Working Smarter, Jay's new book project

[Jay Cross]

I've started work on a new book, tentatively titled: Working Smarter, Corporate learning in the network Era. Here's the jist:

In the network era, learning is the work. It is the survival skill and the key to prosperity. This book advocates investing in learning that demonstrably improves organizational performance. Pragmatic and grounded in experience, this is a re-think of how organizational learning can increase profits, spur innovation, and help businesses prosper.

This is a book for managers about applying common sense to build a workforce that improves performance naturally, without prodding. It’s about eliminating training bureaucracy and sacred cows that have failed to keep pace with the times. It’s a new way of looking at how people become competent in their work and fulfilled in their professional lives.

In today’s volatile, unpredictable times, learning is the key to corporate responsiveness and survival. While learning is ascendent, training is in decline, for workers are embracing self-service learning; they learn in the context of work, not at some training event divorced from work.

Learning and development professionals won’t like this book. It explodes too many myths; it declares training departments obsolete; it deals only with learning that improves organizational performance.

Learning is not schooling. Quite the contrary, the learning we propose does away with instructors, classrooms, report cards, and graduation. In the new business learning, everyone is a teacher, the workplace is our classroom, on-job performance is the measure of success, and learning continues throughout one’s career.

Embedding learning in work reduces overall spending while improving performance. Abandoning obsolete notions of training cuts costs. Relying on natural, peer-based learning improves business results.

From there I plan to show that not all investment in learning yield equal results. In fact, it's possible to spend less and receive more by placing an organization's bets on learning wisely.

The bottom line is business results, not the silly levels trainers fixate on.

The advent of knowledge work and the ever faster pace of the pendulum of business mandate a new approach to instructional design. Instead of training programs, we must build learning ecosystems. Sound ecosystems are constructed on notions of how people learn to deal with uncertainty; many of the rules are clear -- we've just got to back free of the constrains of our prior thinking in order to put them to work.

I plan to address change management, integration with work, breadth of coverage, talent development, internal marketing, internet culture, corporate culture, and internal community development.

If there is sufficient interest, I'll be happy to share my progress with the community here.

[John]

Jay - Working for a fast growing business and technology advisory firm I find your points right on. Looking forward to reading more from you. You are on to something here.

[Loretta Donovan]

Jay,

This has been my great interest all along - thus my firm's name: Worksmarts Group. We certainly agree on one thing:
"Learning and development professionals won’t like this book. It explodes too many myths; it declares training departments obsolete; it deals only with learning that improves organizational performance."
What I'm finding though is that too many traditional HR operations are threatened by learning and OD pros who push those traditional boundaries and foster a culture of continuous collaboration and learning. I am eager to partner with you on this in a significant way.

Loretta

[Jafra (Wael Al Saad)]

Hi Jay (and reader :) )

I am planing to leave Germany and retrun home (Jenin/Palestine). I have a big idea for the region and looking for resources and support to make it concrete. People in my region have huge unused natural (rural, land, animal) resrouces which are not considered by the traditional market industry.
My idea is create a network of ecological smart production network run by and for the community participating within the production line considering all value-chain and Smart Collaboration methodologies . The network will have its own currency-system. The tunr over will be used to construct education/medical/entertainment - infrastructure beside each production node (optimzation of travel time). Etc.

From what I know "working smarter" sound something relevent for high-tech industry and "civilized" Managment types. When you say "internal community development"; will your work consider the indegious and rural production/industry systems ?

[Jay Cross]

Jafra, I think the principles I espouse are relevant but what you are proposing goes beyond my areas of expertise.

Good luck! It sounds like a very worthy endeavor.

[Jafra (Wael Al Saad)]

I've stumpelled upon this productivity 2.0 post
http://zenhabits.net/2008/10/productivity-20-how-the-new-rules-of-w...

I like it very much .. it is very smart way to think about productivity with joy and freedom

[Robert Panetti]

Sounds like a very timely tome...

