Getting help with knowledge creation

I am frequently asked for (or I seek) feedback on created knowledge with friends and colleagues. Thinking more about the Knowledge Creation phases of Develop Knowledge and Produce Knowledge described in recent blogs, what kind of contribution is sought and needed?

Scenario 1:  CV writing

My friend Mary needed to update her CV. She knew it didn’t contain the words, content or structure that she thought it should have to be effective and get her a new job. She was stuck on what changes to make. She asked me to look at her CV and suggest changes to the document.

Was my contribution sought in Develop or Produce Knowledge phase?

Answer: Produce Knowledge phase.

The help I believe she really needed was in the Develop Knowledge phase. She didn’t know what she wanted to say about herself; forget what words we’d use on the page! It was not the best use of our time or efforts to sit with the MS Word document and edit it.

She is, of course, the source of much of the knowledge (history of her work experience, her description of her skill, and her aspirations for the future, etc.) that could be communicated through the CV but it was raw knowledge, half-baked and forming. She was having trouble getting it out of her head and making sense of it before we could shape it into words that could be used to help her get a new job. Words that might make it into the CV, but also to her LinkedIn profile; what she would say in a cover letter; or at the interview; or in general conversation with people about the work she was seeking.

Scenario 2: Proposal development

Charles was a post-grad student who wanted to become a consultant. I was his business mentor and we had started a journey because he had a good idea for a strategy piece of work for potential clients. I was going to help him find his first client to get himself work experience. He had drafted a Business Proposal for a piece of work with a potential client and asked for my feedback to finalise it.

Was my contribution sought in Develop or Produce Knowledge phase?

Answer: Produce Knowledge phase.

The help I believe he really needed was in the Develop Knowledge Phase. Never having been a consultant before, he had been struggling to keep the content of the Strategy he would produce, out of a Proposal to be engaged to produce the Strategy.

He had lots he wanted to say, and he wanted to show he knew lots of useful stuff but it was not relevant to product nor purpose of the Business *Proposal*. The content may be relevant to later activity, perhaps for an analysis or report.

I chose to treat his draft as a Developed document. I didn’t think the content was fundamentally right, so I focused on the ideas for (re)Development and ignored doing any Producing critique.

Scenario 3: Memorandum of Understanding collaboration

I was asked by the CEO to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between our organisation and an external organisation, as a pre-Joint Venture document. Having never written one like this before, I asked the company lawyer for guidance. He provided a couple of templates, plus an example of a finished one. I took the finished one and deleted text that wasn’t relevant, and inserted rough notes for additional content. This was really rough – and not in legalese which he said he would fix once we got input from the other organisation about what they wanted in the Memo.

I sent the document with a mix of rough and finished text to external organisation, with the intent of being collaborative and simply putting in indicative text to get a collective sense of what the content of the document needed to be. I did this purposefully as I wanted them to have a sense that they were equally contributing to the nature of the content. (Side note: There is an argument that the Lower the Fidelity of a piece of work, the more others will take ownership, plus be prepared to revise and delete aspects rather than simply refine what is there, particularly when deleting is more valid than compromising.)

Was I asking them to contribute in Develop or Produce phases?

Answer: Develop Knowledge phase.

I was seeking feedback on a Developed document. However the external organization gave it to their legal counsel who treated it like Producing phase. They refined all my rough notes into legalese and added their own polished content. While they acted graciously, I sensed judgement that we hadn’t been ‘serious’ in the quality of the content we sent. It was clear we were operating with different intent in the review process. I wondered what kind of quality of collaboration we might have had if we both had a sense of different phases in the knowledge creation process.

The Emerging Role of Synthesiser

As I reflect on these experiences, I see the potential of a role and skill set for people who can bridge the gap between the Develop and Produce phases. Someone who can take half-baked content and shape it into a workable draft. A Synthesiser: A mix of a ghost-writer, investigator, interviewer, critic, editor.

Here’s my wish list of the skills and qualities of a Synthesiser:

• Listening and asking questions
• Reading
• Thinking critically
• Collecting the fragments
• Processing
• Digesting, musing and reflecting
• Validating – with others; against a brief
• Structuring thoughts; writing outlines
• Researching for extra details
• Organising, sorting and ordering
• Connecting and linking
• Presenting in synthesised organised form(s)
• Having, using, and understanding a notation system that differentiates editorial review vs. content review.
• Abducting – thinking about what is possible and may not be naturally indicated by the existing thought provided

In the three scenarios outlined above, the role of a Synthesiser would have helped shape all the pieces of content, such that they could be ready for the Produce phase. A Synthesiser could have bridged the gap between Develop and Produce phases by asking questions to elicit fresh thought, thinking critically, digest and ultimately offering a structured response to elevate the initial piece of work into something better and richer.

Learnings from reflection

When I am asked to review material now, I have a quick scoping conversation to gauge and set expectations about the nature of my contribution. I seek to best serve the person requesting help, so the framework of the two phases of knowledge creation is a useful reference for both to use to reach a mutually satisfying agreement.

 

Helen Palmer is Founder of RHX Group, a boutique agency that partners with people who want to make change in how they work with information and knowledge.  She thinks critically about knowledge work, and how to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in making small changes that disrupt the way people think and what they do.

Exposing the design behind a new-style resume

Late in 2013, guest author to this blog Christoph Hewlett shared his thoughts on using a knowledge product I created: a new style resume.

In response to requests for insights about the WHAT and WHY of the resume design, I provide the following details.

