Hedgehog & Fox

This is basically a “re-print” of a piece I wrote years ago for The Sophist (currently in hibernation, but destined to rise again someday). At the time, however, blogging had not really caught on and there was no mechanism for feedback on the Sophist site. With the rise of Web 2.0, and more specifically, social media in the meantime, the article seems worth revisiting.

The capacity continuum really is a learning continuum, and the power that social media like blogs, wiki, and social networking sites now offer for engendering the types of networks described at the end of the article is tremendous.  Increasingly I like this article as a companion piece to my eBook, Learning 2.0 for Associations.

***

The intense scrutiny by the nonprofit sector of topics like effectiveness, capacity, and learning leads naturally to the question of where and how, concretely, these things occur. The answers are important because they suggest where capacity builders should focus their efforts. But, as nearly every capacity builder and every organization knows, the answers can also be elusive.

Presumably every organization puts at least some effort towards–in Peter Senge’s words–”expanding its capacity to create its future.” But practically speaking, a great deal of the capacity an organization builds over time cannot be identified with a particular event, a discrete point in time, or a specific individual or group. Even as focused efforts are everywhere occurring to build organizational capacity, there is a sort of indefinable nowhere in which time, relationships, reflection, and other intangible variables interact to make their own contribution to the capacity-building process. The often chaotic intersection of all these elements can be simultaneously fertile and frustrating for organizations and those who support them in the capacity-building process.

An approach to understanding the intersection is to think of capacity building as a continuum. One of the key characteristics of a continuum is that it contains no discernible divisions. The concept of the time-space continuum, for instance, is familiar to many people. In the human experience, time and space interact in a way that is practically inseparable. So, too, one might argue that the spheres in which capacity building occurs–individuals, organizations, and communities–are practically inseparable. But just as we can examine time and space separately, we can also examine different elements of the capacity continuum separately, with the understanding that the continuum itself is greater than the sum of its parts.

Individuals
InThe Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Peter Senge argues, “Organizations learn only through individuals that learn. Individuals’ learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs.” More recently, in The Case for Learning is the Case for Training, Jan Masaoka and Ken Goldstein of CompassPoint have noted the disparagement of training for the individual even as the concept of the learning organization, pioneered by Senge and others, has gained currency. “[D]espite the new emphasis on capacity building for organizations,” Masaoka and Goldstein write, “why are some technical assistance providers reluctant to see the value in capacity building for individuals…?”

Investing in individuals can have positive impact on the capacity of the organization as a whole. Masaoka and Goldstein list three key areas in which this impact may be felt:

• Staff recruitment
• Staff retention
• Team building

Each of these areas can obviously have a very direct impact on the individual, and presumably recruiting better employees, keeping them, and promoting good cooperation and collaboration among them should positively impact the organization. Of course, in order for this scenario to occur, an organization must first be receptive to it occurring and put the proper support mechanisms in place for it to occur. How does this happen?

Organizations
There is a point after which individuals band together to form an organization when a feedback loop or virtuous circle (at least one hopes it is virtuous!) develops. Individual behavior affects collective behavior and vice-versa, and the organization begins to take on a personality that is in many ways distinct from the individual personalities that comprise it. From the standpoint of ongoing capacity building, it can even be argued that the organization essentially takes on a life of its own. A recent contribution to the Learning-Org list serve goes so far as to suggest that “…the environmental consequences of organizational behavior can be fed back to the organization and shape future organizational behavior without requiring individual learning at all.”

Even if one accepts that at some point individual learning may no longer be required, the dynamic nature of the organization-individual relationship makes it nonetheless inevitable. Learning does not have to be mandated or formal. Unless an organization is in a state of atrophy, individuals will always learn, however passively, from “the environmental consequences of organizational behavior” and will continually contribute to the development of new behaviors.

The challenge for the organization seeking to build capacity is to ensure that individuals are conscious of and actively learning in positive ways from the evolving consequences of organizational behavior. Simultaneously, the organization must recognize and deal appropriately with the array of external forces that impact the organization-individual relationship, many of which originate in the broader community in which the organization finds itself.

Communities
Organizations and the individuals that comprise them do not exist in isolation. They are tied to communities both in a geographical sense and in a more philosophical or intellectual sense. The places in which organizations are located or deliver services are themselves dynamic systems in which change occurs constantly–change which may or may not be instigated by any given organization and which may impact it in any number of ways. State budget cuts, for instance, are currently creating negative “environmental consequences” within many organizations and impacting the behavior of both organizations and the individuals who comprise them. Those that are actively learning to develop new responses to these negative “environmental consequences” will build the capacity to survive and thrive.

Perhaps one of the least understood ways in which responses to challenging circumstances are developed involves engaging the broader community in which an organization operates. Community of practice and learning community are increasingly popular terms that help express the connection among organizations that and individuals who pursue similar missions in similar ways. As a force for capacity building they are invaluable, but we are only beginning to understand how best to facilitate the networks that make such communities a reality.

