Sunday 30 September 2012

Listening Skills - The Best Gift You Will Ever Give Yourself


By: Marilyn Ellis
Certain skills, once mastered, enrich our lives forever. Learning to play a musical instrument and knowing how to speak a foreign language are good examples of this principle.

There is another skill, that once mastered is truly invaluable in every aspect of life and business - the important skill of Listening.

In case you haven't noticed, when we want to sell, convince, negotiate or win, we do most of the talking. When the ratio in talking is 80% YOU and 20% them, you've already lost the battle. A true dialog means exactly that: Half is you and the other half is them = 50%/50%.

So why do we do most of the talking? First of all, talking is easier than listening. It makes us think that we are in control. Besides, we might not like the answers to the questions we asked! Lopsided discussions often end in frustration, anger and failure. Here are Five Steps to Better Listening

1. Attitude Adjustment: Be willing to change the way you think. Instead of considering a conversation to be a challenge to "persuade", consider it a mutual journey. There are signs along the way and the postings will come naturally if you let them. Pay attention to the words that are used and don't assume you understand their definition of a term. Words can be very personal and idiocentric and cultural and not mean what you think. Ask for clarity.

2. Noise Reduction: Quiet the noise in your head. Few of us actually listen with full participation. How many times have you simply waited for the other person to just stop talking so you could speak! Stop thinking and just listen, with full attention, no voices in your head. Notice the other persons body language, voice inflection, facial expressions as well as their word choices.

3. Reflect Back: When the other person has finished speaking, your reply should first and foremost be a 'reflection" - that's coach talk for repeating back to them what you thought you heard them say. It can be very surprising and humbling when you find out that you didn't get what they just said. On the other hand, when you both agree on what was said, everything changes.

4. Ego Removal: Let go of having to be right. There's a business saying - "Do you want to fill your ego or your bank account?" The result is not that you are right, but that the problem for both parties is solved to mutual satisfaction. It might not be the solution you thought you wanted but it will be the solution you really need.

5. Make it a Win Win: Once the other person realizes that you actually heard what they said, they will most likely relax, share and trust you. That's when true communication begins. That's when the real conversations take place. That's when problems get solutions and you have a chance to make your sale, prove your point and get what you want. When its a win win situation, there is potential for a deeper, more worthwhile and profitable relationship with your communication partner.

Learning how to truly listen will be the best gift you ever give to yourself and those you love, work with and serve.
Marilyn Ellis,"America's Organizer Coach", Author, Speaker, Professional Organizer, Business Development Coach. Her focus is on Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs. If you are stuck on the rocks, lost in the fog or surrounded by sharks, she will shine her harbor light on you. visit www.lighthouseorganizers.com to receive a free report and/or to purchase her books. 


Social Networks : The Extinction of Species and Why It Matters More Than You Think



Mark Buchanan is a physicist and writer. He earned a PhD from the University of Virginia in 1993, and worked for several years in the areas of nonlinear dynamics, Hamiltonian systems theory and plasma physics.
Formerly an editor with the international science journal Nature, and the science magazine New Scientist, he has written extensively for publications ranging from Science to the Harvard Business Review. He is also the author of two books on complexity science, Ubiquity: The Science of History… or Why the World is Simpler Than We Think, and Small World: Uncovering Nature’s Hidden Networks.
Contact him by e-mail