The basic design

Resume is four pages; no more, no less.
Each page has specific content:
Page 1 – Contact details, Description, List of Key Skills or capabilities
Page 2 – Portfolio: List of selected items of work experience
Page 3 – Testimonials: Excerpts of recommendations that relate to the Portfolio items
Page 4 – Qualifications: list of selected items; Work history: Job Title, Organisation, Dates for all your working life

The order of the content

There is a logic in why the content is laid out in a particular order.

Page 1 is the page likely to get the most attention from your reader. Therefore it needs the most important information: how to get in contact with you; what to remember about you (you description should be memorable!); and the set of capabilities that make you useful and desirable.

Page 2 is a tailored list of things you have done, that show what you are capable of and which show you in your best light. This content differs than normal work history in a number of ways:
* You can include small items, e.g. An interesting blog post you wrote; a powerful introduction you facilitated; as well as large items, e.g. A project you managed.
* You can include old items, i.e. something you did 20 years ago, as well as recent items. Traditional resumes tend to drop off content that is not recent, i.e. last 5 years. This hides the fact that you have more experience that could be relevant or transferable than what you’ve done in the past 5 years.
* You can include extracurricular items that doesn’t have any place to go in the traditional resume because they aren’t related to a job, e.g. Social media activity; leadership in a professional association; or volunteer role.
* You can be specific and concrete, and mix activity with achievement or purpose – thus give more interesting and relevant information:
Compare “Managed large projects” with “Managed the ABC Project with $500K budget and team of 20 people, delivering on time and within budget.”
Compare “Made a blog” with “Designed, built and maintained professional blog with insights and inspiration for people  leading knowledge workers or doing knowledge work (https://rhxthinking.wordpress.com)”

Page 3 is content that provides ‘social proof’ about your experience and talents.
Some of the good things  said about you in the past, are still useful to your story even when you’ve lost contact with the person or they are not available to be a verbal referee.

Don’t leave your reader waiting to talk to referees to learn what others think about you! Provide this knowledge as soon as you can for the most positive effect.

Page 4 is the facts that need to be evident and can be checked out if necessary. This is typically not the content that is going to sway somebody towards favourably considering you – however, it’s due diligence that this information is available. The work history is downgraded content – this means presenting information in an order, where what you are capable of, is more important than the job titles you have held in organisations.

Content for the pages

A. Reuse content you have
For this new style of resume, you can reuse content from your traditional resume for Pages 1 and 4.

For Page 1 content, make sure you include ways to contact you in writing and in voice. If you have quality online profiles (e.g. LinkedIn), you could include a hyperlink.

Consider including a quality photograph.

Have a description that is more akin to a bio (though write it in first-person) and includes a sense of where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going.  For good advice, see article ‘Does your resume tell your story?’

Be memorable; be interesting.

For Page 4 content, include Qualifications or Certifications rather than listing courses you have been on. If you wish to promote the fact that you are continuing to learn – then add that content under the Skills section or a relevant item or two in the Portfolio section.

Keep the list relevant to the audience, so be prepared to adjust this content each time you use the resume. For example, your First Aid Certification is probably not so relevant if you are applying for a Leadership role.

B. Gather and Create content you need
For this new style of resume, you probably don’t have content ready to include on Page 2 and Page 3.

For Page 2 content look back over your work life; use your old resume as a prompter and compose a list (a looong list!) of work experience items. For examples of items, see a copy of one of my resumes (MS Word DOC).

Organise the items under headings that relate directly to the audience of your resume. Where your audience is a recruitment panel or HR personnel filtering applications in response to a job advert, use the headings from the Position Description.

Include hyperlinks to online examples, or reference material relating to the items.

I keep my lists of content on pages within a MS One Note notebook, in the right typeface and font size for me to simply cut-n-paste the items into the resume when it is being constructed. Here’s a screenshot of a page in the context of a notebook.

For Page 3 content you’ve got old content to reuse, and new content to get:
a) Look through old letters of Reference and review Recommendations that have been posted online; extract short excerpts that are relevant to reuse.  Don’t be afraid to cull words – though be sure to use conventions that show if you have edited someone else’s quote.

b) Ask people for Recommendations. Ask people from your past to provide relevant content. When you are finishing up a job or project, ask people to compose you a Recommendation.

To get better quality recommendations, read this blog post.

Whether it’s old or new content, all recommendations should support what you have chosen to include in the Portfolio section on page 2.

Supplementing the resume

Your resume is a marketing document for a target audience. It isn’t a record of all the details of your work history – keep that worthy information somewhere else. I use a MS OneNote notebook to store items for the Portfolio page and Testimonial page, as well as results from assessments I’ve done, bios I’ve written for myself, and reflections about work I’ve done. The image above gives you a taste of my collection.

Just one resume?

Above is the advice for a single resume. It is entirely possible that you have a suite of resumes, tailored to a different theme or focus.  I have 6 basic resumes: 5 follow the format above for the themes of Change Management, Enterprise Business Analysis, Learning & Development, Leadership, Information Management. The sixth resume is an Academic resume and conforms to expectations of the structure and content for Academia.

For each resume theme, I change the following:
The Description on Page 1
The order of the Skills on Page 1 (put the most relevant first)
The Portfolio headings and items on Page 2
The Testimonials on Page 3

My resumes get used as an Appendix in a Tender, as an Introduction to an Agent, and as an Application for a Vacant Position. For each of these situations I change the content to best address the anticipated needs of the audience.

 

If you are inspired to use this new design, let me know how it goes. Please share with me any ideas you have to extend and enhance the design.

 

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. She thinks critically about knowledge work, and how to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in making small changes that disrupt the way people think and what they do.  With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people and knowledge.

