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HUMAN LEARNING -
NATURAL DRIFT TO LOOSE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
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 AUSTRALIAN
STUDY ON SUCCESSFUL ONLINE -
DEBRIEF -
Motivated
people + Proper Processes Participants
here were highly motivated by volunteering to be part of this
research. Secondly, they had advanced processes - a subject matter
specialist with advanced instructor and facilitator qualifications,
a highly structured 8 week homework and interaction program and
suitable delivery tools. So, these motivated people had a GREAT support system. Do you see this ? Often in most working groups we have COMPLIANT employees(Doers) but not COMMITED/MOTIVATED employees (Passionate Thinkers and Doers). There centre of motivation is from external sources not internal drivers. And the support structures, like peer and management support, are often NON-EXISTENT or superficial. This seems typical of most corporate landscapes in any industry we would agree. No positive change occurs in a professional without atleast having HIGH PERSONAL MOTIVATION IN AN EXCELLENT SUPPORT STRUCTURE. OK ? The rule applies : you can be a highly motivated professional but if 'the system' does not support you on your critical deliverable outcomes then your performance is always limited... and your motivation drops. The System always wins out. It always has. On another matter on motivation though... like the paramedics' high motivation levels for on-going professional learning driven by critical human health issues, women with body image issues may display similar levels of motivation. But one's work group purposes are not necessarily life and (near) death issues though... are they ? Because work drivers may not be as strong as critical health drivers then I posit that newer communication delivery devices like web communication on their own are unlikely to produce sustained CoPs in business. When there are only second-tier human drivers present then only human-to-human interaction modes work well. Technology modes may at best act as valuable adjuncts. Can the same personal levels of motivation seen in critical human health care be present in other workplaces ? What is an optimal level of making work personal without making it detrimental to one's own health ? This study has shown that communities of practice are a major part of the solution. There seems to be a need for a work-in-progress support group to ongoingly drive one's rate of skill improvement, that is, if staff performance development is a serious business driver for management. This was one of famous CEO Jack Welch's(General Electric) El Dorado dreams - how do we help employees start to take their work personally and become 'emotionally committed associates' rather than compliant employees ? He finally was sold after atleast 30 years of senior leadership that it truly is about employee empowerment. Adults can be trusted. Adults can be responsible and should be treated as such. He has personally seen it with his famous Workout Program in Crottonville, USA which other companies have tried to emulate. Australian CEO, Roger Corbett (Woolworths), recently declared that he discovered that his productive employees are actually proud employees who have a personal passion for what they do... not exuberance... but a deep driving force of responsibility in what they do. He has seen in many of his stores he regularly visits clearly emotionally committed employees. He sees high quality of service in them...which is exactly what he wants. He thus sees part of his role as a social architect creating and maintaining a highly supportive environment for his staff. 2.
Online High Structure Interest Group = Communities of Practice. NOT THIS..... BUT THIS....
with 'CEO' this time being the psychologist as facilitator/mediator. A more technical description about CoPs can now be drawn. Its agenda and group dynamics is beyond both the classic supervisor-directed teams model (i.e., the left hand model above) and the supervisor-facilitated group action learning model (group accountability but not necessarily personal accountability). Only CoPs reach the level of individual attitudinal and behavioural change. Only CoPs deliberately aim to satisfy individual needs as well as group needs. Thus, it is the premier learning vehicle/modality in the KM process. Without CoPs one may argue there is no KM process. A company could be said to be maturing in KM only when CoPs are officially sanctioned and in place in parts of the organisation. Even Amadeus Corporation, a global organisation with thousands of employees, have only got one solitary CoP officially working-the managing directors group. But that is a great start. They may one day be able to cascade this KM process to all levels of the organisation... between countries (eg., HR CoPs or Marketing CoPs) or within countries (eg., Customer Service Reps CoPs, or even Account Managers CoPs). Imagine the growth rate of developing astute professionals if this process was undertaken ! 2.
Natural Dialogue - the Ultimate Goal. The online group however required high-maintenance as all communities of practice require. Nearly all KM-practising organisations world-wide haven't been prepared to invest toward this level of support to date. Even classic KM-enabled companies like McKinsey & Co., Buckman Chemicals and Xerox have ever surveyed there discussion board contributors to determine true attitude and behavioural changes. Maybe Golling's work should try to be replicated in these types of organisations.... like with Woolworth's Store Managers (300 + ?). Maybe these could be the metrics we have been looking for ! A few online participants declared that face-to-face group therapy would make them more accountable for there actions and commitments rather than the less personal therapeutic modality like online chats. One declared that this might give themself an excuse for not changing. They saw this as a possible weakness of online delivery therefore. Did less behaviour change occur ? It was hard to tell from this study. Maybe there was an unusually high level of self-directed (self-efficacious) participants in the online group to produce similar levels of behavioural change. Can they sustain this change beyond two months ? What will the relapse rate be like ? The study was such an initial success that Golling's supervisor, Professor Susan Paxton (now at the School of Psychology, La Trobe University, Melbourne) has recently undertaken to reproduce the study with even a larger sample size (120 women) and keeping to similar objectives and protocols. Still, the majority of online participants prefer face-to-face. Humans continue to vote that high interaction through face-to-face engagements is the richest transmission of meaning between people. Recent reviewed studies such as among academic professors and among virtual teams have come to the same conclusion and now this study again confirms it. So...who has the qualifications to design great human support systems ? Do companies have qualified HR/Training/HRD practitioners in this area ? IT and IM practitioners neither have the skills generally nor the inclination (!) to be social architects. And nor for that matter according to some surveys have many HR/ Training/HRD practitioners regretably. Can organisational psychologists partner here ? Someone needs to take the lead. Conclusion Humans need high personal motivation with high social interaction to improve their thinking and behaving. Humans are intrinsically social creatures...not isolated individuals.The 'Teams' concept in fact has always been a biological/sociological drive. Purely rewarding individualism in the workplace is an industrial age concoction producing dysfunctional behaviour and should have been corrected decades ago. Social learning in close time/space continues to be the gold standard for true learning. However most major players have yet to discover this truth. Good practices always come out of great truth. Why fight against what is natural ? Agreed ? This study has shown that communities of practice are a major part of the solution... producing initially sustained changes in attitudes and behaviours/skills. These work-in-progress support groups in business are the backbone to developing astute knowledge workers. Because work drivers appear to be only second-tier human drivers then web communication modes may at best only act as valuable adjuncts to face-to-face CoPs. This study supports the principle that KM may only be a profitable business process to the degree to which great human support systems are in place.
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TOP
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1.
People Can
Change !
