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Marshall Wilen

April 2016 - TD Magazine

A city manager molds a city government into a cohesive team.

Team Evolution in the Public Sector

Despite the fact that accessing social media is the number one mobile activity today, according to Adobe, few organizations have adopted these technologies for learning due to a lack of policy. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan foresaw the implications of digital computing in the 1960s. In his book, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, he said, “Education must shift from instruction, from imposing of stencils, to discovery, to probing and exploration, and to the recognition of the language of forms” (McLuhan and Fiore, 1967). Social media follows that line of thinking by allowing people to take control of what they want to learn at any time of the day, and from any location with mobile or Wi-Fi service. Here are some other ways that employees can use social media for mobile learning. Curation Using social media for mobile learning helps curate information within a personal learning network or a community of practice. It does this by connecting employees with each other and with employees in similar roles in other companies. Internal sharing Employees within the same company can share information within minutes. Jane Bozarth wrote for Learning Solutions magazine about how an individual from one company shared a conference recap with his colleagues: “Users, armed with phones equipped with video cameras, are increasingly comfortable with and adept at creating and sharing their own videos. Encourage them to be ‘social’ in the sense of contributing to course materials and organizational communication. When ... Craig Taylor was the company’s sole employee sent to Las Vegas for DevLearn, he ended each day by capturing about five minutes’ worth of reflection about the experience: speakers he’d seen, an overview of key points, a few critical takeaways. In this way, he was able to document his day, reflect on new learning, and share it with those back at the office” (2013). External sharing Employees working for different companies but in similar roles can exchange ideas through social media in a variety of ways. They can engage in Twitter chats, for example, using a common hashtag. LinkedIn has discussion groups on different topics that workers can browse throughout the day, participating in the group discussions that appeal to them. Both methods have the potential for employees to expand their networks, ask questions, as well as be seen as an expert by providing answers. Location The combination of social media and mobile devices can give employees an idea of the whereabouts of a colleague. With many employees working from the road, social check-ins on enterprise social networks (and even on public ones) let colleagues know when someone may not be at his or her desk.Columnist Clive Thompson writes about this idea in his book, Smarter Than You Think (2013). He references the term “proprioception,” which is the body’s awareness of where its limbs are located, as a metaphor for our potential awareness of the status of our colleagues. Thompson relates this to the workplace: “When groups of people—friends, family, workmates—keep in lightweight online contact, it gives us social proprioception: a group’s sense of self. Used correctly, social proprioception can make one’s work life less frazzled by reducing the constant stream of interruptions. A group that’s connected in an ambient fashion can—counterintuitively—spend less time on communication, particularly the writing and reading of endless email.” At the same time, the use of social media in the workplace has resulted in a major increase in the amount of information to which we need to pay attention. Social media and networks that feature the ability to organize and store information for later retrieval can be valuable tools for the enterprise by preventing the loss of institutional knowledge through employee attrition, changes in careers, and retirement. For instance, the National Archive and Retired Federal Employees Association calculates that 10,000 years of American federal worker experience is lost every day. According to The Washington Post that is the equivalent of forty-six days every second. Enterprise social networks such as Jive, Yammer, and Tappestry all provide the ability to store and categorize information in their own ways if they are part of your overall strategy for preserving this knowledge. Bottom line The world of work is beginning to embrace the use of social media for mobile learning. To begin, develop your goals for using social media. Then find a network that works for you based on those goals, whether it’s available publicly (like Twitter) or privately (choose an enterprise social network or an internal wiki). Next, find what others are talking about and contribute by answering questions or asking your own. Finally, keep evaluating to see whether you have to make adjustments to your social media strategy, whether it’s for you as an individual or for your company. No matter how you use social media for mobile learning, you’re bound to make some discoveries. Because of how many people use social media, it’s a great first step into mobile learning for your enterprise.Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from  Mastering Mobile Learning: Tips and Techniques for Success, co-published by Wiley and ASTD. This excerpt has been adapted with permission from the publisher,  Wiley, copyright © 2014.