First published in New Statesman, July 8th 2002
An international team of marine ecologists recently completed an exhaustive historical study of coastal ecosystems, ranging from coral reefs and tropical seagrassbeds to river estuaries and continental shelves. Their findings were disturbing. In every case, fish numbers had declined precipitously with the onset of modern methods of industrial fishing. As the researchers concluded: "Everywhere, the magnitude of losses was enormous in terms of biomass and abundance of large animals that are now effectively absent."
The situation has become especially critical in the past few decades. Stocks of Atlantic cod have reached historic lows, while haddock and other species have been declared commercially extinct. Thriving food webs that were stable for millions of years have in the past 20 been radically altered, and almost three quarters of the world's commercially important marine fish stocks are now fully fished, overexploited or depleted.
This is just one illustration of the trouble facing the global ecosystem. Biologists estimate that the rate of species extinction worldwide is at least a thousand times greater now than it was before human beings walked the earth, and that one-quarter of all species could be obliterated in 50 years.
But does it really matter to us? The political scientist Bjorn Lomborg, in The Skeptical Environmentalist, has argued that much of what environmentalists have said is overstated - that fears of ecosystem collapse are irrational and largely the result of scare tactics. On a strict cost-benefit analysis, he says, the consequences of species extinction, like those of global warming, are not serious enough to warrant the expense of trying to stop them. We are better off trying to adapt-by seeking other sources of fish to eat, for example. And many others think the extinction of species is of interest and concern only to nature lovers.
Any ecosystem, however, is a staggeringly complex network in which many species interact with one another in delicate and all but unfathomable patterns. Indeed, it is our inability to understand how these living networks hang together - and consequently, how they might fall apart - that has seriously undermined efforts to assess the vulnerability of the global ecosystem. But in the past few years, researchers have discovered that ecological networks are not unique in their complexity. In their basic architecture and pattern of assembly, ecosystems turn out to be in many ways identical to other complex networks such as the internet, and even to our webs of social acquaintances.
What emerges from this new science is anything but reassuring. The biological world turns out to be a remarkably small one, with the predator-prey links between species arranged in such a way that no species is more than a handful of steps away from any other. More than anyone suspected, the global ecosystem is an intimately connected whole, and we should indeed be very worried about what we are doing to it.
Most of us have run into a friend of a friend far away from home and felt that the world is somehow smaller than we thought. We usually put such encounters down to coincidence even though they happen with disconcerting frequency. Recent scientific work suggests that this "small world" phenomenon is by no means limited to social relations.
In the social setting, the "small world" experience is closely linked to the notion of "six degrees of separation" - the idea that each of us is linked to everyone else on the planet by a chain of no more than six intermediary acquaintances. Amazingly, this seems to be roughly true. In the 1960s, the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram sent letters to random people living in Nebraska and Kansas, asking each to forward the letter to a stockbroker friend of his living in Boston. He stipulated that they were to send the letter only to someone they knew personally and whom they thought might be socially "closer" to this man. Even though the US then had a population of around 200 million, most of the letters made it to the stockbroker in just five or six mailings.
Researchers have found similarly small worlds in many other settings. The worldwide web is a network of more than one billion sites connected by hypertext links. Take two sites at random, and it needs only about 19 clicks to get from one to the other. Other studies have come upon a similar architecture in the layout of the world's electrical power grids, in the patterns of neural connections in the mammalian brain, and in the web of chemical reactions within the living cell. The world's ecosystems - or more precisely, the food webs that underlie them - appear to share this "small world" character.
How many species-to-species links does it take to link any two organisms in some chain of cause and effect? In the ecological setting, two species are linked if one feeds upon the other, be it a fox eating a rabbit or a beetle munching an oak leaf. Last year, a Spanish physicist, Ricard Sole, and an ecologist, Jose Montoya, studied Silwood Park, an ecosystem in the UK for which researchers know the fairly complete foo d web. They found the number of degrees of separation to be only two or three. The tapestry of life is made of a truly dense cloth.
Silwood Park does not represent the global ecosystem; it is certainly more than two steps from a woodpecker in Illinois to a shrimp in the South China Sea. Even so, whales and many species of fish populate the oceans as a whole, and numerous birds migrate between the continents. Bacteria, algae, tiny spiders and other creatures fly round the world in storm systems. These organisms provide links that tie the biological world together. For the global ecosystem, the number of degrees of separation may not be two, but it is probably not much higher than ten.
This discovery is not comforting. It suggests that the extinction of one species will affect not only everything that the species eats, competes with, or is eaten by, but will send out fingers of influence which, in a few steps, will reach most other species in the entire system. It suggests that any belief in our capacity to control the effects of ecological destruction is badly misplaced. That lesson becomes clearer as one delves more closely into the small world phenomenon and into exactly how large networks -- such as the human social network -- can be so remarkably small.
As first suggested by the American sociologist Mark Granovetter in the 1970s, the answer can be seen by making a distinction between "strong" and "weak" social ties. Strong ties bind us to family members and good friends, or to colleagues at work. These links form the threads of a dense fabric of social structure, and are socially most important to us. But these are not the ties that make for a small world.
Each of us also has "weak" links to people we see rarely, or may never see again. Think of some of your friends from the past-long-lost college mates, say. Or someone you met when travelling. Perhaps you went to Japan and briefly made friends with a fellow tourist from Australia. Your links to this person, or to those friends now out of touch, are weak social links.
What makes them especially important is that they connect you to people who otherwise belong to quite distinct social spheres. Your link to the Australian tourist, for example, establishes a social bridge that connects you in just two steps to every person this man knows. Not only that, but this single link connects each of your local acquaintances, in London, say, to every one of his local acquaintances in Australia. In this way, weak links act like short cuts through the social world.
Mathematics backs up this insight. In 1998, in a paper published in Nature, two mathematicians from Cornell University showed that the effect of weak ties in a social network really does explain six degrees of separation. In a large network -- even one of six billion people -- just a few weak links running between people from distant places will indeed make for an extremely small world, with every pair of persons linked by a short chain of intermediaries.
The small-world character of the world's ecosystems can be traced to similarly weak links -- that is, to links between species that interact only occasionally. Perhaps just one bird in an English wood migrates long distances, and, en route, settles briefly in southern Spain. This is enough to link the organisms of these two food webs together by short chains of cause and effect.
But ecologists are beginning to suspect that weak links within food webs also play an important role in maintaining ecosystem stability. Their argument is subtle, but important, as it could help us to protect the world's food webs from disintegration.
If a predator eats just one other species, it will do so frequently, having no other options. Consequently, the link between these species will be strong. Conversely, if a predator feeds upon 15 different prey, it may eat each species only occasionally. It will then have relatively weak links with these species.
Suppose that, after a climate change or some human intrusion, the numbers of a predator's favourite prey have been severely depleted. What will happen? If this particular predator feeds on only this one prey -- if they share a strong link, that is -- then the predator must continue to seek that prey even though its numbers are vanishing, driving this species even closer to extinction. When this happens, the population of predators may then fall precipitously as well. As a paper in Nature pointed out a few years ago, this should be a general tendency: the loss of a strong link within a food web will be destabilising, tending to stir up large and dangerous fluctuations in species numbers.
But weaker links can save the day. Consider a predator with 15 different prey. If the numbers of one of these species become very low, for whatever reason, the natural response of the predator is to shift its attention to another species that is more numerous and easier to catch. As a result, the predator would continue to find food, while the prey in danger of extinction could revive its numbers. In this way, weak links between species not only make for a small ecological world but also act as natural pressure valves, playing a central role in guaranteeing the health of an ecosystem.
You might expect that all species would have roughly the same number of links with other species. Not so. Nature doesn't dole the links out equitably. Studies in Silwood Park and elsewhere reveal that a few species always play the role of superconnected hubs: they "own a high fraction of the links in the food web, far and away more than the average species.
By simple logic, most of these links will be weak links. So these hub species provide the network with an ability to redistribute stress and prevent one species from wiping out another by uncontrolled predation or competition. And that explains why we should be so worried about extinctions.
Half the tropical forests, where two-thirds of all species find their habitat, have now been logged or burned to clear land for human development, with another one million square kilometres disappearing every five to ten years. If healthy ecosystems are small worlds characterised by a few hub species, with a preponderance of weak links providing their stability, then the global depletion of species numbers is truly alarming. As species continue to disappear, the remaining species will necessarily be linked more strongly - if only by simple arithmetic. If some predator preys on only six species where before it preyed upon ten, its links with the six will be stronger, and ecosystem stability can only suffer. As one ecologist, Kevin McCann, argues, the lesson is that, if we wish to preserve an ecosystem, or any species within it, we had best proceed "as if each species is sacred".
What's more, the consequences of removing just one of the "superconnected" species can be dramatic, as a huge number of weak stabilising links would go with it. Ecologists have long talked about "keystone" species, crucial organisms whose removal might bring the web of life tumbling down like a house of cards. A recent study has demonstrated just how crucial their preservation may be.
Suppose you begin removing species from an ecosystem. Slowly but surely, the food web should fall apart. But how? First the good news. Sole and Montoya have used a computer to mimic the loss of species from a food web and have found that real communities stand up relatively well when the species to be removed are selected at random. Now the bad news. Suppose instead that the most highly connected species get knocked out first. In this case, ecological disaster ensues quickly. Removing even 20 per cent of the most highly connected species fragments the web almost entirely, splintering it into many tiny pieces. As the web falls apart, the disintegration triggers numerous secondary extinctions as some species lose all their connections to others and become totally isolated.
The obvious answer is to take special care to preserve the highly connected "hub" species. But it is not easy to predict which species will be the hubs for any particular food web. In the past, ecologists have suspected that the hubs would tend to be large predators, but this does not seem to be true. Sole and Montoya found that they were often inconspicuous organisms in the middle of the food chain, or were sometimes basic plants at the very bottom.
Most species now going extinct are ants, beetles and other kinds of insect. Some take comfort in this, but they are wrong to do so. These species may well be linchpins of the living fabric.
What Sole and Montoya achieved on their computer, human activity is achieving in reality- the methodical dismantling of the world's ecosystems. The leaders of many governments and large corporations find it convenient to suppose that worries about the ecosystem are overstated, and anyway, that it would be demented to carry out reforms that are not politically popular. But we are disassembling the web of life that supports our existence, with little understanding of what we are doing. That is truly demented.



Source:leader-values.com

Leave Voicemail Messages That Get Returned! By: Mike Brooks


I don't know about you, but I'm shocked every time I listen to a voicemail message left for me by sales reps, prospects and even clients. They are filled with 'um's' and 'ah's', they ramble on and on, they leave no compelling reason for me to call back, and they almost always leave their number so fast that I have to listen to it two, three, sometimes four times to make it out!

It's no wonder so many voice mail messages get deleted and never called back! If ever there was a situation that begged to be scripted, it's your voicemail message. Isn't this the time you want to sound your best, be perceived as a professional, and prepare the most polished message you can? Of course it is.

Here are four sample voice mail messages you can start using today to separate yourself from the other 95% of voice mails that get ignored, deleted and never returned.

The first two are voicemails for prospects you haven't spoken with yet, the next one is for when you're calling a prospect or client back, and the last example is for when your prospect or client isn't calling you back at all:

Sample Voicemail Message #1:

Note: The best voicemail message you can leave is one with a specific purpose that addresses the needs of your prospect or client, and offers them a solution that is worth them taking the time to call you back to learn more about.

Here is the classic template - adjust and adapt it to fit your product or service. In this and all examples, leave your phone number SLOWLY:

"Hi __________, this is ___________ with (your company). I'm calling about your new office that's opening in Houston next month, and I wanted to provide you with some ideas that may help with your networking issues. We work with a lot of companies in the area, and I think you'll find it useful if we talk.

You can reach me by calling (your number). That number again is (your number), and ask for _________. I look forward speaking with you and thanks in advance for returning my call."

Sample Voicemail Message #2:

"Hi _________, this is _______ _______ with (your company). You and I haven't spoken yet, but I've been doing some research on your company and I think you're a great fit for (our networking solutions - your products here). We can provide you with (BREIF list of one or two benefits) and I know you'll be happy if we spend just a couple of minutes discussing how this can help you.

When you get this message, please call me back at (your number). That number again is (your number) and ask for _________. I look forward to speaking with you, and I guarantee you'll be glad you returned this call."

The next example is for a voicemail message left for a prospect or client you are getting back to:

Sample Voicemail Message #1: "Hi _________, this is ________ _________ getting back with you at (your company). I'm looking forward to speaking with you because we just (give an update here - you have a new special, new product update, added a new client they would know about), and I know that based on (their specific need you uncovered during the last call) this is going to make it even easier for you to (give the benefit you both discussed). I'm excited to share this with you.

