Why information overload is good for me

Wikipedia defines knowledge worker as one who uses “research skills to define problems and to identify alternatives. Fueled by their expertise and insight, they work to solve those problems, in an effort to influence company decisions, priorities and strategies.” We can’t define these problems, if we don’t have information. Hence the term knowledge worker.

As a young grad student, I learned quickly that information came through books, and peer reviewed journals and articles, which I diligently read. Email was just chatter to get through the daily mill of little things, and the less time I spent on email, the better.

This has changed.

Today, a good bit of my information comes through informal conversations, email, blog posts, twitter, RSS feeds, and such. In order to keep up, I need to view these, not as getting in the way of work, but enabling work. I have learned to quickly glean through what is coming my way, to find my nuggets. I have also learned not to sweat what I miss.

If I do unto others, as I would like others to do unto me: my mantra is no longer “prune the email cc list, and don’t spam everyone”. Today’s mantra is “improve the email’s subject line, and send it to more people”.

Uncertainty, Fear, and Our Response

Since the Great Recession we’ve seen mass layoffs followed by weak rehiring. We’re now seeing possible renewed layoffs in response to the latest indications of a slowdown in the recovery. Government programs are being cut as well.

Two recent news items, although unrelated to each other, highlighted to me different ways organizations can respond to the extreme uncertainty of the world economy today. One, with a bias to thoughtful action. The other, not so much.

The first is Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s open letter saying that rather than feed the cycle of fear by announcing layoffs, Starbucks would instead pledge to hire – “to accelerate growth, employment, and investment in jobs.” This is what most agree is needed to return to and sustain an economic recovery.

The second is about the plan to shut down the “Statistical Abstract of the United States.” This is produced by the Census Board and is an incredibly valuable source of data, used by a wide variety of organizations. The savings? $2.9 million, but the cost to consumers of this data (i.e. our economy) could quite easily be a very large multiple of that purported savings as they have to either find all that data themselves or contract with someone who will.

So, two responses to current conditions.

In one, the harsh reality is acknowledged, but the plan of action is to create positive change (i.e. Leadership.) In the other, a cut is made under the guise of “we must find every way possible to become more efficient.”

Whatever you think of Starbucks and what it may symbolize to you, the hiring pledge is saying, “We do not have to resort to layoffs in response to economic uncertainty – in fact, it’s harmful to the economy as a whole.” It’s saying there are other ways to keep the business viable in tough times. Time will tell if the pledge will be upheld and how well those other measures work.

Whatever your politics and whatever you think of government programs and whether any can provide value comparable to a private venture, the prioritization of efficiency over effectiveness represents a ham-handed approach to cost-cutting. Just as you should always examine the return gained by the next incremental dollar(s) spent when comparing investments, so you should examine the return loss (if any) that results from the next incremental dollar(s) cut.

In the end, we can choose our response to uncertainty. We can take positive steps to make the situation better the best we know how, or we can say our hands are tied and watch value burn down.

You can have your voice heard in saving the Abstract  here or by writing to ACSD.US.Data at census dot gov.

Be careful of Social Cargo Cults!

“When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer.”

- Superstition, by Stevie Wonder

We’re seeing rapidly increasing adoption of social business technologies by more and more companies. Not just Social CRM, which has been out for a while, but now the internal adoption of these technologies as well, to help with collaboration, information sharing, innovation, and so on.

The temptation is to rush in so that you don’t fall behind your competition that is already using these technologies. But before you do that, take some time to think about what you’re really trying to achieve.

Field of Dreams?

A too-common approach for internal social business roll-out is “Build it and they will come.” That is, no real specific purpose is outlined, other than, “These tools will help you collaborate, so go forth and collaborate!” The company then hopes that employees will join in, productivity will increase, innovations will grow, etc. The trouble with this is that it will very likely result in disappointment, both for the company as well as the employees.

Why? It’s because this is the “Social Cargo Cult” approach.* Companies hear about their competition using social technologies internally, they see their competition doing well or better than they are, they hear success stories around social business, and they conclude, “We must use social as well!” But they don’t understand why.

So what to do to avoid this problem? First, come up with a specific purpose or objective you think can be achieved through the usage of social technologies within your company. This purpose becomes your testable hypothesis upon which you will build a better understanding going forward of what social technologies can do to help your business and how to best use them. You need to determine if you are getting a positive result from using social technologies (i.e. “moving the needle.”)

For example, you could target faster project completion times as the benefit. You may only be able to estimate what the improvement in completion times were, but it can be done and it will give you at least some understanding of whether there was a benefit and how much. You might target an improvement in product quality, problem turnaround time, design revisions, etc. The point is identify something where a result can be measured and compared with some degree of confidence.

Now that you have a targeted measure you’ve identified, you’ll want to communicate that to everyone involved as well. Why? Because you want the people you are trying to get to participate to understand the expected benefit. If they don’t respond or they drop out, then you can take that fact as a hint that either the benefit doesn’t motivate them to participate or that the technologies are not delivering on the anticipated benefit. Either way, you are getting information that you can operate on, so rethink what the benefit is, your use of the technology, or both.

Is this Heaven?

To sum up, defining the purpose that drives your use of social technologies both provides you with a measure of whether it’s working as well as a reason for people to participate. And if either of these things aren’t happening, you can try something different and test it out. Without it, you are left with just hoping that good things will happen, as if by magic.