Four Ways to Use Social Media for Learning in the Real World

Every office has an intellectual. There are musicians, photographers, writers, debate champions, professors, mathematicians, people with minors or majors in psychology, and so forth. Even though they had a different educational background, now these folks are your instructional designers, developers, trainers, and learning managers. Indeed, workplace learning and performance (WLP) professionals often are transitioning from previous professions or academic backgrounds.Assuming you are a manager, coordinator, or team leader, your first task is to uncover any talents of the people working for you. This is not an easy task. Many everyday roles require the application of intelligence to skills that may have a psychomotor component, such as art, architecture, engineering—the list goes on.The main quality of the intellectual person is that the mental skills she demonstrates is not simply intelligent, but that she focuses on thinking about the abstract, as well as aspects of human inquiry and the value of her strategic thinking. Consider the quote from Frank Furedi: “Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but by the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the values that they uphold.”To identify an intellectual requires more than looking at his resume. You will need to observe his language, behavior, and most important, emotional intelligence.My typical conference presentation includes an explanation of the structure of my department and team and how we’ve adapted and supported the ASTD competence model effectively. During a presentation last year, some of the L&D leaders in the room joked that they could not duplicate what I do because not everyone on their team was particularly talented. My answer was that talent can be leveraged.Great leaders should be able to maximize their team members’ strengths and address their weakness through continuous professional development and improvement. Even if you don’t have a dream team, it’s your job as manager to either work with the people you have to make them better, define their roles to match their strengths, or to manage them out of your team.In an interview with some industry leaders, all of them agreed that they prefer to hire and work with people smarter than themselves. They believe that working with intellectuals would challenge them to do better and think harder or differently. At the end of the day, no matter how gifted or talented a person is, if their attitude is toxic, their contribution to the organization is greatly diminished—and probably not worth having them onboard.Intellectual skills you can useHere’s a breakdown of some subjects and expertise that can be maximized and used to enhance learning and development.SubjectDescriptionExamples of Output (Use)RhetoricRhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the capability of writers or speakers that attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Public relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing, and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical practitioners.storyboard writersinteractivity designersicebreakers designersspeech or presenter’s coacheditors (training materials always need a second pair of eyes during quality reviews)on-the-job coachesNeuro-linguisticNeuro-linguistic is an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy. It studies connections between the neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic"), and behavioral patterns learned through experience (behavior).trainersfacilitatorssoft skill training designersbehavioral interviewermotivational coachesGeometryGeometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. Geometry is also a body of practical knowledge concerning lengths, areas, and volumes.web-designersweb-based training (wbt) designersgraphic designersMusicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms.jinglesaudio mediavisual MediaWBT scoredame designerGrammarThe term grammar is often used by non-linguists with a very broad meaning. However, linguists use it in a much more specific sense. The term "grammar" also can be used to describe the rules that govern the linguistic behavior of a group of speakers.editorsauthorsparticipant’s guide writersspeech or presentation writerspolicy and procedure writersLogicLogic has two meanings: first, it describes the use of valid reasoning in some activity; second, it names the normative study of reasoning or a branch thereof. The study of logic was part of the classical trivium (three subjects), which also included grammar and rhetoric.learning strategistroot cause analystsdata analystsevaluatorsPsychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors. Psychology has the immediate goal of understanding individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases, and by many accounts it ultimately aims to benefit society. Psychologists explore concepts such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships.human performance improvement (HPI) analystsperformance coachesleadership coacheslearning audience analystsArtsArt is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities; this article focuses primarily on the visual arts, which includes the creation of images or objects in fields, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Emotions, behavior, and feelings are also communicated through art.graphic designersvisual media producersbrand designersvisual aid designersMake your people visibleEnsuring adequate person-to-job fit is the first step in ensuring high performers are excited about their work. However, selecting the right person for the right position is only the first part of the equation. By leveraging your team member’s professional preference you will be able to lead them to high performance.By definition, high performers have demonstrated adequate mastery of their position and may find themselves in search of newer challenges and greater responsibility if these needs are not met. Remember this can be part of your talent management tactics. Lack of person-to-job fit can result in disengagement and turnover.Finding better people can be problematic. Recruiting, interviewing, and hiring a new member of your team can be timely and expensive—when compared to changes of support that enable more to be achieved from an existing team. Make sure you manage and maximize the talents of your current team. An individual who shines in one context may struggle in another. Even superstars can be deficient in certain areas. The best pathway is to maximize strengths and professionally develop and improve weaknesses. Notice your team members, use them, and make them feel valuable.ResourcesMcLuhan, Marshall (2006). The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time (first publication of McLuhan's 1942 doctoral dissertation); Gingko Press. ISBN 1-58423-067-3.Robinson, Martin. Trivium 21c: Preparing Young People for the Future with Lessons From the Past. London: Independent Thinking Press, 2013. ISBN 978-178135054-6.Sayers, Dorothy L., essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning", presented at Oxford, 1947.Winterer, Caroline. The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780–1910.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Marshall Wilen

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