Do me a favor when you get this message and please give me call a back at (your number). That number again is area code (your number). I look forward speaking with you."

And for the prospect or client that seems to be dodging you or just not calling you back:

Sample Voicemail Message #1: "Hi _________, this is _______ ________ again with (your company). For some reason we haven't been able to connect since I sent you (your demo, proposal, etc.), and believe me, I've been sales long enough to know what that probably means. I'm assuming you've either found another solution or this has been put on the back burner for now. Either way, that's fine.

Do me a favor though please. So I'm not bothering you anymore, could you please give me a quick call and just give me an update so I know what direction you're moving in?

If I'm not available, just leave me a voice mail. Again, either way, it will be good to know what's going on. Thanks in advance for that, and I'll look for your call. You can reach me at (your number). That number again is area code (your number). Thanks ________."

There you have it - voicemail messages for three of the situations you'll find yourself in most of the time.

Once again, by using these scripted, proven messages you'll be giving yourself the best chance to hear back from your prospects and clients. And remember, even if their answer is no that's a lot better than chasing unqualified prospects who are never going to buy.

Copyright (c) 2010 Mr. Inside Sales
Want to sell more with less rejection over the phone? Download Mike Brooks' free Special Report, "Ten Techniques to Instantly Make You a Better Closer"


Communication - The Workplace Equalizer


By: adam howard
The skill of communication, within the workplace, or elsewhere, is one amongst the foremost valuable skills you'll be able to have. Nice communication within the workplace on your part will level the taking part in field and give you a leg up in your organization.
Listen Well
Communication within the workplace is a two method street. What several people fail to understand is that the skill of listening is every bit as vital, if not more important, than speaking, in the overall context of workplace communication.
Though on the surface this may appear counter intuitive, when you think regarding it, it makes excellent sense. To begin with, most folks, particularly managers and supervisors, do not relish obtaining the sense that they're not being listened to. Besides, who ever you are communicating with, if you have not listened effectively, you will be unable to reply appropriately when you are doing speak. This can be huge, because when you open your mouth within the workplace, your skills, knowledge, competency are all on display for both peers and management to see.
Speak Effectively
This does not necessarily translate to speaking usually or in excess. Speaking "an excessive amount of" in the workplace will work against you by making it appear that your messages don't seem to be relevant or applicable, and can simply annoy coworkers and management. If you probably did a smart job of listening, you will speak to the problem at hand, and not more or less than what's required.
Or, if you lack necessary info or expertise to deal with the problem, you'll be able to verbalize that until you get the acceptable level of support, and can continue the dialog. Either means, when you are doing speak, create it clear, concise, and on point. This can be key to effective communication within the workplace.
Share
Beyond the rear and fourth transfer of data that we have a tendency to commonly go together with communication within the workplace , remember to share any ideas you have got which will improve a method or trim time from production. Any idea or suggestion that you'll be able to contribute that will have a positive net impact on your projects and organization stands a terribly sensible likelihood of standing out in the eyes of management - and being rewarded with advancement.
Adapt
Keep in mind that within the workplace, there are many completely different attainable styles of communication. Some folks are highly logical and verbose, whereas others are visual learners. Some do best with the written word, whereas others solely appear to "get it" when it's explained verbally. Some are like Sgt. Friday on Dragnet, who continually said "Simply the facts, Ma'am."
Do not overload the visual learner with a 200 page written manual. Don't speak a point to death when speaking to your tech guru who simply desires to know what parameters to incorporate in programming routine. Adapt your communication style within the workplace, to suit your audience, including your audience-of-one in personal communications.
Play Well With Others
A core, basic ability that we begin to be told in Kindergarten and it applies every bit as abundant to the workplace. The very fact that you are the brightest, best qualified person in your department does not offer you the license to be "superior" to everybody on your team - whether or not it's true. If you adopt that attitude, thinking you'll "escape with it" based mostly on your superior value and knowledge, think again. Having an angle of superiority or entitlement is one thing skilled leaders and managers can tune-in to the current instantly, and this attribute is not thought of positive or healthy for any organization.
If you truly are "better" (brighter, additional experienced, and better skilled) then build that superiority an asset to your group. Opt for to possess the perspective of a lecturer, mentor, and leader. Contribute your experience to others that may be struggling in those areas you have mastered. This can add value by reducing inefficiency, furthermore demonstrating to management that you've got basic leadership skills, that is essential to advancement.
Once you get these core skills right, communication actually is that the workplace equalizer, a supply of private power that may propel you to greater heights in your career. And as forever, remember to use your new-found power for good.
Adam has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Communication - The Workplace Equalizer You can also check out his latest website about Leica Digital Cameras Which reviews and lists the best Used Leica Cameras



Social Networks : The Extraordinary Potential of Knowledge Management



bettina 
Seth Kahan has successfully used storytelling and community building to lead change and improve performance in organizations for over 14 years. He helped spearhead the World Bank's enterprise-wide knowledge management initiative in 1996 and built communities of practice among the 1100 information service providers in 2001. Seth has been selected by the Center for Association Leadership in Washington, DC to serve as a Business Visionary for his pioneering work in organizational community development and storytelling.

Today Seth is a consultant and keynote speaker for conferences and conventions. As a Distinguished Fellow of the Center for Narrative Studies, he is writing a book on the applications of storytelling in organizations.Seth Weaver Kahan is Senior Information Officer, Internal Communications, at the World Bank.
 
View Seth's website at http://www.perfdevgroup.com. Contact him at Seth@SethKahan.com
 

Is knowledge management something extraordinary? I have noticed a remarkable verve among many of my KM colleagues that extends beyond ordinary enthusiasm. There is a feeling of being involved in a grand adventure that mixes humanity and professional development, as if KM is a space where business could potentially be more than just business. Let me elaborate by starting with a story - not a case study, but a fable.

Once upon a time…
A spaceship lands on earth inhabited by benevolent, highly intelligent creatures. Somehow they make it through our atmosphere without rousing the military and land on our soil. A call goes out around the world and the best minds of our generation are assembled to greet the aliens in person.

One of the aliens steps down out of the spaceship and after gracious formalities begins the conversation: "Earthling humans, you have been a species on this planet for thousands of years. What is your greatest discovery? What can you share with us that will demonstrate what you have learnt?"

A world leader who is, of course, intimately familiar with knowledge management, steps forward and responds: "Our knowledge is our prize possession. Our highly developed brains are capable of synthesising ideas and experience. For many years we have been concerned with how to pool our collective knowledge, how to organise, manage and share it. We have spent a great deal of time on how to cultivate our tacit knowledge and apply it in healthy and productive ways."

The alien speaks: "So, what can you show us? Can you explain or demonstrate what you have learnt?"

The world leader says: "Well, the truth is we have about 7,000 different initiatives and the leaders of our primary efforts don't agree on what knowledge management is or even if we should call it that; maybe it should be knowledge sharing or knowledge development...or...er..."

As it stands, the story doesn't have a satisfactory ending. But maybe something can be done about that. Maybe, just maybe, all the various knowledge management initiatives could be brought into some kind of global framework.

The power of meaning
Some of the best minds of our time believe we influence the world to a much greater degree than most of us are aware. That is, the way we think and what we believe about the ways of the world have a major impact on our future. This is because we are active participants shaping the future through the ordinary actions of our lives. David Bohm, the quantum physicist, wrote in his book, Unfolding Meaning (Routledge, 1985): "Your world view, the way you look at things, is part of you, just as any other thought is part of you. It will determine the way you approach the world… What kind of world will that produce?"

Bohm continues: "However deep or shallow one's perceptions, all one perceives is what it means at that moment, and then intention and action develop in accordance with this meaning."

What he is saying here is that meaning shapes perception in fundamental ways. Therefore, meaning is radically important. How do we begin to understand how we create meaning? Can we consciously fashion meaning? Isn't it interesting that most of us are not trained in how best to do this? Many of us receive little guidance on how to create meaning intentionally. And we certainly don't devote significant time to it in the workplace. Yet it is shaping our perception and our future.

