Trust and the Workplace

I was reading a quote today in a magazine by a consultant called John Baldoni which relates to one of my themes on knowledge management.

"Trust is earned; and it is earned the hard way." We all know that trust at a number of levels is a major key in respect of encouraging knowledge sharing.

I was just reading a post by Bob Sutton - the author of the 'No A**hole Rule.

He was quoting a recent survey by Professor Wayne Hochwarter regarding employees working with badly behaved managers and how employees got their revenge - or just weren't able to complete their work effectively. Of course I also wondered what the effect would be on knowledge sharing - though I think that other knowledge practitioners can guess. I would also think that trust between employees and employer was pretty poor also and probably leached into peoples perspectives of their team members.

"Employees with difficult bosses checked out in the following ways:

• 30 percent slowed down or purposely made errors, compared with 6 percent of those not reporting abuse.
• 27 percent purposely hid from the boss, compared with 4 percent of those not abused.
• 33 percent confessed to not putting in maximum effort, compared with 9 percent of those not abused.
• 29 percent took sick time off even when not ill, compared with 4 percent of those not abused.
• 25 percent took more or longer breaks, compared with 7 percent of those not abused."
  

Not a happy post to start the week with but I've had colleagues who've worked in organisations like that.

Anyway on with the reading on Enabling Knowledge Creation.......

The Age of Innocence or Paradise Lost

One of the things that I regularly enjoy about talking to my parents on a Sunday is when they have read something in the newspaper that makes them both shake their heads. I'm going slightly off topic as I think their views have some validity.

Apparently there was a review published a few days ago by the Cambridge-based Primary Review, children at primary school in England are suffering "stress" from having to grow up too soon. Apparently they face ' intolerable pressure' at school and from the wider world. The culprits are school testing, family breakdown, celebrity culture, and everyone's now favourite climate change. (Funny how things change in my day the biggest fear was vapourisation by a nuclear bomb.)

To my parent's eyes kids today have never had it so good.

To my parents childhood was a case of making do and mend, rationing (my parents didn't eat a banana until the mid 1950's after a 16 year gap. One of my fathers strongest memories is him and his brother moving an inciendary bomb down the path into the road using a dustbin lid without wearing the appropriate health and safety considerations and risk assessments we need to carry out today. Though despite this they both felt they had a good childhood.

To my eyes and to my parent's eyes yes there are different pressures on the family and our children but it isn't not having the latest iPod or whatever must have our consumer society says we 'must have'.

However this wasn't the thing that got my parents hopping - it is the idea that government should 'do something about it'. does this mean that there will soon be an innocence czar with a ten year plan and key performance indicators and maybe even an OFKID.

If the problem does exist perhaps it is based on what a lot of government undertakes at the moment with testing and also encouraging dependence on the welfare state that has undermined the role of family.

To my parents and I would imagine the vast majority of families in the UK responsibility for a happy childhood does not and should not fall within the states purview . It's up to parents to decide what their children watch on TV, whether they play video games or read a magazine on celebrities.

Perhaps parents should even be allowed to choose what school their children attend and let the forces of choice and competition improve our schools and to allow M& A's in the education world and allow private sector providers to run schools rather than LEA's and also set challenging standards using things like the International Baccalaureat rather than the rapidly tarnishing A Level standard.

I always remember Ronald Reagan's comment that "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

Adam Smith Esq & Harnessing the power of internal networks

Readers who have read my post of a few days ago, will be interested to read that the excellent Bruce MacEwen has also picked up on the article (click on the link in the title).

Bruce and I go back as I've been speaking to him from time to time. I actually took the time to send him a copy of my masters thesis of 2005, which proposed as one of the comments that to help develop the mentoring relationship that a partner and a junior solicitor sit either on a side by side basis or a face to face basis.

This was aimed at the junior solicitor so that some of the partners "deep smarts" could be picked up. I'd noticed that one senior lawyer had done this in one of the firms that I was analysing and that the junior solicitors or trainee solicitors who had gone through this process had learnt a great deal more non book knowledge than they had with other mentoring lawyers.

Bruce's article however does not pick up though that the process is not all one way. As part of my research I discovered that the senior lawyer can benefit from the juniors new knowledge especially when they have just been on a course or just come out of law school. They too can bring new insights which helps a senior to lose redundant knowledge and replace it with more appropriate and up to date knowledge.

Both parties can benefit from this process and also as Bruce points out the cost in reducing your space requirements is quite handy.

Thought for a Friday afternoon and a response

From Jeffrey Pfeffer

"Everybody has equal access to knowledge - however not everyone acts on it which gives an organisation competitive advantage"

I also read a great article from Bruce MacEwen who writes the excellent Adam Smith Blog on Knowledge Management. I wrote back to him and he was kind to post my response which is here but if you want to read it in full then click here .

I notice that there is a comment from another reader and I'd like to comment a little.

To me yes there are hidebound firms - but I do agree with his comments regarding altruism and have seen people that do give information for no desire for reward but academic research has shown that people do expect reciprocal altruism - or as I call it the God father approach to KM. 

I also don't believe that the PSL is dying out, I feel that the role needs to change and this is agreed by the reader who is looking at the role of the PSL in his firm and that the old style PSL who just does research will diminish and disappear. They will have to add value to the process and get involved in value added processes such as say an employment PSL running training course for particular clients. However, I think that firms will have to review their PSL's career paths - something I see this week Herbert Smith have started to do.

I have also read 'The Modern Firm" by John Roberts and also have read The Wealth of Nations so am fully aware of Adam Smith's views expressed in his work on Moral Sentiments and Wealth. 

My view is that if law firms or any other organisation wish to survive, then they will need to adapt and allow their employees and the organisations they serve to be able to create knowledge, capture that knowledge, connecting people and then finding ways to circulate that knowledge.  