 

Me Inc. – A vocational adventure for the 21st century

Autonomy, or the condition of self-governing, is often associated with knowledge workers and knowledge work.  Typically autonomy is about how you DO your work. What if autonomy was about how you MANAGE yourself in relation to all your work? Enter the Me Incorporated (or Me Inc.) concept.

Essential to Me Inc. is the idea that you take the lead for your vocational adventure. It’s about you AT work, and you ABOUT work. It’s honouring the ‘voice’ inside that calls you to align what you do with your purpose. (The word ‘vocational’ is related to the word ‘voice’.)  It’s having a considered perspective about the Why, How, What, When, Who, Where of your workscape. It’s the mindset that “You are self-employed regardless of who pays you.” And this new mindset means new responsibilities, new actions, and new tools.

Why consider a Me Inc. adventure?

Work is literally and figuratively a huge part of our lives.  Work generates a source of income; it provides a place to exercise talents and skills; it’s where we often make friends; it’s a place to learn and grow; and it’s a way to contribute to something bigger than ourselves. With something so critical, shouldn’t there be substantial personal consideration about how work figures into our own life?

Catalysts for this adventure are often:
1. Desire to improve your professional and personal well-being. You need to shift out of a bad state and restore well-being; or you want to establish patterns of working to sustain well-being.

2. Major shifts about the idea and reality of work in response to political, economic, and social changes. You want to be prepared and capable to navigate these shifts. For more insights on the shifts, I recommend reading “The Shift, the future of work is already here” by Lynda Gratton

Are you seeking and ready for change?

Explaining Me Inc.

Me Inc. is separating You as an identity from your current job and employer. There is You (becomes Me Inc.) and The Job (becomes a job). Many employees find their identity so integrated into their current job that they can’t define themselves without that job. People on a Me Inc. adventure can define themselves without reference to any single job or employer.

Your current job is simply one ‘gig’ in a lifetime workscape of many serial gigs, as well as one gig in current workscape of potentially many co-existing gigs.

The diagram below illustrates Me Inc. as two perspectives of your vocational life.
A. Lifetime workscape (Blue box) with multiple eras (Green lines)
B. Current workscape with either a single (Black box) or multiple gigs (Red box)

A set of Me Inc. scenarios

The Me Inc. vocational adventure can be thought of as different scenarios. The scenarios are not necessarily progressive – you might go for No 1 and never go for No 3 or 4.

1. Reinvent your work.  A traditional way to change your current work is to negotiate with your current employer for a different set of responsibilities or a different scope of work and change what you do. The Me Inc. approach changes your mindset about yourself in relation to your current employer, i.e. you have a Client not an Employer, and you are a Service Provider rather than an Employee.

2. Add extracurricular.  This is an approach for when your current role doesn’t offer the opportunities you want, to use or develop particular talents, or the talents you want to develop or use have little relevance or value to your current employer, i.e. starting a business. The Me Inc. approach is for you to take the lead of adding activity you value into your vocational package. It is very likely this activity will be done outside current work hours and for another organisation or group.  Extracurricular could be taking a leadership role in a professional association group; doing volunteer work; tinkering with a hobby as a potential business; or starting up a group or exploring a venture with like-minded people.

3. Go somewhere different. This is an approach for when you decide to leave your current role to locate somewhere else, while reconceiving how you want to be or what you will do in a different role. The Me Inc. approach is for you to find and secure a role that is a good fit for your version of Me Inc. It’s not to simply take any role just because it’s available or offered.

4. Take a big leap. This is an approach for when your entrepreneurial spirit is so strong you simply must create your own business or organisation to realise your vocational adventure. You may be a business of one as a freelancer, or you may create a business that employs others.

In all scenarios above, you take on additional responsibilities for your vocation or career than if you were ‘simply’ an employee. You might call these ‘career management’ responsibilities; I invite you to think of them as ‘Me Inc.’ responsibilities. (By a different name, you may liberate new insights for yourself!)

Extra Responsibilities in Me Inc.

Many of these ‘extra’ career responsibilities were previously owned and determined by the organisation you work for – and this won’t necessarily change. In a Me Inc. paradigm, You change to you have your own perspective: doing these by yourself, and for your direct benefit.

Here’s a list, brought to you by the letter R.
Reign  purpose, strategy, direction – the big picture stuff that will guide your choices
Reputation  branding, marketing – what you are about and getting the word out
Relationships  connections, networks, collaborations – who you know and how you leverage social ‘capital’
Rule  code of practice, processes, terms & conditions – your ‘operating system’ for doing and managing your style of work
Reform  performance, improvements, quality criteria – the What and How you will learn and transform
Resources  infrastructure (soft & hard) – the things you need to have and use
Revenue  delivery, multiple sources, administration – how you are going to get currency-of-choice for what you do

This translates into skills and resources you need that you probably won’t get with/from your current employer. On a Me Inc. adventure – it’s up to you!

Me Inc. adventurers

The Me Inc. adventure is for at least these three groups of people:

• Young people starting their working life who want to set relevant useful patterns for themselves
• Experienced employees seeking to approach work differently
• Mature people who are exiting traditional working life and ready to reinvent themselves

Influences from my own journey

The Me Inc. idea was influenced by other people’s thinking. I’d like to take a moment to honour the sources of influence.

• About 10 years ago, I saw a book on the bookstore shelf called “You Inc.” by John McGrath . The title and premise about personal responsibility, were sufficient to shift my thinking: To a view of myself as my own business even if I was an employee and not looking to start my own business/organisation.
• About 8 years ago, I bought the book with the provocative title “Willing Slaves” by Madeleine Bunting, and was fuelled by the notion that modern organisations are not the benevolent employers they purport to be. My eyes were opened to the general lack of self-determination of employees about their relationship to work.
• In reading the book “Slideology” by Nancy Duarte,  I was introduced to the elegant slides of Pamela Slim as designed for her Declaration of Independence message (viewable on YouTube) . I was particularly taken by the message, “I am self-employed regardless of who pays me”.