I am fortunate enough to have come from a family where values were demonstrated and obvious, if not explicit and discussed. For example, I can remember as a small boy my father reacting angrily to a neighbour who referred to some people down the road using a derogatory racial term. My father's temper blew hot. After angrily denouncing our neighbour to his face, which caught and held my attention, he huffed and puffed as he marched around our house decrying prejudice and insensitivity. I got the message and still remember it today: people are people and diminishing them according to their race is unacceptable.

But no one sat down and helped me as my little mind worked overtime to integrate that experience into the rest of my life. In fact, other than occasional sessions with family and school counsellors during my childhood, personal meaning was never directly addressed in any consistent way. I was left to my own experience and my own ad hoc techniques.

I recall philosophy teachers in high school and later in college purposefully refraining from dictating any values. They often asked me to reflect, but did they provide direction on specific values? Only by modelling, not by articulation. In fact, it was generally frowned upon as far as I could tell. Somehow I was expected to do my own values clarification in the company of my friends and with whatever books I could lay my hands on. I have an idea that a large part of the self-help industry thrives because of this unmet need in society.

I subsequently sought out those who were moving their lives in new directions by locating deeper and often hidden meaning through introspection. I found many in `personal growth' or `human potential' organisations. One seminar company in particular grabbed my attention (and my money and my time). I participated in as many of their events as I could, volunteering as a way to spend more time at the seminars. I loved to do the work myself, but I was also fascinated by watching others go through their own inner processes. I found it moving to see people grapple with issues, uncovering parts of themselves that brought clarity of vision and inspiring changes in behaviour. It was like watching flowers unfold and emerge in beautiful patterns of colour and shape.

Eventually I was offered a staff position with the seminar company building the graduate community, and offering follow up seminars. I was trained in the design and facilitation of large group events and gained plenty of experience. I stayed with this work for years before something ancient and primal began to rouse my curiosity.

Ancient templates for building community
I became intrigued by how some of the world's oldest cultures ensured continuity between generations. I started to read about aborigines and indigenous peoples; then I began to visit some native American Indian elders, representatives of cultures that have endured a great deal. I turned to them for wisdom about what was most important in life.

I was especially interested in rites of passage, designed to carry individuals on the journey from childhood to adulthood. These ceremonies are a form of social infrastructure designed to transform people from dependent youngsters into mature contributors who take responsibility for the community's well being. The transformation involves long, complicated processes that include many members of a community, only culminating in a ceremony.

I did not belong to a tribe so I could not hope to truly participate in a native American ceremony. However, I discovered there are people who study how to appropriately introduce these ceremonies into the mainstream. I set about looking for one of these events that straddled the gap between the worlds, and I was not disappointed.

One of the most ubiquitous ceremonies is the `sweat lodge'. I remember my first experience vividly. For months I had been putting the word out that I wanted to participate in this ancient ritual designed to help one clarify life's purpose.

Then one day, I received a call from a friend telling me he was leaving to participate in a sweat lodge in the countryside. Would I care to come along? I dropped my day's agenda and soon found myself in his car, bumping through a farm field. We parked on the grass and began a hike in the neighbouring woodlands.

Before long we came to a group of men busily assembling a small hut from saplings and blankets. This was under the direction of a strange character, our leader, who busied himself in obscure activities that included waving burning sticks of dried sage and chanting. Soon we started a large bonfire. Twenty or so large boulders were placed into the centre of the fire, where they stayed for four or five hours. In the interim, I helped out with preparations and got to know the other people.

When the time came we all crawled into the hut, which had a great hollow in the centre where the rocks were to go. We stayed in that hut, all closely pressed together, for over two hours and it got very, very hot. As each rock was brought in, I could feel the temperature rise substantially. Following prayers and groans as a response to the heat, water was poured on the rocks, resulting in some of the most intense steam I have ever experienced, way beyond the sauna in my local gym. At several points I had to lie down in the sweat lodge in the search of cooler temperatures.

The heat was so intense that I became concerned for my safety, and therein was the doorway that led to my core values. In a single, intense moment I became vividly aware that my life was both precious and fragile. It was as if I had a chance to glimpse death before my time was up. From deep within I began to question what was I doing with my life. The issue became more than a mental hobby; it was a visceral occupation. The sweat lodge had begun to work its magic.

Toward the end participants shared their experiences and insights. Veterans of the ceremony explored these, especially the insights of the newcomers. The learning of the initiates was pulled apart and examined closely, and treasures for the community were discovered in the process. Later, as our story was recounted, these new treasures were incorporated.

For years, even to this day, that ceremony holds a special place in my memories. It anchors me to my quest seeking what is most centrally mine and at the same time of value to my community.

Back to work
At the same time as all of this was happening I was working at the World Bank, training staff to use the institutional technology systems: pro- curement, project supervision, loan disbursement, etc. Over the years I became a local expert on technology training. I tutored vice presidents, designed seminars for project teams and ran open classes on many institutional programmes that relied on technology.

When the internet became widely available I put together a presentation that I offered during lunch and after hours to interested staff. It was a huge success. In six months I had trained almost 2,000 staff members. I was videotaped for global distribution and asked to design internet seminars for sector specialists. The bank's fledgling knowledge management initiative identified me and I was asked to put my group facilitation skills on my CV and come along to help transform the institution.

I was a member of the team that built the bank's first knowledge management system. It was based on new content management principles (in 1996) and used our intranet. The following year I went to work for Steve Denning, our KM programme director, and joined the small team that began to steer the large organisation to a new destination under the president's vision: the `knowledge bank'. Steve was aware of my experiences outside the bank, including my many years as a performance artist and storyteller.

I have been a professional storyteller, performing folk tales, legends and poetry since 1978. Early on I performed folk tales from the Brothers Grimm and heroic legends such as Beowulf and King Solomon's Adventures. As my interest in community development grew, I experimented with personal storytelling as a rapport-building device in community gatherings. On the KM team, we recognised that the organisation is largely defined by the activities of its employees. If staff members are not sharing their learning process, the organisation is not growing.

Our team began to use storytelling as a means to break the ice in meetings. Denning worked, with great success, at using storytelling to evoke systemic change in the organisation. He developed `springboard' stories (see his book, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001). I drew on the forms I had learned in personal growth settings and ceremonies to develop processes for staff members to share their learning processes and interests. We didn't attempt to get people to understand storytelling. Instead, we used storytelling as a tool to build community.

I began to receive requests to visit other organisations. In many companies, I spoke about my work as a storyteller, experience in ceremonies and brought ceremonial objects into the workplace, sharing my symbols of community. I still work with a Cherokee `talking stick', which symbolises the sharing of one's `truth'. That's truth with a little t, not a big T - this truth is about personal understanding and experience, not ultimate meaning.

Symbols such as the talking stick are powerful stimuli. This power can be harnessed in the spirit of knowledge sharing quite effectively. I have used the talking stick often to generate a shared sense of community and common purpose at gatherings. Steve referred to my presentations as "turning suits into people". That phrase tells me that we are doing something special here, something fundamentally human - something that involves caring.

Who cares?
When I think of community, three foci come to mind: groups of people, a sense of shared purpose and caring. The first two are far easier to realise in a business context, but the third is no less important.

One of the more helpful writings I have come across in this regard comes from Nonaka and Nishiguchi's recent book, Knowledge Emergence: Social, Technical and Evolutionary Dimensions of Knowledge Creation (Oxford University Press, 2001). There is a chapter by Von Krogh, Ichijo and Nonaka entitled: `Bringing care into knowledge development of business organisations'.

The authors are very interested in human relationships inside organisations. "We believe that knowledge development, especially social knowledge development, of organisations, cannot be taken for granted since knowledge is very fragile in them. Since individual knowledge can easily be killed, organisational knowledge development as a social activity can be quite difficult, or in the worst case, impossible. Given this fragility, we argue that relationships in organisations must be given more attention."