* “Cargo Cult” refers to a social science phenomenon where isolated cultures have been exposed suddenly to advanced technologies that provide some kind of benefit to them (usually as a side-effect.) The culture cannot grasp all the complexities involved and they end up doing what most humans do – they conclude that the attributes they observe are the key factors that drive resulting benefits. They then attempt to recreate those observable attributes themselves to obtain the same benefits, but to no avail; they did not fulfill all the right requirements sufficiently to get the desired results.

If you want to improve Leadership, read these posts

So let’s start from the succinct definition, via Seth Godin, of Leadership as: “the ability to create positive change.”  Well, the last few weeks have been exceptionally disappointing then, if you were looking for leadership from figures in power, both public and private.

What can we do? We can be resilient and work at developing leadership, for which Dan McCarthy’s Leadership Development Carnival, this month hosted by the inimitable Jason Seiden, has itself demonstrated that very definition.

Jason has assembled an excellent collection of over 40 posts submitted from a wide variety of sources, all towards the goal of helping you build leadership and be a better leader. He read each one and has written a brief introduction to each to help you focus on the ones that could best assist you.

That’s still a lot of posts to digest, and while they are all excellent (I read them all as well), I’ve selected a few that struck me as being especially insightful, new in perspective, or inspiring. If you’d like, start with these, and then continue on with the rest. I normally try to get to five, but these ten stood out:

1. Adi Gaskell’s Is your chief exec suffering from the God Complex? | Chartered Management Institute. This applies to all leaders at all levels, so don’t let the title trigger the cynic in you (i.e. “Show me one who doesn’t!”) The excellent Tim Harford’s TED talk applies to each and every one of us -  gods only exist if they have worshippers. You already know how much importance I put on the “how” of thinking vs. the “what.” This supports that notion (although it needs to be tested, if you get my drift.)

2. Jason Seiden’s 4 Ways to Become a More Emotionally Mature Leader. Our emotions influence our thinking to an extent more than we’d care to admit and we’re less able to shut them off than we’d care to admit as well. The good news is that it’s okay; it’s more about understanding our emotions and how to handle their influence that really matters. In the end, it will enrich our lives as well as those of others.

3. Linda Fisher Thornton’s Ethical Leadership Context. The effort in thinking the ethical context is key here. It’s so easy to just say, “Profit” or “Shareholder Value” are all that matter, but that’s the God Complex again, claiming in the face of the incredible complexity of today’s world that There is Only One Answer and I Know It.

4. S. Chris Edmonds’ The Five Disciplines of Servant Leadership. The word “Servant” is a turn-off for many, which is too bad. These principles are key if a leader wants to see positive change actually happen.

5. Miki Saxon’s Ducks In a Row: Who Cares? A classic example of one of Jason’s favorite (and my) cognitive biases – the Fundamental Attribution Error (i.e. Self-Deception, etc.) “It’s them, not me.” The God Complex has its roots in this as well.

6. Amy Wilson’s Why Business Leaders Should Conduct Talent Reviews. An excellent, concrete example of really creating (and achieving) positive change through a practical tool that should be used more frequently in organizations.

7. Michael Cardus’s Yearly Performance Reviews SUCK! Managers Can Change That. Another example of creating positive change by simply viewing differently what is frequently a loathed process.

8. Dan McCarthy’s Which Change Model Should You Pick? Solid, practical advice on which of the many change models available you should consider in order to enact positive change.

9. Michael Lee Stallard’s Starbucks’ CEO’s Broken Heart. A seriously moving example of how leaders can accept our emotional nature in a mature way and as a result, be honest and true to ourselves and others.

10. Bret L. Simmons’ The Most Important Social Business Metrics. Of course, I had to include this post in that it helps you focus on what measures you need to keep an eye on if you are looking to see if your social business efforts are creating positive change.

Finally, our own Sri Subramanian has written a series of five superb posts that focus on the particular needs/challenges of technical folks who are looking to develop themselves as leaders. Her guidance is geared to the technologist’s typical pitfalls, mindset, etc. but they still apply in many ways to the broader populace. These posts have received huge accolades, so check them out, especially if you have had challenges in the technical leadership area (a very common circumstance):

·         Technical Leadership – An Introduction

·         Technical Leadership – The First Transition

·         Technical Leadership – The Leadership Transition

·         Technical Leadership – Impacting The Customer Experience

·         Technical Leadership: The Technologist

Technical Leadership: The Technologist

In Technical Leadership – An Introduction, I talk about how growth is associated with doing different things, and not necessarily doing more. The first change is the transformation into an independent problem solver. The second and third changes are about understanding keizen (改善). The final transition into a technologist involves:

• Looking beyond what the customer asks for, to what the customer is trying to achieve. Maybe, the customer asked for a stain remover for ink that leaks from their ink pen onto their shirt pocket. Maybe, we give them a ball point pen that does not leak ink.
• Understanding what the customer doesn’t know she wants, and providing it. This almost always leads to disruptive technology, and new markets. Almost all established markets started this way, including personal computers, light bulbs, cars, fridges, microwaves, telephones, televisions, social networks, search engines, and so on. Before these existed, we did not know we needed a car, a telephone, or a search engine.

Being a technologist is not just about pushing the envelop of technology, but also about identifying a real problems that can be solved through innovative use of these technological advancements. Post-it was invented by two people – one who happened to invent a glue that does not stick, and one who found the killer use for it. Both of them are scientists, but it is the latter’s skill that is not easily learned by going to school.The two previous transitions taught us to identify real problems, and then solve them, which is what makes those transitions crucial on the path to this coming of age as a technologist.

Thanks for reading my posts on this topic. I am overwhelmed by the responses I got, privately and in the posts!