Ready, set, go

Are you ready to start a Me Inc. adventure?
A learning programme for Me Inc. adventurers is under development. For more details, contact me directly helen@rhxgroup.com.au

 

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. She thinks critically about knowledge work, and how to ensure knowledge is valued and leveraged. She revels in making small changes that disrupt the way people think and what they do. With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people and knowledge.

 

A new CV … of value for the aspirational Knowledge Manager

At a recent Knowledge Management Mini-Conference arranged by Helen Palmer from RHX Group, it was refreshing to once again see the difference between “knowledge worker” and “Knowledge Manager” articulated. Here is the definition of each as explained by Helen:

‘knowledge worker’
– a class of workers (like ‘blue-collar worker’); knowledge-savvy; primary work purpose is creating, distributing and applying knowledge

‘Knowledge Manager’
– a title of a particular role (like ‘Finance Manager’); a person who has expertise in meta-abilities to do with creation, acquisition, distribution, application and retention of knowledge in organisational contexts

This provided some very interesting insight into my career to date. I have spent nine years working on a variety of significant organisational change projects for the State Government, spanning both Human Resources and Information Management change. This culminated in my role as secretariat for the Executive Sub-Committee for Information Management and ICT for the Department of Health. This was a job that had huge knowledge and change management requirements, but due to the bureaucratic nature of government was often highly administrative.

This led to a very interesting conversation between Helen and I about the career paths for aspiring Knowledge Managers (and Change Managers).

The emerging challenge

The emergence of Knowledge Management (I would argue including Change Management, Information Management and Learning) as a critical workplace vocation and skill set has oft been discussed as a part of the evolution of the 21st century worker. The management of corporate knowledge, as well as individual knowledge (including creativity) is both essential and nebulous. What has become apparent in the last 20 years is that knowledge management is both a specialised and a general skill set. Everyone must manage their own knowledge at the micro level, but the organisational knowledge is managed by a skilled professional at the macro level, to facilitate knowledge sharing and maximise the business benefits of knowledge as an organisational asset.

In this context the professional Knowledge Manager is emerging distinct from the more common “knowledge worker”. The formation of this sector has seen many Knowledge Managers discover their profession usually through serendipitous career progression, usually from an administrative, clerical, technical or professional service role. Being in the right place at the right time. This is on the verge of a boom, as open information sharing and natural (multi-disciplinary) learning methods become the norm, and young professionals (like myself) are realising the value and importance of managing organisational knowledge.

My professional background

In my endeavour to pursue a career in Knowledge Management I entered the Public Sector straight out of university through the Graduate Recruitment Program and knew my Bachelor of Arts/Business background gave me a bent toward generalisation rather than specialisation. It was to my surprise that my role in Organisational Development with one department was quite staid and lacking in Change Management. Also it was not as adept with technology as the broader industry. Therefore, following a few projects I moved to the Office of CIO in another department. This breadth of experience taught me a lot about different approaches to Knowledge Management, between “people knowledge” and “machine knowledge”. I still felt my government career experience was not matching the pace of industry change that I was observing outside of my job.

For a lot of this time I felt like a worker without a job title. When asked what it was I did in my job, the answer was variations of “projects of various kinds”, “at the moment, but that might change”, or “oh, I deal with organisational knowledge and change” – all of which attracted blank looks.

What is the Corporate Lattice?

The 2010 book, The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work written by Cathy Benko and Molly Anderson for Harvard Business Review Press, and well summarised in this Deloitte Review article, did much to form my view of the modern career. When I so often had to battle corporate silos, my view was that if people had sideways career moves as frequently as promotions, most of these battles would disappear.

The future career pattern is a lattice not a ladder

The current day CV is designed on the premise that the corporate ladder still exists. Stating your work history in ascending order (most recent first) gives a visual construct of a linear and upwardly mobile career. It doesn’t accommodate sideways career moves, whether that is to shift industries, start your own business, or re-locate to a different city or country. It also creates a presumption that new work builds upon old work – therefore new work is considered more relevant, and work more than three years old is redundant. Modern careers now show that knowledge is gained across many years, and multi-disciplinary experience is a strength not a liability, but the modern CV fails to express that.

The Portfolio CV

When discussing the Corporate Lattice with Helen, and my experience with it, she mentioned to me what she called her “Portfolio CV”. This format effectively turns the modern CV on its head and draws out activities of a knowledge worker that may identify potential Knowledge Management capability. It is a concise 4 page document, with the following pages.

1. Cover Page

Provide contact details, biographical summary, and list of strengths/capabilities relevant to role.

Content is customised for the role which the CV represents; may have multiple CVs to represent different roles or specialities.

2. Portfolio Page

Accurately specify selected pieces of work that support the claims on the Cover Page (Regardless of the currency, industry or whether it was paid, volunteer or extracurricular.  If you’ve done it once, you can do it again)

Content is drawn from a list or ‘database’ of relevant work.

3. Testimonials Page

List quotes and feedback from clients, managers and peers; it confirms the quality and impact of the work explained on Portfolio Page.

Content is drawn from a list or ‘database’ of relevant quotes.

4. Details page

List employment placements, qualifications and other facts of relevance.

Content is constant between versions.