Social knowledge can be thought of as the common knowledge that resides among individuals, in the common space of the organisation. This has important implications with regards to an organisation's ability to hold on to knowledge as significant numbers of staff retire. To the extent that the knowledge of staff can be transferred to the social space of the organisation, there is less of a loss to the company.

Furthermore, the quality of caring that exists in the relationships inside the organisation has a direct impact on the quality of knowledge that becomes social.

In the article the authors use the term `thematisation' to explain how explicit knowledge is developed (both individually and socially). In thematisation, "a language is learnt, words are being carefully selected for an experience, this linguistic choice is tested, misconceptions are corrected in interaction with others, new words are being invented to better convey the experiences in the eyes of the individual, and so on".

In `low care' organisations, the process of thematisation tends to be a private activity. Where it is not safe to share our foibles, we hide them and share results only when we are confident they can withstand scrutiny. These contrast with `high care' organisations in which thematisation is a shared, group process. All of the lessons learnt and blind alleys are explored with others. We have the benefit of many minds to participate in thematisation, producing higher quality results.

In addition, because much of the groundwork of our thematisation is done in public in high care organisations, many more people are aware of what was learnt in the process. Thus, more knowledge is available in the organisation for others to use and apply. Importantly, it remains there when staff members leave, thus addressing the issue of retention of organisational knowledge.

The authors break `care' into five explicit dimensions. The concept of care can be vague, but their dimensions make it more tangible and much easier to apply. The dimensions include:
  • A propensity to help
  • Accessibility in both time and space for people to connect
  • Attentive inquiry, emotional and factual
  • Lenience
  • Care as a shared value
This work shows how care makes a substantive contribution to knowledge development.

More than just business
Ceremonies assist participants with their inner development. The insights that arise from this development are shared with the community. These new perspectives are examined and reworked by leaders who then weave the insights into the existing social fabric. Values are not so much passed down as they are developed jointly, adjusted and blessed by the accepted leadership, and then integrated into the larger community.

We have a great deal to learn from these ancient ways of working together. I have seen some of these time-tested methods of human interaction introduced in contemporary business environments with great success. I can imagine bringing KM thought leaders together and weaving the fruit of their explorations into our social fabric, generating insights that apply to issues outside of business. As we study the myriad of ways that people develop and share knowledge, perhaps there are applications greater than business in store.

Imagine my story about the alien inquisition with a happy ending. The alien speaks: "So, what can you show us? Can you explain or demonstrate what you have learnt?"

The world leader replies with confidence and enthusiasm: "I was hoping you would ask that question. Let me tell you about what our civilization has been working on..." 
 
Source:leader-values.com

Communication - Seven Verbal Communication Skills That Improve Workplace Management Effectiveness


By: adam howard
Effectiveness
Successful executives, managers and supervisors apprehend that the importance of effective communication within the workplace can't be underestimated. Poor communication is accountable for mistakes, conflict, and negativity within the workplace. Have you ever thought the following?
"Oops, I know I said that, however what I meant to mention was..."

" Why cannot I purchase purchase in from the team?"
"That mistake could are avoided if I had only said...."
2 common communication barriers are:
1. Not being alert to effective communication skills
2. Being in an exceedingly hurry.

Since effective communication in business is essential to success at your company or organization, it is sensible to improve your communication skills. The good news is that you'll be able to learn some basic communication skills and use them these days to boost the standard of your workplace relationships with each employees and customers.
Seven Communication Skills for the Workplace
1. Personal Contact
Did you ever wonder why corporations pay thousands of greenbacks sending sales folks across the country after they may do a phone decision for a lot of less? The rationale is that individuals relate to one another better once they can meet in the flesh and read every different's body language. What is additional, individuals will feel the energy the affiliation creates. You'll also smile and shake somebody's hand once you greet them, that creates a robust connection.
2. Develop a network.
Nobody achieves success alone. Success in any company needs a team effort.
? Build an endeavor to induce to know managers and employees in numerous departments among your company,
? Meet new individuals in skilled organizations.
? Become active in your community.

3. Continually be courteous.
Courtesy lets people apprehend that you just care.
The words "Thank You" show that you just appreciate your employees' efforts, and this can be important because appreciation is the quantity one issue that employees wish from management.
A little modification like saying, "Would you please..." rather than just, "Please..." will build you sound less dogmatic and can improve your relationships together with your employees.
4. Be clear
Since folks usually hear things differently, and they'll be hesitant to raise you to elucidate what you said, you ought to raise, "Did I justify this clearly?" This can confirm that people understood you.
5. Compromise
You'll be able to decrease the stress associated with conflict if you always raise, "What's best for the corporate?" This gives people a different perspective on your requests, and that they will be less seemingly to require any conflict personally.
6. Be attention-grabbing and interested
Although most of your workplace communications can be concerning business topics, it is additionally important to share your personal side. Let your workers grasp concerning your interests and your family, and ask them concerning theirs. Telling some short personal stories about your attention-grabbing experiences will make your employees feel a lot of connected to you as a person. Browse your hometown paper daily so you recognize what is happening in your community and what personal issues your staff could have concerning them.
7. Listen
Listening attentively to your staff demonstrates respect. Listening isn't easy as a result of everyone's mind tends to wander. So to assist you think about what the opposite person is saying, keep a sensible eye contact --while not staring, and then build a comment about it or ask a question.
Improving your communication skills could be a process that happens gradually over a amount of time. The great news is that you have opportunities to apply your communication skills every day at work. Here's a tip to help you improve faster. At the end of each day, take a moment to review your communications during the day. What was effective? What wasn't effective? That means you may continue to learn and improve your communication skills.
Communication is the key to success in business
That is why you must bear in mind of how you're communicating in the least times. As a result... you may become a role model for effective workplace communication skills to your employees. This can be vital as a result of the final goal of any supervisor, manager or govt is to turn standard staff into extraordinary employees. You can take a large step toward doing this by honing your own communication skills.
Adam has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Communication - Seven Verbal Communication Skills That Improve Workplace Management Effectiveness 