One quote is quite apposite from Adam Smith "How selfish soever man may be supposed there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it.

Going on honeymoon

As many of my readers will be aware, I have mentioned Sandy in a number of blogs. Well this Saturday we get married in our local church and then we are going on honeymoon. Therefore this blog will be going quiet until the 28th August. I haven't been so active this week as I've been dealing with all the final things before the wedding as well as an attending a job interview and preparing for that..

I noticed on Business Week a series of articles on the future of work that I thought were interesting and I'm placing a link to the main page which can act as a jumping off post for people to read.

I'm particularly interested in the articles on the following - the poll on what will happen 10 years from now and how globalisation and technology will change dramatically how we do our jobs.

A series of articles on managing the new work force and especially the role of senior management acting as a networker par excellence and getting all star teams together - maybe using Facebook or other social networking technology as a means of doing this. and especially the article on Oticon and how it removed office boundaries. I'm aware of the work that Oticon has done to become a learning organisation and especially the work that Lars Kolind did in this area but how also there is still the need for balance as people do feel the need to be led but also require trust and the desire to be creative.

I was talking to another experienced knowledge manager a few days ago about utilising something like Face Book within an organisation. I proposed that it could be utilised to not only show people a picture of the person and internal contact details. It could also be used as a means of capturing via a link to the financial management system the current work that the person is working on and where they are up and down on their financial figures. It would also act as a record of what pieces of work they have carried out in the year so that when the manager carries out an appraisal he has someones work record.

I'd also like to consider using as I've said before in previous blogs the use of Apple like widgets that run behind the scene carrying snippets of information to help people such as what the current billing levels are and also advising you of legal updates.

It could also carry a link to the blogs that they are subscribed to - say for example a blog done internally relating to legal updates in a particular area. I think that this is an area where we can help people to receive the information they want to receive but also the information that the organisation wants them to receive. I think that we are only bounded by peoples imaginations and we should look to provide them with the widgets/building blocks to create the page that they want.

It could also capture which Communities of Practice that they are working on or also what areas of work they are looking to work on - say working on a M & A deal.

Anyway this is my last post for a few days as I plan to enjoy the wedding day, but also to relax on our honeymoon.

I may even post pictures at some time in the future.

Trust - the key element.

Just a short entry tonight as I'm waiting for Sandy to come back from a shopping expedition with her relatives. I've banged on about trust in terms of knowledge sharing. However, I was wondering about a larger question today - trust in our leaders. When I lived in South Africa we listened for unbiased news to the BBC and over the years the BBC was seen as a paragon of virtue.

The trust that is built up in people or organisations can take a long time to develop but like the walls of Jericho can collapse ever so easily. I think that the reaction of people to the scandal about editing and the phony phone ins have made a massive dent in peoples perceptions of the BBC and the perception that it is different because it's not commercial.

Also I'm glad in a world where I can get information from a variety of sources and although it may be conflicting or wrong - I do find that through that variety more truth shines through. This search for variety isn't new.

The Greek writer Herodotus 2500 years ago believed in ther simple art of asking one source a question and then asking another and compare the answer. He also taught the value of self doubt and a rabid sense of curiosity that is not easily satisfied. Maybe we as knowledge managers should learn to walk about and talk to people to look and to listen.

I have been criticised for walking about and practising these but I beleive that not only do they develop the social networks but we can observe what is going on and not what superiors are telling us are going on.

The other is trust in our leaders - I think that the news today regarding the CPS not finding anyone to prosecute in the cash for honours scandal (at least it hasn't been cliched with a 'gate') will be met with a weary shrug of the shoulders and the stock of our elected leaders will take another lurch lower.

As another blogger points out in a blog today 20/07 Guido Fawkes points out about the link between the number of peers created and how many were donors to the Labour party.

Trust in an organisation is key to knowledge sharing and if there is no trust in the leaders of the organisation this I then believe percolates down the organisation. If there is trahison de clercs at the top of the social society does that effect us as people.

I hope not and I think not. Just a thought on a late Friday night. I'm reading an article on talent in organisations and I hope to post a comment over the weekend.

Work Wise week in the UK

I noticed in this morning's paper that it is Work Wise Week which is sponsored by the IT Forum foundation with the laudable 5 year aim of making the UK work place to develop smarter working practices such as allowing people flexi hours and allowing flexible working practices. This has been going for a year now and they have had a conference today setting the 2nd year objectives.

For more details - click on the link below

Work Wise

What I did note is that this Friday is National Work from Home day. No I have to say that I find working from home once a week a really good idea. As a knowledge professional it allows me to catch up on some reading and to reflect on the lessons learnt and also from my reading renew my dynamism for work by reading fresh ideas. I also know that I get more done in a day at home in terms of forward work - than I would at two days in the office.

I have said in earlier posts that we all need the time to reflect - but that in today's work place it is difficult as a manager to be seen to sit in a chair at your desk and read some articles - because invariably questions are asked as to what work you are undertaking. From some managers I have talked to over the last few months - they share that sense of guilt - but also can't find a quiet and comfortable place to read without being disturbed - even if they have the luxury of an office where they can close the door.

In a knowledge based economy - managers need to work on ideas to take their team/department forward and maybe it is time that managers at their next round of appraisals ask for one day say every two weeks to work at home without interruption. It also might be something that companies can do to help the environment - just imagine if more people didn't commute in one day a week not only on public transport but also in car levels. Maybe one day in the future people will have permits to work in the city 4 days a week as an aid to reduce traffic congestion.

Anyway do look at the web site and see if you can get your company to embrace a different way of working practices and not always the 9 to 5 system.