I have mentioned the same subject in my previous write-up. Talking about our concern and our influence. Both carry different meaning and of course it will reflect two or more different outcome. I believe this is important particularly we in Malaysia- as Malaysian.
It is well known that when we have a kopitiam session, be it with our relatives, friends, neighbours, or in our corporate environment; our working colleagues. Most of the time spent on discussing subject which if not more, a little concern or interest to both parties. It normally starts with certain article or subject highlighted in daily newspaper or other media (not exceptional - from the popular blogs!). Example, serious conversation about the recent EURO Football results which we know we cannot do anything to influence the game or even to influence their fan club in local country. We also talk about national issues, politics, community issues which in the end, we knew we do not have high influence to change or to improve. I a way it is good topic to discuss rather than nothing to talk! Some of you might or might not agree with this.
However, to be highly effective people, while expanding our circle of concern, we should focus on what we can do to improve further. Means, what level of influence we currently have and what level of influence we must gain in order to improve results, situation, relationship or other positive behaviour of our own, team, community etc.
Identify our circle of inluence now.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Think before you throw!
I used to work with one of Malaysia's Solid Waste Management Company, The largest Solid Waste Management Concession holder untill today. I'm interested to quote on one of the popular tag called " Think before you throw!" This will discourage people to simply throw rubbish anywhere they want.
This also applies in our daily life. Means, we must think before we do anything, before we take any actions, before we react, or before we tak any response on certain consequences. In a normal situation, we do not have such problem to think first before we 'throw'. However, given a certain degree of pressures, emotions or other related parties' urgency, we might fall into a 'throw later think' syndrom!
To avoid from being trapped with the 'throw later think' situation, one must be able control his/her emotion at any time, and to control emotion requires passion. Surely this is not a brain job. It is a combine heart and minds job. Scientifically, we shall be guided with multi-intelligence; This is where the IQ,EQ,SQ,PQ and UQ applies in our life.
My point is, to avoid 'throw later think' trap, we shall now start building our muscle in the area of IQ,EQ,SQ,PQ and UQ. I will explain more of the ..Q in the near future.
This also applies in our daily life. Means, we must think before we do anything, before we take any actions, before we react, or before we tak any response on certain consequences. In a normal situation, we do not have such problem to think first before we 'throw'. However, given a certain degree of pressures, emotions or other related parties' urgency, we might fall into a 'throw later think' syndrom!
To avoid from being trapped with the 'throw later think' situation, one must be able control his/her emotion at any time, and to control emotion requires passion. Surely this is not a brain job. It is a combine heart and minds job. Scientifically, we shall be guided with multi-intelligence; This is where the IQ,EQ,SQ,PQ and UQ applies in our life.
My point is, to avoid 'throw later think' trap, we shall now start building our muscle in the area of IQ,EQ,SQ,PQ and UQ. I will explain more of the ..Q in the near future.
Expanding "Thinkers" (My Blog name) scope!
As Stephen Covey wrotes in his decade's popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, to be effective, one must work on the circle of influence, and to expand the circle of concern.
The same goes to this blog. Previously, most of the articles posted were from other authors or contributors. Those articles chosed based on my circle of concern! No doubt they are all excellent articles and lots of lesson learned. Yes, I will continue posting (with author's consent - express or implied)good articles as usual.
Now is the time for me to directly contribute to 'write', to share my thought, my concern, my experience and others as well, nothing more than to expand our circle of concern. I believe as an individual, we are all unique in nature.
The same goes to this blog. Previously, most of the articles posted were from other authors or contributors. Those articles chosed based on my circle of concern! No doubt they are all excellent articles and lots of lesson learned. Yes, I will continue posting (with author's consent - express or implied)good articles as usual.
Now is the time for me to directly contribute to 'write', to share my thought, my concern, my experience and others as well, nothing more than to expand our circle of concern. I believe as an individual, we are all unique in nature.
The Journey begin
I intend to share and write my ideas many times since my early adulthood. Well, not as serious as to be a full journalist. At least, to be able to write from my heart to what I want to 'book' or share my thought to others. Not now, may be later.
I believe, as a novice, I keep on fighting with my level of confidence due to my lack in writing, Be it in Bahasa or English. Untill someone discover 'blogs' as a practical and unique platform for rookie writers like me. That's why I name my first topic as above "The journey begin". From now on, I will continue write and share my thought as and when I feel it is necessary for others to share and view their thought as well.