How We Miscommunicate Makes Workplace Conflict Resolution More Difficult


By: adam howard
Conflict in workplace is usually the results of easy miscommunications. If you keep in mind the usually quoted phrase from Lewis Carroll in his treatise on real life, Alice in Wonderland, "I grasp you believe you perceive what you think that I said, but I'm not certain you notice that what you heard is not what I meant" then you know what it's like when one thing you said gets taken out of context and reinterpreted - making conflict where none was intended.
How many times have you ever had an inspiration or a feeling, based on a comment received - which you naturally screened through your own automatic filter "what did he mean by that", in an try to kind what was said from what you think was meant?
It appears that every inbound communication is subject to interpretation beyond the actual words used based on your history with the person concerned, your mood, their angle, and your perception of what you're thinking that they believe is it for them.
This instantaneous decoding formula, applied to every communication uniquely, creates a filter on the fly that enables you to retort within the method you feel will be most correct beneath the circumstances. Whether or not you truly interpreted what they said and what they meant - bear in mind the previous expression "garbage in garbage out" - determines whether you truly perceive how you must respond to them.
When I have a thought or a feeling and try to speak it with someone else I exploit the words I suppose, based on my automatic screening process, accurately communicate what I wish them to hear. Naturally the interference that results - between what I suppose my words mean, their screening process decoding their interpretation of the words primarily based on how I have used them before and what they usually mean, and what every folks are expecting it all to mean - extremely makes me marvel how we are ever ready to actually keep on a meaningful conversation.
Since 99.ninety nine% of our communications are meaningless the results of this multidimensional instantaneous 2 manner screen, encode, transmit, receive, decode, screen, understand process - will not matter a lot. If we are talking regarding last night's ball game or next week's party - we will take the time to type out our communications until we are all clear regarding what is being said.
Sadly our workplace communications have the additional baggage related to our past relationships of cooperation, competition, and our natural need to urge over on the opposite person. The resulting miscommunications lead to conflict that leads to a discount in our individual, team, and organizational effectiveness.
Is there a straightforward manner to defuse the ensuing conflicts in workplace? Is it necessary that every miscommunication related conflict be dealt with on purpose in a formal approach? Or do we would like a casual "workplace conflict resolution" process? On the other hand do we would like any quite conflict resolution process at all? As invariably, it depends.
Ideally we tend to would respond diplomatically and tactfully where we feel a simple explanation of what we are attempting to communicate looks to be making the opposite person uncomfortable. Asking them to repeat back to you what they heard to create positive they are really hearing what you meant may be a simple and however very effective diffuser of future conflict.
Do they even care about what you're saying? And how are you going to accommodate the person while not more igniting an already volatile situation? Your own answers to those questions will tell you whether or not a next step beyond a lot of clearly outlined discussion points are probably to be required.
For some of us it's additional difficult than others to reply diplomatically, tactfully and respectfully when there appears to be a misunderstanding brewing - we have a tendency to expect them to try tougher to perceive what we tend to're obtaining at. If handled properly a easy willingness to open up and a minimum of share responsibility for being better understood could be the most dynamic and powerful tool you can use when communicating with a coworker. Typically, individuals are a lot of possible to retort to a respectful approach higher than any other.
It's well documented that when each party to a communication really desires to obviously perceive what the other person means by the words they are using - where these two individuals share goodwill toward one another, an surroundings will be quickly created and simply maintained that fosters cooperation in all things.
Like something that's planted in fertile soil, tended to, nourished, and fed regularly - shared goals for the long run will over take and eventually crowd out all miscommunications, misunderstandings, and also the ensuing conflict in workplace.
Individuals who think strategically, set up comprehensively, and execute flawlessly can definitely outpace people who simply set goals and hope for the best. They understand the importance of developing skills and relationship that will continuously move them toward their objectives. If you wish to be even a lot of successful in the longer term than you're these days, you are continuously looking out for ideas and resources to assist you. Learn why it is vital to understand that conflict within the workplace is not necessary and there are simple steps that will build conflict in workplace a issue of the past!. See what others do successfully and contribute to the discussion! Every folks is anxious regarding the continuous refinement of our methods and ways toward enhanced productivity and greater profitability. And yet for many folks there's a gap between where we tend to are and where we tend to need to be next year and therefore the year once that.
Adam has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in How We Miscommunicate Makes Workplace Conflict Resolution More Difficult You can also check out his latest website about Hobo International Handbags

 

Employee Communication: The Secret to Business Success


By: adam howard
Business surveys consistently show us that poor workplace communication could be a major supply of employee dissatisfaction. The repercussions of this include not just low employee morale. Employee productivity suffers, together with a vary of other business performance indicators.
Business Impact of Poor Communication
Have you ever stopped to think about how much unsatisfactory communication practices are costing your business? A number of these costs embody:
? increased employee turnover
? increased absenteeism
? dissatisfied customers from poor customer service
? higher product defect rates
? lack of specialize in business objectives
? stifled innovation

How several of these prices can you recognize in your business? You can flip the situation around. Staff can place in that further "discretionary effort" after they are kept informed brazenly and honestly on aspects of their job and the business and that they feel that they're being listened to with empathy.
Employee Communication Needs
What and how ought to you communicate together with your employees? Communication in your organization should satisfy the three key employee needs before they will be engaged and highly productive. Every and each employee needs to:
1. Apprehend that ...
-included here are facts regarding your organization and their specific job - what business you are in, who your customers are, specific details regarding your product or service, where forms are located, who to determine when there is a downside ...
2. Master that ...
-included here are the sensible skills required to try to to their job well - repairing a machine, filling out an invoice, designing a building, writing a software program ...
3. Feel that ...
-included here are the interactions that provide them a way of belonging and self-price - being listened to, revered, trusted, valued ...
Managers predominantly think about the primary need - grasp that - and pay less attention to the second would like to master skills. The third would like - feel that - is what makes workers distinctly human and what drives them to outstanding achievement in work and outdoors of work. And however it's in this dimension that employee communications are most lacking.
Look closely at the communication happening in your business. Is it satisfying what workers want to be absolutely engaged and operating productively? Contemplate each of the four basic levels of communication in your organization for a solution:

1. Organization wide communication - involving all staff
2. Departmental communication - specific to 1 department or unit
3. Team communication - within one cohesive team or group
4. Individual communication - specific to one employee at any one time

Communications may be working effectively at higher levels, with regular and informative newsletters emanating from Head Office. However, the standard and quantity of communications could fail dismally at the a lot of native level. The interpersonal skills of supervisors, team leaders and native managers are particularly important at levels 3 and 4, as these are the individuals that frontline employees develop operating relationships with most personally and closely. Several exit surveys have shown that workers commonly leave an organization as a result of of a poor operating relationship with a right away supervisor. How are the communication skills of the supervisors in your organization?
Just as necessary is that the communication between and at intervals levels. Gone are the days when departments may stand as silos, isolated from the rest of the organization by impenetrable barriers. Intra-national and international competition is currently so fierce that everyone in the organization desires to collaborate closely on solving organizational challenges and on achieving agreed strategic objectives. What are the communication barriers in your organization?
Where is your organization at in its life-cycle? Is it large or growing rapidly? As more folks are added to an organization, communication needs and stresses increase exponentially. Joe, who used to try and do purchasing, inspection and warehousing on his own now needs to speak to 3 other departments yet as the people in his own growing team. What structures, systems and processes has your organization place in place to encourage and facilitate effective communication flow?
Well-designed organizational culture surveys and employee communication surveys can determine how well your communication systems and practices are contributing to your organization's performance - or how abundant they're hindering performance. This data can then help you in devising a good employee communication strategy. No matter else you do, communication practices impact each facet of your business. Wanting closely at communication in your organization is well price your whereas, as a result of even if you do not, your staff are.
Adam has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Employee Communication: The Secret to Business Success You can also check out his latest website about Photo Studio Lights

 

Barriers to Effective Communication in Change Management - But Do They Feel What You Are Saying?


By: adam howard
The only biggest barrier to effective communication in a change management situation is sort of simply the disconnection between the modification leader and those who are or will be impacted by the change.
Failure reasons in change management are several and varied and well documented. Staggeringly any organisational initiative that makes amendment - or encompasses a important change part to it - contains a seventy% chance of not achieving what was originally envisaged.
Any major business initiative or venture where the business leaders fail to spot and quantify the impact on those people most stricken by the change carries a high risk of failure.
The underlying root cause of this catastrophic statistic is that the failure by change leaders to take full account of the impact of the amendment on those people who are going to be most impacted by it. And yet.... the price of failure comes thus high!
Thus, to any business leaders reading this, I raise you:
"The numbers could make sense, the business case is sound, the 'synergies' might look sweet, however have you ever assessed the human, political and cultural factors? Have you ever taken under consideration the human impact? Have you made the connection between the human impact and your bottom line?"
There are plenty of reasons why this is often not addressed: initial and foremost as a result of the main focus is on the business logic; secondly as a result of company cultures are hard to see, and eventually as a result of this side of change is seen as "soft", intangible and unquantifiable and by implication not really warrant detailed scrutiny.
Just as an illustration of this time in the context of M&A, a study of forty British firms [Cartright and Cooper 1995] reported that every one 40 conducted a detailed financial and legal audit of the corporate they supposed to amass, but that not even one of these same corporations created any attempt to carry out an audit of the company's human resources and culture to assess the challenges regarding integration of the organization they were acquiring.
Yet, I notice all of this strange given the colossal financial cost and shareholder price destruction that is the direct results of this failure.
5 proven barriers to effective workplace communication in modification management
Therefore, if you really need to urge it wrong - here's what to do in 5 straightforward steps:
(1) Lack of clarity of message - do not tell them what lies behind the change and do not sell the matter before you are attempting to sell the solution. Use jargon, masses of it and take a while telling them. Oh and to essentially build this one stick, do not tell them how it's going to be completely different once the modification - simply keep telling them how its all regarding the values, mission and vision.
(two) Absence of emotional resonance in your message - the emotional tone and delivery of your message ought to clearly indicate that you just as senior management haven't given a second thought to the $64000 impact this can be going to own on them. Do not tell what they're visiting lose or need to let go of. And to strengthen that point build terribly clear by your tone that you do not care which that dimension never crossed your mind.
(three) In-accurate targeting - create sure you do not reach the right folks with the proper message at the proper time. Most importantly, never address the "what's in it on behalf of me" question , and totally disregard the psychological and emotional transitions they will have to go through in adjusting to your change.
(four) Timing schedule - why waste valuable senior management time keeping your individuals fully in the picture? Keep them within the dark and keep them guessing.
(five) Feedback process - 2-method communication is something you can pay lip service to. Positive undergo the motions, but rest straightforward in the comfy complacency of your senior management certainty that knows best ["that is what we tend to're acquired is not it?"]
If you follow these steps you may be in smart company as you virtually actually join the illustrious 70% club.
Excuse the lateral thinking for a flash - however will you imagine civil engineers or construction companies or the people who build nuclear power stations - operating on the identical basis - where a seventy% failure rate was accepted? Can you?
Therefore why on earth ought to the globe of business be any completely different? Why will this hassle me? Quite merely, it bothers me as a result of of the terribly considerable, unnecessary, and totally avoidable human cost.
Adam has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Barriers to Effective Communication in Change Management - But Do They Feel What You Are Saying? You can also check out his latest website about Photo Studio Equipment