In my instance, creating a Portfolio CV was quite easy for pages 1,2 and 4 – the challenge was page 3. Public servants are well trained on the precautions required when putting statements on the record. It took quite a bit of foraging and chasing, but I was able to get some testimonials from previous co-workers and managers. In discussing these challenges Helen described that it is a trait of saavy professionals to keep their network engaged and collect written testimonials. Coming from an industry where long tenures are the norm and silos run deep, that is something that I have realised through this experience.

Strengths/Weaknesses

Having come through this process, I now have a very interesting career document. One that definitely defines my Knowledge Management and Change Management experience very clearly. However, I get the sense that the recruitment industry in Australia is not completely ofay with the multi-disciplinary nature of KM and CM. The most success I have had to date has been through discussions with other Knowledge Managers. Others still appear to think of Knowledge Management as a heightened records keeper, and Change Manager as a project manager with pizzazz.

In closing, I’d like to return to this concept of a KM career path. Of all the colleagues I’ve spoken to about how they got into Knowledge Management, it has always be a circuitous route, a chance project, or a fortunate happenstance that helped reveal their aptitude for Knowledge Management. But where is the feeder pool for the next generation of Knowledge Managers; where are the 2ICs and the deputies/juniors to the current crop of KM field leaders?

This blog post was written by guest author Christoph Hewett. Christoph is General Manager of Resonant Integrity Training Solutions, a consultancy for knowledge, change and learning.

Image credit/source: Wikimedia

Using Notebooks to create and capture my knowledge

Notebooking enables me to be knowledge-savvy in my work. I am not alone in this vital practice.

Notebooking was a key part of the generative practices of knowledge masters Da Vinci, Edison and Picasso. In modern times, ‘Mythbuster’ Adam Savage is also a prolific notebook keeper. Unlike Da Vinci, Edison and Picasso, he uses digital notebooking. Adam acknowledges that the practice of putting his thoughts and ideas down in list form is pivotal to his work practice.

I write down things I know in digital notebooks because I want to remember them.  I want to revisit what I know, observed or reflected upon maybe months or years after I wrote these down. This is because I want to shape and play with my thoughts, to make sense of them or get a new angle on an idea.

Writing helps me to identify what I know and what I don’t know. Some of my knowledge is half-baked or incomplete and sometimes I write questions to trigger further thinking.

Ideas ordering – keeping the mind clear with notebooking

Writing down ideas is a way to create ordered patterns of what’s going on in mind.

Author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues in his book Flow: Psychology of Optimal Experience that the process of writing creates meaning from the information we receive:

“It is never a waste to write for intrinsic reasons. First of all writing gives the mind a disciplined means of expression. It allows one to record events and experiences so they can be easily recalled, and relived in the future. It is a way to analyse and understand experiences, a self-communication that brings order to them.”

Some of what I know is tacit and writing helps to expose this and find deeper meaning. This is particularly true if I have an audience or function in mind, for example; to inform, educate, or persuade others.

My notebooks are for personal knowledge use. I use them for personal knowledge rather than shared knowledge because they:

• Are a private and precious space – I’m not exposed as I muse
• Include content in the Development phase rather than Production phase
• Record what gets my attention
• Hold my deep and emerging observations about work issues
• Reveal connections I’m making with what I know and what I’m observing
• Help cultivate knowledge within me

Into the digital space – keeping electronic notebooks

I’ve kept physical notebooks for over 30 years. A few years ago I went electronic and implemented MS OneNote to support my notebooking practice.

I made the shift because I desired features that hardcopy notebooks couldn’t provide. These included:

• Input via hand writing, typing or drawing
• Multi-colour content
• Text, graphics, audio, and printouts held altogether
• Search by word
• Ordered and tagged for meaning
• Copied for preservation
• Easy to edit cleanly (erase text, or move text about on page)

There have been many advantages and benefits emerge from having an electronic tool for my notebooking activity. These include:

• Merging personal and professional – my poetry notebook sits alongside my business notebooks
• Less mass and more volume – I can keep adding notebooks and notebook content without a gain in physical weight
• Re-editing and adding layers of annotation – content isn’t fixed so I can change or annotate it, I can insert new things between old things
• Greater connectivity of content – I can use hyperlink feature to make and retain connections between pages
• Better order and organisation – I can set up an order and reorder it as necessary, so the order keeps up with my current thinking
• Quick and easy discovery – I can search by words, even those that are handwritten rather than typed
• Multiple copies in synch – I reduce the risk of loss because I can have a copy with me as well as in the home or office
• Sharing with others – I can allow others access to read and contribute

Learn about how I setup my electronic notebook

In the book Innovate like Edison, author Michael Gleb defined ‘keeping a notebook’ as one of 25 competencies in developing an innovation practice like the prolific innovator, Thomas Edison. Edison kept approximately 2,500 notebooks some of which survive to this day.

And famous inventor’s notebooks can survive to appreciate in other ways: one of Da Vinci’s notebooks was sold for $40 million to Bill Gates.

I wonder if my notebooks will survive a long passage of time. Whether a future someone will ‘dust’ them off, discovering something noteworthy or inspirational which will generate new knowledge for them and the world. Do I dare to hope it is so?

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. She thinks critically about knowledge work, and how to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in tackling the big processes of change and learning, so that ideas become impact. With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people, knowledge and information.

Fourth dimension of networking – Concept applied (Part 2)

Recently, I defined a way to examine value in my professional networks, introducing the concept of Fourth dimension networking.

To better quantify and qualify this value, I defined ways to measure ‘return’ on my networking ‘investment’. I looked at what I received, and what I gave in my networking activity.