I believe, as a novice, I keep on fighting with my level of confidence due to my lack in writing, Be it in Bahasa or English. Untill someone discover 'blogs' as a practical and unique platform for rookie writers like me. That's why I name my first topic as above "The journey begin". From now on, I will continue write and share my thought as and when I feel it is necessary for others to share and view their thought as well.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Knowledge Management & Manage Knowledgement
Comment by Michele Martin:
Ross Mayfield has an excellent post on using wikis for teambuilding that also has some interesting discussion of what he sees as a dichotomy between “Knowledge Management” and Manage Knowledgement”:
Manage Knowledgement is a way of describing KM that’s backwards but works. With KM, users were supposed to fill out forms as a side activity to extract their tacit knowledge. Then some form of artificial intelligence would extract value. Turns out, users resisted and the algorithms didn’t match reality. With MK, through blogs and wikis, the principle activity is sharing, driven by social incentives. Contribution is simple and unstructured, isn’t a side activity and there is permission to participate. Intelligence is provided by participants, both through the act of sharing and simply leaving behind breadcrumbs of attention.
This is a more organic approach to managing and sharing knowledge that I think is centered in how people really work, as opposed to artificial constructs. That’s not to say that there still isn’t something artificial about blogs and wikis in some sense, but I think they lend themselves to our more social natures, capitalizing on our uses of social currency. I’m not aware of any “knowledge management” systems (with a capital KM) that sprang up on their own, nor am I aware of droves of people wanting to participate in KM systems just for the fun of it. The growth of social media outside of any corporate mandates, the fact that people are using these tools “under the radar,” suggests to me that they are already better-suited in many ways to human interaction than previous KM systems might have been.
Of course, within this new paradigm of sharing knowledge people need to not only learn the specific technology skills associated with these tools, but they also have to learn new processes. For example, as Ross points out, when we begin using social media tools, we have to have conversations about how to make the best uses of them:
Simple conversations occur that lead to simple agreements like “let’s use these four tags, for these four kinds of information — and lets agree to pay attention to pages and posts with this tag on a daily basis.” While it seems mundane at first, the team not only develops a shared language, but a way of working with it.
We can see, then, that we have two very different sets of literacies that need to be developed–the technological skills to be able to edit a wiki or comment on a blog post, but also the people/process skills necessary to negotiate the kinds of tags you’ll share or to write a blog post that effectively summarizes what you learned at a conference. This is what makes developing new work literacies difficult for many people, I think–it’s asking us to combine technology and people skills in ways that can be challenging to those of us who may have tended to specialize in one or the other. There’s an even greater integration of people and technology skills than we may have experienced before
Ross Mayfield has an excellent post on using wikis for teambuilding that also has some interesting discussion of what he sees as a dichotomy between “Knowledge Management” and Manage Knowledgement”:
Manage Knowledgement is a way of describing KM that’s backwards but works. With KM, users were supposed to fill out forms as a side activity to extract their tacit knowledge. Then some form of artificial intelligence would extract value. Turns out, users resisted and the algorithms didn’t match reality. With MK, through blogs and wikis, the principle activity is sharing, driven by social incentives. Contribution is simple and unstructured, isn’t a side activity and there is permission to participate. Intelligence is provided by participants, both through the act of sharing and simply leaving behind breadcrumbs of attention.
This is a more organic approach to managing and sharing knowledge that I think is centered in how people really work, as opposed to artificial constructs. That’s not to say that there still isn’t something artificial about blogs and wikis in some sense, but I think they lend themselves to our more social natures, capitalizing on our uses of social currency. I’m not aware of any “knowledge management” systems (with a capital KM) that sprang up on their own, nor am I aware of droves of people wanting to participate in KM systems just for the fun of it. The growth of social media outside of any corporate mandates, the fact that people are using these tools “under the radar,” suggests to me that they are already better-suited in many ways to human interaction than previous KM systems might have been.
Of course, within this new paradigm of sharing knowledge people need to not only learn the specific technology skills associated with these tools, but they also have to learn new processes. For example, as Ross points out, when we begin using social media tools, we have to have conversations about how to make the best uses of them:
Simple conversations occur that lead to simple agreements like “let’s use these four tags, for these four kinds of information — and lets agree to pay attention to pages and posts with this tag on a daily basis.” While it seems mundane at first, the team not only develops a shared language, but a way of working with it.
We can see, then, that we have two very different sets of literacies that need to be developed–the technological skills to be able to edit a wiki or comment on a blog post, but also the people/process skills necessary to negotiate the kinds of tags you’ll share or to write a blog post that effectively summarizes what you learned at a conference. This is what makes developing new work literacies difficult for many people, I think–it’s asking us to combine technology and people skills in ways that can be challenging to those of us who may have tended to specialize in one or the other. There’s an even greater integration of people and technology skills than we may have experienced before
Changing Knowledge Worker Attitudes
Comment by Michele Martin;
I commented on Tony’s post re: how growth and learning are happening at a slower pace than business needs that part of the problem from my perspective is that many knowledge workers regard training and professional development as the responsibility of the organization, not their own, particularly once they’ve completed their initial education for their occupation. Having heard too many times, “I’d do X, but the company hasn’t trained me on it yet,” I believe a fundamental change of attitude is in order.