 

Social Networks : Want to Manage Tacit Knowledge?



Shawn Callahan is director of Anecdote Pty Ltd, a firm specialising in helping organisations harness their informal knowledge. He is the former knowledge management practice leader for IBM Australia and has more than 15 years’ experience as a consultant, researcher and author.
Shawn has undertaken a wide variety of projects—including community-of-practice development, knowledge-mapping, knowledge strategy, and using narrative techniques to tackle seemingly intractable issues (such as trust, cash economy, and workplace safety).
Contact Shawn by e-mail shawn@anecdote.com.au

Introduction
This paper offers some tips for fostering informal communities to manage tacit knowledge in a rapidly changing business environment. Recent business developments have increased the difficulties in managing this important type of knowledge.
  • ‘Baby-boomers’ are retiring—and years of ‘know how’ are walking out the door.
  • Clients are demanding more answers to increasingly complex questions—and they want those answers now.
  • Companies cannot afford to make inadvertent mistakes, and they must therefore capitalise on the ingenious solutions that remain hidden in every quiet corner of their organisations.
These business problems have created a significant challenge for companies today: How can organisations create a work environment that enables knowledgeable people to learn, adapt, and respond effectively to novel circumstances?
A common (but misinformed) strategy is to extract and record what people know—and then store it in a database. The problem is that much of this ‘know how’ is not amenable to this treatment. It cannot be captured or converted easily. Much of it is unspoken and unrecorded. So how do we manage this unspoken (or tacit) knowledge? Communities of practice offer an effective and versatile solution.
This paper therefore provides guidance on how to identify and foster such communities of practice in your organisation. It explains why communities of practice are effective in managing tacit knowledge, describes how to ‘map’ communities, and provides suggestions for garnering management support. Finally, the paper describes three common traps to avoid.
The Nature of Tacit Knowledge
Organisations recognise that knowledge provides the only sustainable market differentiator. And there is a growing awareness that tacit knowledge makes up a substantial proportion of this vital knowledge—perhaps as much as 80%. The imperative to manage tacit knowledge more effectively has become more pressing in recent times—as experienced ‘baby-boomers’ retire, as clients increasingly present novel problems (for which ‘cookbook answers’ are both inappropriate and unavailable), and as market cycles accelerate and response times are reduced. These dramatic changes mean that we do not have the time or resources to document what we know—even if it were possible to do so.
Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge. It is difficult to discern and difficult to express. Examples include ‘intuition’, ‘hunches’, ‘heuristics’, and ‘inherent talent’. It enables people to have ‘gut feelings’ that something is wrong or missing. It is knowing how to ride a bike, how to recognise the smell of coffee, how to develop lasting client relationships, when to buy and sell, and which new venture is likely to work. It is not ‘book knowledge’; rather, it is knowledge developed through experience.
According to Boisot, there are three types of tacit knowledge to consider(1):
  • things that are not said because everyone understands them and takes them for granted;
  • things that are not said because nobody fully understands them; and
  • things that are not said because, although some people understand them, they cannot costlessly articulate them.
It is possible to adopt individual strategies to manage each type of tacit knowledge. Narrative, for example, is useful for discovering the things that are taken for granted. Techniques for developing intuition can be employed to enhance the things that nobody fully understands. Organisations might decide that certain critical (but complicated) knowledge should be more generally known.
Although such individual strategies can be useful, this paper presents a comprehensive strategy that addresses the management all three types of tacit knowledge. This comprehensive strategy involves the identification and nurturing of communities of practice.
What is a Community of Practice?
The key features of a community of practice are encapsulated and communicated in the following anecdote.
Peter was not only the organisation’s most gifted policy analyst, but also one of those guys who just ‘knew’ how to get things done around the place. Regardless of the job at hand, Peter would successfully navigate the organisation’s labyrinth of requests, approvals, office politics, and hierarchy. He knew when something was missing; he knew when the picture just did not ‘seem right’. And like many other ‘baby-boomers’, Peter was retiring—next week to his rural vineyard.
Fortunately for us, Peter was an active member of our ‘policy-analysis brigade’. This was the name we had given to our informal group that met in the boardroom on the third Thursday of every month. It had begun as a small group of people who took ‘time out’ to learn the finer points of good policy development; it ended up as a forum for testing a whole range of ideas. More importantly, we worked out ways in which we could work together in a variety of settings. This is where the real learning occurs—on the job, with real problems.
Peter was a great mentor for the other members of the group. He was generous with his time and knew what questions to ask. Even more importantly, he knew when to ask them. Although we will miss his acid wit, we will not be left in a hole—because we have learnt from each other. Almost by accident, we have built resilience into our workplace—resilience that will help us to cope when people come and go. This type of group is called a ‘community of practice’.
Managing Tacit Knowledge Through Communities of Practice
So how does a strategy of supporting communities of practice help organisations to manage their tacit knowledge more effectively?
First, these groups enrich the context around their area of interest. They enhance the artefacts (such as documents and tools) that already exist; and they create new artefacts. These artefacts (old and new) take on enhanced meaning for the group and, as they do, more knowledge becomes unspoken—more tacit knowledge is created.
Secondly, the increasing interaction among members of the group, together with the enriched context described above, enables members to respond quickly to unusual and unpredictable requests. This is because the community of practice has been in the habit of posing (and exploring) novel questions.
Thirdly, the existence of a community of practice means that there is a deeper and wider pool of expertise from which to draw. Through the active processes of the community, tacit knowledge is shared—thus ensuring that it is not ‘locked up’ in an one individual.
Fourthly, members of the community develop an intuitive understanding of how to tackle issues in their field of expertise. They develop this intuitive knowledge by undertaking tasks, reflecting, asking questions of one another, and listening to the stories of other community members.
Finally, and most importantly, new members of the community are effectively ‘given permission’ to associate with the more experienced and more senior members of the organisation. This is what it means to be part of a community.
These groups are focused on improving their practice—how they do their work. They are therefore constantly striving to develop new tools and techniques. Consequently, community members know which knowledge can be sensibly codified and which knowledge should be shared using other means—such as simply listening to the stories of others, helping each other out on the job, or identifying a mentor to assist with a personal career.
These informal groups already exist in organisations. The challenges for those responsible for harnessing an organisation’s tacit knowledge are to identify and nurture these groups. Indeed, an adroit manager will go further—he or she will also create the conditions that facilitate the emergence of new communities of practice.
Fostering Communities of Practice
It is difficult to build a community of practice from scratch. In fact, the construction metaphor of ‘building’ a community is inappropriate. Rather, it is important to ‘foster’ communities—and the first step is to find the communities that already exist in your organisation.
Identifying Communities
There are many places to search for evidence of existing communities. Like David Attenborough, the job entails tracking the telltale signs that will lead you to your quarry.
In the modern corporation, computer systems are a good place to start. You can begin by asking the system administrator whether email groups have been set up or whether specific collaboration spaces have been established. Both of these tracks can lead directly to existing communities. In addition, if you have an online meeting-room booking system, check whether regular meetings have been scheduled.
You can also include community mapping as an exercise within a wider knowledge-mapping project. An effective technique involves augmenting the Cynefin knowledge-mapping technique at the point where anecdotes are being collected (2). At the end of an anecdote circle, ask the participants to brainstorm four types of communities: (i) committees and formal communities; (ii) expert communities; (iii) informal or shadow communities; and (iv) communities that emerge only in a crisis. This exercise generates a long list of potential communities to investigate.