Quantifying the fundamentals of networking activity

As I networked, I kept records of the following basic data:

1. No. of individual or group encounters had
2. No. of people in my network (Source: LinkedIn contacts, Twitter followers, blog followers, and Contacts database)
3. No. of people who joined my network in a period of time (I typically only retain 3D connections, i.e. people I have met face-to-face and shared an experience with)

NB: ‘Encounters’ were intentional face-to-face contact, and did not include incidental meetings in coffee shops, co-working spaces or train stations. Some individuals were repeat encounters.

I summarised this data for specific time periods to give me a quick snapshot of how much networking I had been doing:

1. No. of encounters (From 1 Jan – 30 Sep 2012) = 277
   1. Individuals = 205
   2. Groups/events = 72
2. Increase in my LinkedIn contacts (From 1 Jan – 30 Sep 2012) = 180
3. No. of people in my network (As at 30 Sep 2012) = Approx 600
   1. LinkedIn = 408
   2. Contacts database (of people not in LinkedIn) = 54
   3. Twitter = 127
   4. RHX Thinking Blog = 9

NB: Twitter and Blog followers overlap with LinkedIn contacts

4D networking criteria list

Now I knew something about the quantity of my networking activity, I still lacked a sense of the quality of what this activity had returned to me. Enter the 4D networking criteria, where a rating is assigned to a person for the networking activity they have done.

WARNING! These are activities (and the order) are for what I value in/from networking. You are invited to define your own list.

ANOTHER WARNING! This list is written in 1st-person for easy reading. I run a risk that the reader perceives this as self-centric. I have some discomfort in taking the perspective about ‘what I received’ as I believe networking is about serving others; however I have more comprehensive data from which to draw upon regarding my ‘received’ experience.

#1  Created opportunities to catch-up with me in person
#2  Suggested a relevant reading, podcast, event, group, role, contact to me; shared knowledge or insights
#3  Actively encouraged, affirmed or validated me in a contextually relevant way
#4  Mentioned, commented or liked a post of mine or included me in a post
#5  Endorsed or recommended me
#6  Introduced me to someone else because I asked
#7  Introduced me to someone else of their own volition
#8  Invited me to be part of a collaboration, strategic alliance or lead participant in event
#9  Asked how to help me and acted on the answer
#10 Offered me work opportunities/referred me to work opportunities

I reflected on networking activity (of which I had been a recipient) for the period 1 Jan – 30 Sep 2012, making a shortlist of people who rated as 4D networkers. I worked through the shortlist assigning each individual a rating. Where an individual got multiple ratings, I assigned the value of the highest rated activity.

The results:
From a network of approx 600 people, 16 % (i.e. 92 people) engaged me in 4D activities from 1 Jan – 30 Sep 2012.
Of those 92 people (i.e. 4D-network connections):
18 % rated #1-#3
36 % rated #4-#5
28 % rated #6-#8
7 % rated #9
11 % rated #10

I also noted where I first met a 4D contact to determine which groups or events produced valuable connections. Interestingly, very few higher rating contacts (i.e. 8-10) were first established at professional groups or events. Many higher rating contacts were initially made when working together. It seems contacts with whom I’ve had a deeper work experience are more likely to result in further collaboration.

Helen’s 4D networking under the spotlight

The 4D networking examination above was done retrospectively, coming up with list after activities were preformed and not before. It turned out to be easier to specifically recall what I have received, than what I gave.

To get data for my networking activity, I examined a portion of my email correspondence to aid my recall. While I couldn’t create the same detailed summary, I found evidence that I had done all the activities in the list multiple times. From anecdotal feedback, I know what I have done has been appreciated by others, and in some cases inspired them to do the same for others in their network.

What to conclude?

My business partner (he’s a numbers person) looks at the figures of 277 encounters resulting in 23 offers of collaboration/strategic alliance (#8) or work (#10), and calculates that 8% of those encounters were ‘worthwhile’ in cool business terms. In the current economic climate that hasn’t translated into exciting revenue figures.

Networking doesn’t always have obvious returns but that’s not a reason not to do it. It can be resource intensive work, so I recognise I must invest time and energy resources prudently. Knowing what activities are worth doing allows me to better prepare and conduct myself. (More on this to come in the Part 3 blog post on 4D networking)

I invest with faith: My networking actions are seeds sown that are not guaranteed to germinate. Nevertheless, I believe that generous thoughtful actions, though small, cultivate a sharing and caring network culture.

I trust that doing 4D networking activity inspires others to act. Let me know if you are so inspired.

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. Helen likes to experiment and create conceptual frameworks to use in making sense of human activity. She thinks critically about knowledge work and how to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in tackling the big processes of change, learning and knowing so that ideas become impact. With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people, knowledge and information.

Image credit: stock.xchng

Planning and guiding Professional Enrichment

To plan how I might develop into a more satisfied and effective knowledge worker, I asked: What would enrich my professional life?

My first responses were predictable: knowledge, skill, experience, and resources. With deeper reflection, I also saw the role of relationships, collaborations, energy (mental and emotional), attention, awareness, perspectives, and discipline. These all contribute to my value and viability as a knowledge worker.

Traditionally, purposeful action to develop oneself professionally starts with a Professional Development Plan. I already had one of those, but the traditional content didn’t strike the right chord for my values of knowledge work, and valuing knowledge work and knowledge workers.

So in the tradition of reusing knowledge, I did a conceptual Save As, and made some changes to transcend the concept. Enter, the ‘Professional Enrichment Plan’.

Planning for Professional Enrichment (PE)

The purpose of actively enriching one’s Professional life is to
– have a positive affirming work experience
– improve the quality and quantity of knowledge work
– nurture the person (the ‘engine’) that does knowledge work
– enhance an individual’s professional value and practice

What’s Professional Enrichment about?