This is something I’ve written about previously on my blog in a post called Who’s in Charge of Learning? Here’s some of what I wrote:
In a knowledge economy, knowledge and information is power. The more you know, the more you can do with it, the more marketable you are. You can’t AFFORD to let an organization tell you what you should be learning–too many organizations, businesses and nonprofits alike, are so busy struggling for survival that they aren’t even sure what needs to be learned anyway. All of a sudden they look up one day and say “Oh no–we need people who can do X or Y.” Waiting for someone else to tell you what you should learn is a sure ticket to the unemployment line.
I think we’re operating from old knowledge and learning paradigms that developed in an industrial age when companies owned the means of production. As a worker, you couldn’t make a living if you didn’t have access to the (expensive) machinery owned by the company. So you waited for the company to tell you what you should learn–they knew best. But now, WE own the means of production–it’s in our heads. It’s what we know and can do. Do we really want to turn that over to the organization to decide? Or do we want to be the people who say “I’m going to take charge of my own learning. I’m going to be curious and pay attention to what’s changing and where things are going and I’m going to pro-actively prepare myself for those things, regardless of whether or not the organization tells me I need to learn this.”
To me, this is really why personal learning and creating a personal learning environment is so critically necessary. I don’t believe that we can rely on the organizations that employ us to drive what we learn. Yes, we need to be responsive to what they need us to know–we need to attend the trainings our bosses suggest, etc. But as individual workers, I don’t believe that we can afford to wait around for someone else to tell us what to learn. We shouldn’t be waiting to receive permission or be empowered. We should be seizing that power and doing everything with it that we can. Our knowledge and skills are the only “job security we have.” And we’ve seen time and time again what happens when we turn over job security to someone else.
This is something I passionately believe. Yes, organizations need to provide staff development. But if we rely on organizations to do all of it, then when we end up unemployed, we have only ourselves to blame. I also think that this attitude makes organizations less adaptable and creative.
In response to my comment on his post, Tony asked what we can do to begin changing this culture of disempowerment. I believe that we have to start with making people conscious of the fact that they own the most precious resource in just about any organization today–the power of their ideas, social connections and thought processes. In a connected age, turning over the development of these things to an organization is not only foolish, but dangerous, in part because the very nature of the wirerarchy is for the power to be in the nodes, in each of us individually. There will be no further development if control is centralized; growth flourishes when we all take responsibility for our own nodes and connections.
As part of this issue of taking responsibility for professional development, I think there’s a larger issue of people managing their own careers differently. This is where I think Dan Pink’s ideas on how we pursue professional development have some real merit. In a nutshell, they are:
There is no career plan–you can’t truly anticipate where things are going to go. There is only a way of pursuing a career. Therefore you need to make choices about your career and what you do based on their intrinsic value–because these activities will benefit you regardless of where they may lead.
Build on your strengths, not your weaknesses.
Improve your life by improving the lives of others (i.e., customers, your team, etc.). It’s about how you can add value to anything.
Persistence trumps talent. This also suggests that you can’t just rest on your laurels–you have to focus on continuous improvement.
Make excellent mistakes.
Leave an imprint. Make an impression.
That’s the start of my answer to what we can do to start changing attitudes and thinking differently. What ideas do you have?
I commented on Tony’s post re: how growth and learning are happening at a slower pace than business needs that part of the problem from my perspective is that many knowledge workers regard training and professional development as the responsibility of the organization, not their own, particularly once they’ve completed their initial education for their occupation. Having heard too many times, “I’d do X, but the company hasn’t trained me on it yet,” I believe a fundamental change of attitude is in order.
This is something I’ve written about previously on my blog in a post called Who’s in Charge of Learning? Here’s some of what I wrote:
In a knowledge economy, knowledge and information is power. The more you know, the more you can do with it, the more marketable you are. You can’t AFFORD to let an organization tell you what you should be learning–too many organizations, businesses and nonprofits alike, are so busy struggling for survival that they aren’t even sure what needs to be learned anyway. All of a sudden they look up one day and say “Oh no–we need people who can do X or Y.” Waiting for someone else to tell you what you should learn is a sure ticket to the unemployment line.
I think we’re operating from old knowledge and learning paradigms that developed in an industrial age when companies owned the means of production. As a worker, you couldn’t make a living if you didn’t have access to the (expensive) machinery owned by the company. So you waited for the company to tell you what you should learn–they knew best. But now, WE own the means of production–it’s in our heads. It’s what we know and can do. Do we really want to turn that over to the organization to decide? Or do we want to be the people who say “I’m going to take charge of my own learning. I’m going to be curious and pay attention to what’s changing and where things are going and I’m going to pro-actively prepare myself for those things, regardless of whether or not the organization tells me I need to learn this.”
