Changing Words. Changing Practices. Changing Culture. Part II

Several months ago I wrote the first post of this title. In it I shared how through continual conversation and examples I was able to help some key stakeholders stop calling everything training when it came to a performance solution. The idea being that change happens one conversation at a time and that maybe to shift a culture we need to begin by changing the words we use. Words are powerful in that they set expectation and have a connotation.  Take "Social" for example. Early on many saw "social" as a being the same as goofing around. Who wants THAT in their organization?  Today, and equally unfortunate, "social" equates to Social Media which diminishes it's value around the verb it is - being human.

Another word that I suspect if we can change in organizations would begin the dominoes falling is the word "learners".  This term is pretty exclusively an L&D word that lumps people together. And although learner isn't earmarked as a formal learning only term, it has that connotation, for "learner" is not that far removed from "student" for most hearing it, it generates a context.  If one is a learner it puts them in a learning exclusive situation and a learner needs learning which is typically to be supplied by, you guessed it, L&D.

Most people in organizations see themselves at workers or employees, not learners. They were not hired to learn, they were hired to do.  What happens then if L&D joins everyone else in the organization? What if they drop the name "learner" from their vocabulary and uses words like worker and employee?  I suspect (hope?) the process of changing of words, changes the practices, changes the culture begins.

The L&D practice would become more about helping workers do their jobs. It becomes a bigger focus on the employees needs and their context not L&D's traditional delivery approach and systems. Workflow solutions, performance support, informal learning opportunities and coaching and mentoring rise, while classrooms, training and courses fall.

What then? 

Culture shift.  L&D decompartmentalizes; they become more free agent-like, moving into the workflow as a partner in performance. Work and learning truly begin to merge and employees, with change agents amongst them see a greater personal, professional and organizational value in sharing their work, sharing resources, and collaborating. The inside moves out and a more empowered, autonomous workforce becomes the face of the organization. Improving morale builds greater loyalty and loyalty leads to greater trust across levels. The organization builds a reputation as an employer of choice and the best and brightest gravitate towards it.

Idealistic? Simple? Maybe. But L&D has a lot of potential energy for change, it just needs to get out of it's own way. Words are one place to start.

Changing Words. Changing Practices. Changing Cultures

"Culture is an emergent property of the many practices that happen every day. Change the practices and a new culture will emerge."   - Harold Jarche

I always thought Harold nailed it with this quote, showing equally how obvious yet how difficult organizational culture change can be.

But where, when and how does change start? Is it through a huge strategy and subsequent tactics or is it smaller, more individualized, gradual. Practices are the actions we undertake and the behaviors we exhibit. Everything from how we conduct meetings, organize project teams, or decide how long to stand with a colleague talking over a cup of coffee. All are practices that make up our culture. Words to are practices as they are deliberate actions; thoughts transmitted. In the organizational learning subculture the words course and training are unfortunately defaulted to when people who don't understand them toss them around as THE solution to work performance problem. So if the words change does the related practice follow and then the culture shifts? Are words then the spark to ignite the potential change to come?

For me, each and every opportunity where the cry of "we need training" or a "we should have a course on xyz..." is raised I swoop into performance consultant mode and probe to determine the nature and significance of the issue and remind them for example that a PowerPoint deck is NOT in and of itself Training.  I'm relentless to the point where my staff asked me if I have a template of my responses. I'm also confident that on the other end of the call or email, eyes have rolled. 

Recently though a key leader responded in an email to my typical inquiries with the words "training" and "course"...

The words were in quotes. 

I sensed some subtraction by addition with these quotes bracketing the terms. Maybe it was an element of uncertainty, a glimpse into his internal questioning. However possibly he only wrote it that way to stave off my railing against training first, training always. Regardless, he was singling out the terms as being different than the definition. He was unsure what the solution was but used the only terms he knew with a subtle punctuational caveat. 

Maybe this then is the trigger, the first practice to change in an organizational culture - Words shared, one conversation at a time. 

Stand and Deliver

A social network conjures an image of people connecting and sharing from personal to professional and driven by ones own interests. Although it can be large in terms of connections, the conversations can be small in nature which in my opinion builds stronger bonds between the participants.  When Enterprise is added to the title, as in Enterprise Social Network, the nature of it all seems to change and the expectations tend to increase. The organization becomes the center point and work and profit are more the focus. 

When these tools are open, enabling people to share their stories without expectation, however large or small, great opportunities to transformation individuals arise. And organizations ultimately are individuals. Some of these transformative moments are so small that their impact is hardly felt at all. But over time they can accumulate, they gain momentum, they infect and spread.

"Culture is an emergent property of the many practices that happen every day. Change the practices and a new culture will emerge."

                                                                            - Harold Jarche

A few weeks ago we launched our ESN. And as we monitor, model and encourage, I take more stock of the small things; the many minor "shares" becoming the big things for that is what I believe are the seeds of a community.