In addition to traditional content like Attending training courses, or Being mentored, PE is:

• Activities that have no inherent professional productive value, or no clear goal or specific destination. e.g. Exploratory, experimental activities like tinkering; Social activities like chairing social club.
• Meaning! Activities about making meaning, having meaning, and sharing meaning in the professional space. Meaning is the source of our beliefs and actions.
• Conditions and opportunities to generate serendipitous encounters and discoveries.
• Creative activities that replenish mojo and energy as part of my professional schedule, e.g. Attending art or music exhibitions; Decorating my workspace; Playing golf
• Mental rest, and change of scenery within the professional schedule.  e.g. Honouring digital and professional Sabbaths; Working from surprising locations like  art gallery or park.
• Activity and schedules that best honour own temperament and strengths, e.g. Planning in morning, executing at beginning of the week; Partnering up to draw upon other’s expertise
• Nurturing self holistically in all aspects (body, mind, soul and spirit), e.g. Meditation before and after challenging meetings
• Activities that are difficult or not possible to measure yet have intangible value , e.g. Cultivating meaningful relationships; Mentoring colleagues
• Accessing a diversity of resources for inspiration, insights and information, e.g. Blogs, social media, podcasts, seminars, books, newspapers

Professional Enrichment Method

The objective of developing and executing the Plan is to enrich work with purposeful activity in acquiring, cultivating and sharing knowledge, experience and perspectives.

1. Create – Reflect what enrichment and growth you want; Define some activities to achieve this; Document these in the Plan

The Plan is emergent and dynamic. Entries to the document are made pre and post activity as they are a mix of the ‘planned’ and ‘serendipitous’.

2. Use – Draw on the Plan to determine regular and ad hoc activity to schedule; Do the Activity; Reorient self to the Plan, when professional life seems to be chaotic and without order.

Treat the plan as a declaration of intention to act.  For me, scheduling PE activities happens on a weekly or monthly basis, when planning how to spend the PE time allotted in my Activity-Time budget.

3. Update – Review the content of the Plan and make updates (change the purpose or activity; Add to the activity; Refine the measures);  Record progress in the Plan

Professional Enrichment Plan – Template

The main content of the plan is formatted as a table with the headings: Purpose (WHY), Content (WHAT), Activity (HOW), Measures/Evidence (HOW MUCH) and Status (HOW FAR).

Purpose
The reason for some purposeful action; the outcome of acting.
Verbs to describe purpose include Gain, Lose, Enhance, Be, Experience, Sustain, Create, Extend, Produce, Contribute, Prepare, etc

Content
A short description of the content area for which you seek enrichment.

Activity
Actions that will achieve the purpose.
Examples include watching podcasts, attending seminars, writing blogs, following blogs/tweets, corresponding, reflecting, playing, meeting others, experimenting, attending meetings/seminars/courses, reading books, establishing and building relationships

Measures/evidence
Whatever is meaningful evidence to track and evaluate progress.
General measures might include:
Quantity – Count of the number of knowledge products created, knowledge events completed, etc.
Quality – Estimate of the degree of fitness for purpose
Impact – Estimate of the degree of difference achieved (gap between before and after)

Status
Whatever is meaningful comment about your progress to date.

Sample Content
Here’s a extract from my real plan: Professional Enrichment Plan Extract.

May you have a more enriching professional life!

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. She thinks critically about knowledge work, and how to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in tackling the big processes of change and learning so that ideas become impact. With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people, knowledge and information.

Making and applying an Activity-Time budget

I manage work with a knowledge focus [1].  I manage teams with a knowledge focus because I value the knowledge members create, acquire, share and cultivate.  Therefore I value the activities that are knowledge generating. Here’s a technique I use in management to better support and promote knowledge activity: activity-time budget system.

The concept – overview

• Promoting and endorsing particular knowledge cultivation activities, while quantifying and qualifying the time expended on activities per week.
• A systematic method to maintain new mindsets and behaviours in professional practice of managing knowledge.

Why the technique came into being

As a Team Leader,  I wanted empowered team members who had effective personal knowledge work practices. Specifically, I wanted:

• To address work-life balance: Setting realistic expectations and reasonable conditions so knowledge workers could do good work, then truly and deeply rest their knowledge engines switching off from work.
• To address the tendency to overlook and under-do important but ‘boring’ or ‘passive’ knowledge activities like  record keeping, organising, planning, reporting and reflecting;  to treat these items as necessary, not discretionary work.
• To reign in the tendency to over-do some work achieving a quality not valued, or to drain resources for little return: To invoke the principle of ‘good enough’ given the available resources and time constraints.
• Better decision-making about work priorities and energy expenditure with definitive yet flexible guidelines that would continue to be useful in professional practice.
• A culture of autonomous creative action and approaches that didn’t require my specific input or endorsement; to enable opportunities to make a personal mark on work, or develop lateral professional interests. Staff could do what they believed was vital work without my permission as long as they could justify it against expectations.

So I mused about ways to address the underlying issue of finite resources (time) and expenditure of resources (energy and time). This triggered childhood memories of the personal power and discipline that came from receiving and spending pocket money; from there the concept of activity-time budget system seemed obvious …

How it works

The normal number of employed hours per week is the 100% activity-time allowance.  Percentages for 5-6 categories of activity expenditure  are assigned, with explanation about the kinds of activity each category represents. Individuals then autonomously allocate their activities and time to meet budget.