Experience has also shown that the following approach is effective. Provide a technological platform that supports community activities. Then advertise its existence, provide some information on how to use it, and see who comes. In one instance we had worked hard to establish three communities of practice while, on the periphery, a group of simulation modellers had discovered the collaboration platform that we had established—and they promptly made use of its functionality. We became aware of this community for the first time when we discovered them on-line. It should be noted, however, that the business case for the collaborative infrastructure had already been established before it was implemented and subsequently discovered by the modellers.
There are also activities and events during which cohorts can develop—and such a cohort can become the basis of a new community of practice. Training events, induction courses, and management retreats can all provide the essential first ingredients for a community of practice—social networks and a topic of interest. When an important event is scheduled, the chances that a community of practice emerges can be enhanced by getting people ‘connected’ before the event. Collaboration software with facilitated online discussions can achieve this initial connection, and the discussions can be continued after the event. If there is enough energy and passion for the topic, a new community of practice can emerge.
Getting Support From Management and Members
Reluctant Managers
Many managers do not perceive the tangible business benefits that will come from supporting communities of practice. Even managers who have embraced the concepts of ‘teams’ and ‘teamwork’ can have difficulty in perceiving the benefits of communities of practice. Such communities of practice can appear to be nebulous to managers who are accustomed to more immediate and direct benefits.
Wenger and colleagues have provided a useful table of business benefits that accrue from communities of practice (3). These include short-term benefits (such as improved business outcomes, improved quality of decision-making and innovative perspectives on long-standing problems) and long-term benefits (such as increased retention of talent and the ability to foresee technological developments).
Arguments such as these can be useful. But the two most powerful techniques to persuade reluctant managers to invest in communities are:
  • stories of success from similar organisations that already foster communities of practice; and
  • making a link between project work and communities of practice (using the metaphor of ‘the arrow and the cloud’).
Each of these is explored below.
Stories of Success
Stories about how other organisations have implemented communities of practice have a significant impact in influencing decision-makers to adopt the strategy. Robert Cialdini calls this ‘social proof’(4).
Social proof describes the human tendency to do what everyone else is doing. If a person walks into a meeting room in which everyone is standing up, the new arrival is likely to remain standing. Social proof is a shortcut to knowing what to do when people do not have all the facts. The principle of social proof is most likely to be effective when there is considerable uncertainty, and when those being imitated are similar to ourselves.
The first ingredient in developing a compelling case for communities of practice is the effective use of stories as ‘social proof’. Stories are powerful. Telling stories about people, organisations, and work is a natural way for people to transfer what they know in the workplace. Facts are certainly important, but stories provide the emotion required to make a decision.
I was talking about the ‘power of story’ to a client who worked in the defence forces. The client was prompted to recount an interesting incident. His division had proposed a new force structure to the chief of the army. The recommendations were the product of extensive analysis and were supported by an impressive array of facts and figures. The general and his advisors were considering the proposal in his office. The recommendation seemed to make sense to him, but he was uneasy about something that he could not ‘put his finger on’. A colonel, who had recently returned from East Timor, happened to pass by his door. The general invited him in to give his opinion on the proposal. The colonel then regaled the group with a story that demonstrated how the recommended force structure would have made a significant improvement in field operations in East Timor. With that story, the general turned to the rest of the group and said bluntly: ‘Make it happen’.
A handful of stories about the effective use of communities of practice from organisations that most resemble your own will be an invaluable tool in building your business case. There are many case studies and examples from companies such as IBM, GE, the US Army, and legal firms, among many others. Whenever an opportunity arises, tell these stories. Your own organisation will soon begin to ask: ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’.
Arrow and Cloud
The second ingredient is to make a link between project work and communities of practice. It is common to hear people lament: ‘But my people are so busy just getting the job done. We don’t have time to sit around and chat about these things.’ This attitude certainly makes it difficult to get a community off the ground from scratch. However, in our experience, if you can describe how this new organisational entity will enhance current projects, commitment from middle managers increases significantly.
Middle managers are under great pressure to ‘get the job done’, and if they believe that an initiative for a community of practice is merely a distraction, they will mount a great deal of passive resistance. After six months of effort you will wonder why nothing has happened. It is a good idea to introduce the simple idea of ‘the arrow and the cloud’ to describe how teams provide direction for communities and how communities can support team (see Figure 1 below).
The arrow represents projects that must be completed by a specific date and that must deliver a specific outcome. A successful project has a clear direction and definite deadlines to meet. Most organisations focus their resources on the arrow.
The cloud represents a community of practice. It is more interested in the learning journey than the destination. Outcomes are less clear. Although the arrow and the cloud are quite different organisational entities, one informs the other.
For example, every project invariably faces challenges and problems that must be overcome. If the project team knows that a community of practice exists within the organisation, the team can pose questions to this community—which represents a network of experts and expertise. Moreover, by receiving ‘real-world’ problems from a ‘real-world’ project team, the community of practice can focus its efforts on a subject that is valued by the organisation. Communities of practice can inform project teams by briefing them on new thinking, models, and tools relevant to the project.
However, a balance must be struck—too much direction from project teams or other management teams can result in the a community resisting such direction, and, at worst, disbanding its activities altogether. The key to the ‘arrow’ and the ‘cloud’ working together is that each must be aware of the existence of the other—ideally, project-team members should also be community members, and vice versa.
Three Traps to Avoid
Although the guidance provided above appears to have a bias towards an organic, undirected, and ‘bottom–up’ technique, it is also important to incorporate other approaches if common mistakes are to be avoided. Here are some hints on avoiding three common ‘traps’.
  • Although it is important to identify existing communities, a successful program must also gain support from the most senior business leader who is willing to participate. One approach is to get senior people active by inviting them to chair community review boards or practice review boards.
  • Although each community will invest its own time and energy to sustain the group, a successful program requires the provision of real resources in terms of budget and time. Such a commitment of resources demonstrates to the wider organisation (and to those participating in the group) that the community is truly valued.
  • Although a community of practice is an effective organisational form for managing tacit knowledge, a community-of-practice initiative is more likely to be successful if it begins with the organisation providing overt content that can be discussed, shared, and improved.
Summary and Next Steps
Organisations are becoming more complex, and the pace of change is accelerating. Employees come and go more frequently. And there is a growing reliance on tacit knowledge as a competitive advantage. Faced with these realities, organisations have been forced to adapt their organisational forms to avoid having their knowledgeable employees leave with no-one capable of taking their places until new employees get ‘up to speed’. Such a loss of tacit knowledge exposes organisations to significant risks.
Communities of practice offer an effective and flexible approach to the difficult task of managing tacit knowledge. This is not achieved by command and control, or by embarking on a program of converting tacit knowledge to overt knowledge that can be stored in a database. Rather, the approach proceeds by fostering the collaborative efforts that already exist in the organisation, and by providing the support that nurtures this new organisational form.
Community mapping is an important first step in developing a program of activities. This identifies the myriad communities that already exist in the organisation. In addition, a business case for such a community should be built, and the value of communities of practice should be communicated to senior leaders, middle managers, and potential participants in the community. With these foundations in place, a wider program can then be developed. 


Source:leader-values.com