For example I've watched (and participated some) the conversation about the purchase and use of a standing desk. Certainly not a direct impact on the bottom line. One employee posted that they had one, shared a photo and briefly wrote of it's health benefits.  As I passed through our office a few days later I did a double take as one of our Project Managers was standing and typing! Coincidence? I didn't engage him but instead went back to review the series of posts and comments and noticed he hadn't contributed to the conversation at all. 

I proceeded to casually asked him about the desk and how it was working out. He explained that he was getting used to it and was working it in throughout the day.  When I inquired as to how he heard of it he mentioned the colleague who originally shared as well as another in the thread of about seven different people.  I openly wondered if it was because of them that he purchased it?  He confirmed it was, as he knew both well.

Another two days passed and we got to talking again in passing.  When I asked about the benefits of the desk he spoke about his increased energy. He shared that usually he fades around 4pm but yesterday had no such feeling. I expressed my surprise as I only thought about back discomfort being alleviated. When I asked him to share his experience in our network he laughed and said "I don't Jive."  To which I smiled and replied, "apparently you do and owe it to the network to share your experience."

At 8:00am the next morning he posted about the positive impact of the desk.

A new idea shared by a trusted colleague leads to an experiment with surprisingly productive results... and all openly shared. 

Leverage the Greenest to Create a Collaborative Organizational Culture

One of the biggest barriers to bringing collaborative technology into the workplace is organizational culture. Not all resistant organizational cultures are due to extreme command & control issues, resistance to anything perceived to be "time wasting" or a security risk. In fact I’d bet most barriers are not rock solid and are actually more like Andy Dufresne’s cell wall in Shawshank Redemption... thick but porous.

The thickness is simply layer upon layer of misconception and long held beliefs about learning in organizations having to be formal and tied tightly to an L&D department. However the wall is also porous, caused by the need for agility in a poor economy, and a desire for innovation. In this environment change is not impossible but it tends to be evolutionary; like Andy, one can chip away for years and years with a small rock hammer and then have to wait for a big thunderstorm (i.e. a huge painful business problem) before they can punch through.

Typically culture change is desired BEFORE one can implement collaborative technologies.

Could one use collaborative technology and approaches to change the culture or change it faster?
That's the question I, with my teammate's assistance, have set out to answer as we have employed an approach that just may work and is far less evolutionary.

The focus of our effort to bring collaborative technologies to the organization's mainstream is not through using SoMe tools to solve a specific business problem, nor is it to work with middle management to drive acceptance both up and down the hierarchy. No, actually it’s by leveraging the greenest, least entrenched, least empowered group in the whole organization, the Newly Hired!

Let me start by telling you that SharePoint is our Intranet, and the source of all our organization wide collaborative tools. Although these tools can sometimes be less robust than desired, I am pragmatic and work first with what we have, bringing oil to the wheel only if it squeaks.

The L&D department is one of the first to make contact with new hires. For their first 2 weeks of employment they are in field offices getting exposure to the business. It is here I began to introduce training class specific blogs to them before they come to our headquarters for the first of several weeks of F2F training distributed over a 10 week program.

While in the field, we ask them to use the blog to introduce themselves to their peers in other training offices and share their daily experiences.

Once they attend a week long training in a F2F environment at HQ they return to the field for more practical applications of their training. Naturally they now have placed a face with a name and begin to have less formal conversations via the blog, albeit they are mostly related to their work experiences.

The group begins to form an identity. Less inhibited, they are comfortable posting questions, sharing a tip, sharing a joke, and telling stories of successes and failures. I’ve asked our trainers to try to refrain from answering their questions immediately and encourage their community to do so. Also the trainers are to seed the conversations with requests for members to not only share what their successes were, but what they did specifically to be successful (process not just product).

The trainees are geographically dispersed for the majority of their new hire experience, so the blog serves to keep them connected and helps maintain a support system of true peers. As their time in the training program advances, the L&D staff begin to leverage the blog to extend formal classroom learning initiatives. These efforts focus on asking the new hires to draw upon practical experiences to complete collaborative Q&A sessions, share situational best practices, and reflect on the content used in context.

This social connection is alleviating pressure found in most formal environments; the 10lbs of content in the 5lbs bag syndrome. We are now able to spread formal training out and allow for deeper reflection on the content.

Secondary to the training extension and growth of social media use for learning is that the blog is becoming an invaluable formative evaluation tool of our training sessions. The trainers can ascertain from the posts which performance objectives are being met and which the class is struggling with. This real time data allows us to quickly update and improving the curriculum.

After the new hires complete the training and are placed into their role, the community is kept alive by the participants. These CoP’s are helping the isolated staff to stay connected and continue growing with peer support.

Today we are working to roll the 15 + training groups consisting of over 100 people together into a single company-wide blog that is exclusive to their role. Homogeneous groups can only grow their knowledge and skill so much.

By reaching out to veteran employees, who have not yet been exposed to internal social media, we plan to have a select few guests post throughout the year to share insights and ideas in an effort to grow the community and its value.

As more and more new hires are introduced to the tools their comfort level and expectation to use them grows. In addition, the newest in the company become a strong voice in promoting the value. As class by class rolls into the organizational mainstream armed with SoMe rock hammers they continue to chisel away in unison until the wall simply crumbles.