforms, will become all-too-common. John Pilger takes a look at this,...
View Articleorganizations, work, and learning
The five most-viewed posts here this past year provide a good synopsis of the over 150 articles I have written since January. They cover the main themes of organizations, work, and learning, that I...
View Articlecaught in-between
The core premise of finding perpetual beta is that the digital world is bumping against the analog world and we are currently caught in-between. Changing How We Organize With an external environment...
View Articleevery medium
Wirearchy is “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology”. It is a medium for...
View Articleadapting to perpetual beta
There is no such thing as a social business strategy. There are only business strategies that understand networks. Cooperative and distributed work is becoming the norm in the network era. Social...
View Articledigital workforce skills
“Are there new ways to think about our digital workplace skills that allows us to take our thinking up to a new plane, the next meta-level of thinking and working where we have much higher leverage,...
View Articledemocracy at work
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” – Winston Churchill Our society has tried many ways to organize work over the years, yet...
View Articleembracing perpetual beta
Michelle Ockers has been working hard at incorporating social learning in the workplace, as her posted case study shows. After reading, finding perpetual beta, Michelle asked me to elaborate on a few...
View Articlebuilding the intelligent enterprise
Managers need to be given non-traditional roles in order to become key units of intelligence in the organization. They will then have the mission to come back to pollinate intelligence throughout the...
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