I get the philosophy and you're right about the old-school (no pun intended) L&D people being scared, but how do you build these ecosystems?

[Jafra (Wael Al Saad)]

how do you build these ecosystems?

socio-economic ecosystems are instinctive human necessity. Those who need these systems will build them together. My task will be to convince the people with these systems, and their value, giving examples of their infrastructure, beside finding the network which support such an approach.

The good thing, these systems have existed in our indigenous Communities till the mid of last century, which means we have positive socio-ecological living experience and a story can be toled. The traditional market, formal corrupting politics and "modern civilization" brought these systems to collapse.

Politics, especially the post-colonial, in my home land -Palestine- has divided the society (which is under military occupation and dominance of Israel). It has contributed consciously or unconsciously on the socio-economical collapse. Palestinian traditional politics focused on external elements and international laws to advocate our rights (State, Jerusalem as "capital", return of refugees, ..) without giving attention to socio-economical structure.
Take in consideration that our nation is distributed around the world since its displacement with the creation of Israel 1948. Since 1967 Palestinian in WestBank and Gaza are under Israeli occupation and dominance. Those living aboard are not allow to return in order to save the Jewishness of the Israeli state.
Sorry for including all of this side information, but I am writing all of this to highlight the meaning of new social-economic ecosystem all Palestinian can contribute to in the era of open world and emerging perception for a nation was never able to build it self.
My massage will be, Building a state without building the society every where and every time is a mere post-colonial act, where a minority is trying to rule and control a majority.

Today's informal world, science and technology provide solutions for developing broad socio-economical ecosystems . The effected people in rural areas may not aware about them and just consume what the formal world is providing them.
All of us know, that the game rules can and should be changed or even are changing at many places in order to spread hope and enthusiasm for a world works for all, so that I can say; In my mission I will be part of billion strong team is forming and building new world.

My critique to most of intellectuals and academics that they know more than enough and have wrote enough great books, but the social reality still far from theory or imaginations. We need more efforts in the praxis than in mere academic debates. Thats what I have decided to commit to by returning to build my local social ecological embedded economy.

To start I am looking for professional partners especially from web and visualization field to help creating a living "seed"-outline of the project of change I am intending to. The rest will evolve by self-dynamic of "seed"-intelligence.
Actually I need also protection as i am afraid many will not be happy to see positive change in that area of the world, a change which will encounter their existing interests.

[Dennis Callahan]

I’m interested in hearing about your progress. I try to influence many of the ideas that you have below (on a smaller scale) and I’m interested in hearing more.

A couple of quick thoughts:

Based on your high level overview, some of this sounds geared towards learning and development types rather than managers. For example:

Title – “Working Smarter, Corporate learning in the network Era” makes me think of Training and Development. What about something like “Working Smarter, building learning ecosystems for improved organizational performance” or something similar. This might resonate better with managers?

Language - evaluation levels, new approach to instructional design.

Thanks for sharing!
Dennis

[Jay Cross]

Dennis, you raise an excellent point. It's performance, performance, performance, and so tough to break out of the learning mind-set. I've scrapped some of my previous writing on this one for precisely that reason, so it's two steps forward and one step back.

I may reach out to you as a sounding board when I have a viable draft together, Dennis.

jay

[Dennis Callahan]

As a learning and development type, I've been slowly adjusting over the past few year. I've been supporting the business group responsible for profit/loss over the past few years which has given me a "behind the scenes" look at what really matters (at least to my customers). So, I've been doing the dance too and am constantly moving forward.

I'd be glad to help.

Dennis

[Jafra (Wael Al Saad)]

Dennis,

I stopped @ "organizational performance".
Manager attend to willing to "organize" every thing, which is in my eyes an old school approach. I would suggest instead "functional performance". To get things done/performed often you just need to arrange the space for it > check "world cafe" or "open space" for example

[Jay Cross]

Jerkface, uh, I mean Jordan, do you really expect to sell shoes by spamming a site like this? Wake up and smell the coffee.