It is important to monitor expenditure against allowance. If there is significant variance (it’s an accounting thing!) over a 2-4 week period then a closer look is warranted, with adjustments made. Maybe the budget breakdown isn’t right, or the employee has insufficient skill or resources to be effective, or there is simply too great a volume of work expected.  A key reason for setting the allowance and the budget, is to ensure that an activity-time debt doesn’t mount up, for then you risk the quality of the person, and the quality of the work.

Specific steps to get started

1.  Decide how many hours a week you allow for ‘work’.[2] This becomes your 100% of work allowance.
2.  Define a list of activity categories against which work allowance will be assigned.  Define examples. Check that examples don’t overlap into other categories.
3.  Define how much work allowance (%) you want to assign to each activity category.
4.  Schedule time in calendar for each allotment of work activity (either individual or group of activities). Break into multiple allotments as is most useful.
5.  Monitor your expenditure against allowance, and adjust as necessary.[3]

Examples

Below are examples of the categories and assigned percentages for two work-place scenarios where I have applied the method.

Scenario 1: Team of fixed-term employees assigned to internal development project
Budget
10%    Administration
10%    Project planning and reporting
5%      Professional development
10%    Internal/team participation
65%    Project and client work

Administration
Opening and processing correspondence (including email)
Maintaining business records, including filing
Keeping desk and work space in order
Weekly or fortnightly 1-1 meeting with team leader

Project planning and reporting
NB: Not for a Project Manager but for personnel on project team
Reviewing and updating plan of work for coming week and coming 1-2 months
Reviewing progress and composing reporting content (for verbal or written delivery)
Contributing to project documentation, e.g. Risk and Issues log, Project Plan

Professional development
Attending courses and professional association meetings
Reflecting after attending courses, etc (including note taking or journalling)
Reading books, blogs, tweets
Networking with professional contacts outside organisation (including using social media)
Participating in mentoring or coaching activities
Preparing and maintaining personal Performance Management documentation

Internal/team participation
Attending and contributing to team meetings
Organising and leading team meetings when it’s your turn
Contributing to team well being (organising adhoc social events, checking in with people)
Maintaining relationships with team colleagues
Contributing to team collective knowledge, participating in briefs and debriefs

Project and client work
Stakeholder engagement work (including discretionary coffee meetings)
Designing, organising and executing activities listed in project plan

Scenario 2: Single person self-employed
Budget
10% Admin
10% Professional enrichment
20% Business development
60% Project/Client work

Administration
Doing filing, invoicing, expense claims
Internal business meetings and discussions
Managing computing tools including backups and configurations

Professional enrichment
Activities that replenish my mojo
Reading professional books, blogs
Attending seminars, courses and conferences
Networking with professional contacts

Business Development
Networking with strategic contacts
Developing products and services for business
Developing and managing proposals for work
Developing and maintaining prospective client relationships

Project and client work (typically income generating)
Maintaining customer relationships
Project management for client projects
Providing services to clients

 

[1] I can’t take credit for the brilliant phrase “Management with a knowledge focus” that goes to www.knoco.com
[2] You could also apply the time budget system to your life, with 100% being the total number of hours in a week (n=168), then allotting how you want to apportion where you spend your time.
[3] Consider allocating and monitoring your activity-time expenditure using an electronic calendar. For future time, make entries of how you intend to expend the time. Ensure your forecast is within budget constraints. For past time, make entries of how you actually expended the time. Compare the actual time against the budget, to determine the amount of variance.

 

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. She thinks critically about knowledge work, and how to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in tackling the big processes of change and learning so that ideas become impact. With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people, knowledge and information.

Professional is, as professional does

I’ve been paying attention to the use of the word ‘professional’.  And it’s got me thinking about what is meant about something ‘being professional’.

You might wonder, what’s this thinking got to do with knowledge work (which is the focus of this blog)?  I’d argue that professionals are knowledge workers, regardless of their profession.  It is their substantial knowledge and skill in a field or profession that warrants them the label knowledge worker. And they need to be cultivating that knowledge-base to maintain their professional credibility.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve come across in use of the word “professional”:
“It’s strictly a professional relationship.”
“The course is part of my professional development.”
“Their [company] website is very professional.”
“I wouldn’t use them again,  they weren’t very professional.”
“I get advice from my professional friends as well as personal ones.”
“I wear a suit as part of my professional appearance.”
“He plays tennis professionally.”
“If you want professional service, get someone accredited with the association.”
“The university makes a distinction between professional and academic staff.”
“It was a truly professional presentation.”
“I wish my staff would act more professionally.”

That last one, in particular got me thinking.  So what marks someone or something as ‘professional’? Here’s my list (a work in progress):

• Done right and done well, high quality not mediocre
• Done completely, nothing overlooked, attends to the right details
• Do what they say they are going to do … or renegotiate
• Respectful and courteous
• Maintains appropriate boundaries, not overly familiar
• Takes responsibility for action, consequences and mistakes, recovers in a mature manner
• Has qualifications and credentials; endorsed by others
• Has experience and expertise to be recognised at a particular standard
• Confident and competent with established ways and means, not a novice
• Has integrity, don’t share what is confidential, private  or not their right to share
• Has reputation for achievement or delivery
• Competent at managing time, resources, work, quality, risk
• Compensated(with currency of value) for performance
• Results in quality outcomes that are valued by the consumer/customer

What do you think? Got anything to add to my lists?

Helen Palmer is Principal Consultant at RHX Group. She thinks critically about knowledge work, and ways to ensure knowledge isn’t wasted. She revels in tackling the big processes of change and learning so that ideas become impact. With her colleagues at RHX Group, Helen helps teams make better use of their people, knowledge and information.