Organizational Serendipity

This is the follow-up site for participants in today's dialogs on informal learning.

Caution: Some of this material is controversial.

Catalysts to the discussion

Informal learning is the unplanned, "unauthorized" learning that generally flies under the corporate radar. It includes such things as swapping information in the office kitchen or hallway, asking the person in the next cubicle, calling the help desk, watching someone else, trial & error, and calling teammates. People learn most of what it takes to do their jobs informally. Can we afford to leave this up to chance? Today's session addressed how to take advantage of informal learning to improve the bottom line.

Complexity means that the world is more complicated than you thought and that you'll never have all the answers. Everything's connected and interacting. The future is unpredictable. Shit happens. Today's job is to solve the problems we're not yet aware of.

Standard problem-solving limits our perspective and buries good things that are not part of the solution to the problem at hand. David Cooperrider says, "Once we describe something as a problem, we assume that we know what the ideal is - what should be - and we go in search of ways to close any 'gaps' - not to expand our knwledge or to build better ideals." As Einstein said, "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them." ADDIE is dead.

Serendipity is a "happy accident." People can develop a state of mind that makes serendipity more likely, more frequent, and far more consequential. Fortune favors those who have a cause or mission and pursue it with sagacity, sensitivity, and wisdom. Applying this approach throughout an organization's culture prepares it to expect the unexpected, to notice what others miss, and to be receptive to impressions and intuitions.

Positive psychology posits that we should stop relying on what we've learned from the mentally ill when advising people who are mentally healthy. Better to look at what makes happy people happy. Take this approach organizationally and you get Cooperrider's Appreciate Inquiry.

Stories are a compelling way to share knowledge and learn informally. Stories are natural, entertaining, and engaging. When fully engaged, the readers' minds work in concert with the storyteller to focus entirely on generating the virtual world of the story. The power comes from propelling listeners to invent their own stories. Then they own the outcomes. "I liked the book better than the movie because the colors were better."

References

Internet Time Group -- Jay's main site and blog. See Informal Learning, the Other 80%. You'll can read my notes on most of the items below by using the Search function.

eLearning Forum, which you can join for free

Meta-Learning Lab, especially The Value of Learning About Learning

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving With Grace
by Gordon MacKenzie

Spiritual Serendipity: Cultivating and Celebrating the Art of the Unexpected
by Richard Eyre

The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations
by Stephen Denning
On the web: The Springboard

It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology, and Business
by Christopher Meyer, Stan Davis
On the web: It's Alive

The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change
by Diana Whitney, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, David Cooperrider
On the web: Appreciative Inquiry Commons

The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks
by Verna Allee
On the web: Verna Allee Associates

Authentic Happiness : Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
by Martin Seligman
On the web: Authentic Happiness

Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education
by Peter M. Senge
On the web: Dance of Change

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
by Steven Johnson
On the web: steveberlinjohnson.com

The Wisdom of Insecurity
by Alan Watts

Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training
by Karen Pryor

Emerging conclusions

• Start from strength, not from problems.
• Cultivate organizational serendipity.
• Co-create stories to change the culture.
• Fight bureaucracy creep and (of course) over-formalism.
• Be aware that the issue is not formal or informal; it's formal and informal.

I will post more after this afternoon's session.

Posted by Jay Cross at September 10, 2003 12:11 PM | TrackBack