Stories

Tag: network

  • Learning is in the network

    Learning is in the network

    “I knew them very well. That’s why it worked. Because we do work together.”

    We take responsibility for our own learning, yet keenly aware of the value for learning of engaging with others. It is when we find ourselves alone or isolated that we may best perceive the value of connecting with others for learning.

    One of the justifications for working in a silo is a very high level of specialization that requires being fully-focused on one’s own area of work – to the exclusion of others.

    We form networks of informal learning and collaboration in our team, with other departments in the headquarters, with the field, and with people and organizations outside the organization.

    Asking people is often faster than sifting through information.

    Technology facilitates building and sustaining small networks of trusted colleagues, large formal working groups, and more anonymous forms (mailing lists, discussion forums, etc.) that keep us connected.

    In our volatile working environment, what we know (usually thought of as content-based knowledge) is replaced with how we are connected to others. That is how we stay current and informed.

    Networks are a powerful problem-solving resource that people naturally turn to when they need help. We rely on small, trusted networks to accelerate problem-solving (learning).

    Photo: Door at base of silo (Astrid Westvang/flickr.com)

  • What is a connector?

    What is a connector?

    Where some believe that the value of their network is based on its exclusivity, connectors are people in the organization who have developed large networks of people and who see their role in introducing people in their network to each other.

    This connector role is closely related to the knowledge brokering process that recombines existing knowledge and facilitates knowledge transfer.

    The relationships leveraged by connectors may be personal or based on prior experience rather than ascribed to the current role, especially in the context of decentralization.

    Building a dense network of relationships is a prerequisite for the connector function. As connectors, we are empowered toward the collection vision in which can act as knowledge brokers to foster, replicate, scale, and harmonize innovation by National Societies.

    Photo: 6509s. A work in progress (Bob Mical/flickr.com)

  • What does it mean to broker knowledge in a network?

    What does it mean to broker knowledge in a network?

    Our network function requires that we interact with the network. We observe profound changes in the nature of knowledge, how it circulates, and this affects how we work (learn).

    Members in the network, too, have changed. We struggle to keep up with and adapt to these changes. In working with them, we prioritize results against their own expectations as well as those of donors and governments.

    Hence, it is difficult to justify learning approaches that take us away from such priorities. We wish for time after delivery to reflect on lessons learned, but such wishes may be swept away by the next urgent task.

    The alternative to this frustrating cycle of task delivery at the expense of reflection is to adopt a knowledge brokering approach. We broker knowledge when we link learning with innovation in the context of the long history of work done by the network.

    When trying to solve a difficult problem, especially in emergencies, our “fear of failure” drives speed and urgency in finding innovative solutions. We trade off certainty for speed. By contrast, in most of our work, “fear of failure” inhibits speed and risk-taking, as we seek to execute what has been previously established as normative. Therefore, innovation processes require different indicators and metrics than those of execution.

    Knowledge brokering provides a model for how we might be able to embed innovation and learning into work, by recombining our past and current knowledge, leveraging the old to do new things in new ways.

    The historical model is for the center (headquarters) to produce “trickle-down” knowledge to be consumed by the periphery (network), with feedback as an occasional and exceptional event. For example, even though we know the importance of currency, we wait years before we consider updating guidelines, because making knowledge current requires stopping other work and concerted effort that is difficult to organize and resource.

    This traditional model in which members of the network request assistance from headquarters becomes increasingly difficult to sustain when there is more knowledge and everything is faster, calling into question traditional models of expertise.

    When we look for commonalities between network members, we question our assumptions about how different they are. In our new role as knowledge brokers, by working with many in the network, we facilitate access to the ideas, artifacts, and people that reside within one member or domain yet may be valuable in others. From this existing knowledge (which also considers existing trainings, guidelines, and tools), we strive to discover new combinations and new ways to transfer experience. When nodes in the network are thus empowered to “do for themselves”, the nature of our expertise changes and we change too.

    If members do for themselves, what then is the role for those of us who work in headquarters?

    Reference: Hargadon, A.B., 2002. Brokering knowledge: Linking learning and innovation. Research in Organizational behavior 24, 41–85.

    Photo: Wire (Kendra/flickr.com)

  • How do we learn from the network?

    How do we learn from the network?

    When our organization’s hierarchy prohibits direct contact with the field, indirect and informal contact becomes more important than ever. Global and regional meetings, bilateral programmes, and various kinds of informal events provide opportunities for staying in touch. In fact, decentralization raises the stakes of informal and incidental learning – activities “flying under the radar” of decentralization’s hierarchical relationships may become the primary mode for learning about, with and for the field.

    How do we overcome barriers to learning from the network? First, when we reframe new ideas and possibilities, we ask how this aligns with the current characteristics of the nodes in the network (“the membership”). Second, we need to leverage continual learning to innovate, recombining and inventing new solutions (knowledge brokering). Third, we need to consider indicators other than the volume of programming, and consider how we can scale up quality.

    Photo: Danger of death (Lars Plougmann/flickr.com)

  • Know-where

    Know-where

    Six months after starting to develop LSi.io, I have 64 ongoing conversations with 150 interlocutors, connecting humanitarian and development learning leaders, Chief Learning Officers and academic researchers.

    Being independent has given me a unique vantage point from which to examine the humanitarian and development sector’s learning, education and training strategies. I believe that such perspective is indispensable if we are to give more than lip service to “cross-sector” approaches, in an extremely competitive industry faced with shrinking resources (think ECHO budget cuts) and growing needs (think climate change). And I’ve found learning leaders from our world to be a smart, thoughtful and active bunch, finely attuned to the sector’s changing landscape.

    I’ve also enjoyed profound and promising  discussions with CLOs from the corporate sector. One of the most humble I’ve met manages two large brick-and-mortar campuses, one in Asia and the other in Old Europe, running hundreds of courses and dozens of educational programs on twenty-first leadership, fueled by a vision of sustainability in a volatile world that goes beyond trite, wooden and hollow corporate social responsibility.