To me, this is really why personal learning and creating a personal learning environment is so critically necessary. I don’t believe that we can rely on the organizations that employ us to drive what we learn. Yes, we need to be responsive to what they need us to know–we need to attend the trainings our bosses suggest, etc. But as individual workers, I don’t believe that we can afford to wait around for someone else to tell us what to learn. We shouldn’t be waiting to receive permission or be empowered. We should be seizing that power and doing everything with it that we can. Our knowledge and skills are the only “job security we have.” And we’ve seen time and time again what happens when we turn over job security to someone else.
This is something I passionately believe. Yes, organizations need to provide staff development. But if we rely on organizations to do all of it, then when we end up unemployed, we have only ourselves to blame. I also think that this attitude makes organizations less adaptable and creative.
In response to my comment on his post, Tony asked what we can do to begin changing this culture of disempowerment. I believe that we have to start with making people conscious of the fact that they own the most precious resource in just about any organization today–the power of their ideas, social connections and thought processes. In a connected age, turning over the development of these things to an organization is not only foolish, but dangerous, in part because the very nature of the wirerarchy is for the power to be in the nodes, in each of us individually. There will be no further development if control is centralized; growth flourishes when we all take responsibility for our own nodes and connections.
As part of this issue of taking responsibility for professional development, I think there’s a larger issue of people managing their own careers differently. This is where I think Dan Pink’s ideas on how we pursue professional development have some real merit. In a nutshell, they are:
There is no career plan–you can’t truly anticipate where things are going to go. There is only a way of pursuing a career. Therefore you need to make choices about your career and what you do based on their intrinsic value–because these activities will benefit you regardless of where they may lead.
Build on your strengths, not your weaknesses.
Improve your life by improving the lives of others (i.e., customers, your team, etc.). It’s about how you can add value to anything.
Persistence trumps talent. This also suggests that you can’t just rest on your laurels–you have to focus on continuous improvement.
Make excellent mistakes.
Leave an imprint. Make an impression.
That’s the start of my answer to what we can do to start changing attitudes and thinking differently. What ideas do you have?
Do your star performers see a reason to stay put?
Recruiters want your top people. And they know how to win them over.
They invite your best and brightest to break free of their current positions and conjure up visions of the work they’d love to be doing.
Harvard Management Update spoke to talent-management and retention experts for their advice for managers who want to let their direct reports know that their career aspirations are heard and valued.
Overcome the fear factor
Why do managers have such a hard time discussing career development? Usually, it’s ‘‘the fear factor”, says Maggie Sullivan, executive vice-president of a human resources consultancy in New Jersey.
Help them chart their career path
Before you initiate the first conversation, consider that many employees are not completely sure of what they want, says Timothy Butler, author of Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths (Harvard Business School Press, 2007) and director of career development programmes at Harvard . If you’re talking to a particularly talented and versatile member of your team, y ou can help her identify the most promising possibilities by asking questions such as:
n What assignments have you found most engaging?
Which of your accomplishments in the last six months made you proudest?
n What makes for a great day at work?
Make a plan
After you and an employee have identified one or two career targets, your conversations should focus on how to get him there.
Keep talking
Once you and your star employee have a plan, keep the conversation going.
Be frank and specific
Career development discussions can be uncomfortable when the manager points out the employee’s weaker areas. To keep the discussion focused and positive, cite specific examples.
Anne Field is a business writer based in New York — © (2008) New York Times
They invite your best and brightest to break free of their current positions and conjure up visions of the work they’d love to be doing.
Harvard Management Update spoke to talent-management and retention experts for their advice for managers who want to let their direct reports know that their career aspirations are heard and valued.
Overcome the fear factor
Why do managers have such a hard time discussing career development? Usually, it’s ‘‘the fear factor”, says Maggie Sullivan, executive vice-president of a human resources consultancy in New Jersey.
Help them chart their career path
Before you initiate the first conversation, consider that many employees are not completely sure of what they want, says Timothy Butler, author of Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths (Harvard Business School Press, 2007) and director of career development programmes at Harvard . If you’re talking to a particularly talented and versatile member of your team, y ou can help her identify the most promising possibilities by asking questions such as:
n What assignments have you found most engaging?
Which of your accomplishments in the last six months made you proudest?
n What makes for a great day at work?
Make a plan
After you and an employee have identified one or two career targets, your conversations should focus on how to get him there.
Keep talking
Once you and your star employee have a plan, keep the conversation going.
Be frank and specific
Career development discussions can be uncomfortable when the manager points out the employee’s weaker areas. To keep the discussion focused and positive, cite specific examples.
Anne Field is a business writer based in New York — © (2008) New York Times
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