Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 84)

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Troubling Trends in Organizational Networks BY JAY CROSS For all the talk about networks and knowledge sharing, it appears many organizations aren’t practicing it. How is your enterprise approaching these concepts? In the middle of 2008, a notice appeared on the Informal Learning blog (informl.com) requesting participation in a survey of informal and Web 2.0 learning practices. A total of 235 responded. Twenty-ﬁve percent had less than 100 employees, and 27 percent had 5,000 or more. Half were corporations; the other half academic institutions, government organizations, nonproﬁts and sole proprietorships. The corporaDATA POINT tions represented all sectors: IT, Only one-third of respondents services, ﬁnance, manufacturing, to the Internet Time Group’s communications, healthcare, Web 2.0 survey disagreed with extraction and several others. the statement, “People here The results of the survey understand how their work is served as a catalyst for asking linked to the overall goals of the questions rather than proof of organization.” what’s going on. The sample size was too small and the selection process too limited for bulletproof conclusions. However, a somewhat clear picture emerges from the ﬁndings. While the access to the Web and use of social media are way up from when Internet Time Group conducted a similar study a year ago, the overall picture is not rosy. Most of the organizations that responded are sailing stormy seas without a rudder: • Less than half reported that their professionals and/ or teams form communities of practice. • A third of the respondents disagreed with the statement, “People here understand how their work is linked to the overall goals of the organization.” • Nearly half reported they do not take time to reﬂect on what they might learn from a major success or failure. • Most reported that it’s difﬁcult to set up an in-house blog or wiki. • A strong majority disagreed with the statement that their “formal training is superb.” • Two-thirds reported that their organizations are slow to change, even when it would be in their best interest. A recipe for organizational catastrophe and business meltdown is looming here. The respondents said they are zooming into the future on a track leading nowhere. They are not tending their networks. Yet, rather than tending to what will be important in the future, they focus on the day-to-day. Looking over the survey results, consultant Harold Jarche observed, “Your graphs tell me that around onethird to one-half of respondents say that things are not good in the workplace.” Speciﬁc problems include: • Lack of cooperation. • No time for reﬂection. • No ability to use DIY tools for work. • No communities of practice for support. • Lack of professional development. • Poor training. The most damning ﬁnding of the survey was that only one in four agreed that, “People are growing and learning fast enough with our current programs to keep up with the needs of our business.” 84 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • December 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.informl.com http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial The Future of Learning CLO Profile Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking ManTech Leverages Knowledge Management Approaches for Social Networking Agility Training for the Learning Organization Creating an Agile Organization With Learning 2.0 2008 Learning In Practice Awards Corporate Social Responsibility: How Can Learning Contribute? Union Fenosa Corporate University: How CSR Education Impacted the Bottom Line Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again Zions Bancorp.: Connecting the Dots Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

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