Buttons and Thread: The Importance of Networks
Every connection between parts of the continuum (individual to individual, individual to organization, community to individual–ad infinitum) represents a network, and networks naturally expand as more connections are made. If by nature a continuum contains no discernible divisions, networks are what are responsible for obliterating divisions between individuals, organizations, and communities. Networks are often places of anarchy and undisciplined thinking, a vast tangle of invisible threads tracing communication among innumerable individuals. They are, to say the least, difficult ground for anyone obsessed with measurement and evaluation. And yet, while networks often seem to exist on the edge of chaos, they often are the drivers of a new order.

An example from the domain of complexity theory suggests how connections within a network ultimately accumulate into a cohesive whole. Stuart Kauffman, in his groundbreaking work At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, explores the ways in which order spontaneously arises in highly complex, seemingly chaotic systems. In describing the phase transition (basically, a big change) that occurs when systems reach a certain level of complexity, Kauffman asks the reader to mentally perform the exercise of connecting a large number of buttons with pieces of thread.

Randomly choose two buttons and connect them with a thread. Now put this pair down and randomly choose two more buttons, pick them up, and connect them with a thread… as you continue to choose random pairs of buttons to connect with a thread, after a while the buttons start becoming interconnected into larger clusters.… Obviously, as clusters get larger, they begin to become cross-connected. Now the magic! As the ratio of threads to buttons passes the 0.5 mark, all of a sudden most of the clusters have become cross-connected into one giant structure.

This mental exercise illustrates the development of a simple network. If we rework it to imagine the buttons as individuals, the larger clusters as organizations, and the giant structure as the community, then we might also view the work of capacity builders as drawing the connections–forming the network–that will ultimately lead to a phase transition producing a spontaneous new order.

It takes time to build a network to the point where a phase transition occurs, and the necessary time must be supported by the necessary financial resources. Being able to demonstrate clearly the concept of the continuum and the networks that drive it is thus critical for gaining the support of funders–even if it means being prepared with a handful of buttons and a spool of thread!

Jeff Cobb

Books referenced in this posting:

A couple of years back, feeling that performance at a learning technology company I was running at the time was declining, I brought in a firm call SUMMIT Performance Systems to help us take a look at our strategy and general operations. SUMMIT introduced us to the Balanced Scorecard approach to formulating, implementing, and measuring the impact of strategy. The results were really quite remarkable, and I have been a fan of the Balanced Scorecard ever since.

I tend to think of most organizational learning initiatives as essentially a business initiative. Whether you are selling online learning, running a comprehensive corporate university, or offering classroom-based training workshops for volunteers, the learning technology effort needs to align with the overall mission and strategy of your organization—and preferably in a measurable way.

he development of measures for non-financial aspects of an organization’s operations is the hallmark of the Balanced Scorecard, though much of what makes development of measures possible is the underlying Strategy Map framework on which scorecards are typically built. Strategy Maps are structured around four primary perspectives on an organization’s strategy:

• The Financial Perspective
• The Customer Perspective
• The Internal Operations Perspective
• The Learning and Growth Perspective

(If you seek out examples of the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Maps you will find many permutations of the above perspectives, but for purposes of this posting, the above version will do.)

For each of these perspectives, an organization pinpoints three to five (again, these numbers vary in actual scorecard implementations) key objectives. For the financial perspective, identifying objectives is typically pretty easy—most organizations, whether for profit or not, want to maintain positive cash flow, control expenses, and operate with positive net revenue.

he other areas are significantly less tangible, however, and the simple (which is not to say easy) process of identifying objectives for these areas constitutes a great deal of the value of the Balanced Scorecard. What are the three or four objectives that, if achieved, would result in loyal, highly satisfied customer base? Which internal process, if really executed effectively, would have the most impact on the Customer perspective and the Financial perspective? These are not easy questions to answer, and finding good measures for each objective once it has been identified is equally challenging.

For those developing and deploying online learning initiatives, the existence of clear objectives and measures for the three perspectives that Learning and Growth must support can be incredibly clarifying. Not only does the process of creating a map and measures provide insight into where learning can have the most impact, it also provides for evidence that the return on investment in learning activities is (or, of course, is not) being achieved.

I have suspicion, though one I may never be able to identify, that learning initiatives are significantly more effective in organizations that have implemented a Balanced Scorecard (and better yet, that develop an e-learning business strategy that aligns tightly with the Scorecard). I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who might have evidence to confirm or deny that suspicion.

P.S. Readers may find the following book related to the Balanced Scorecard helpful:

A recent report issued by the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (N-TEN) and LearnSomething suggests that more than half of all associations are now using some form of e-learning and that the number is growing. In my work with associations, however, it is clear that many membership organizations feel they are not fully realizing the benefits that online learning promises—particularly generation of non-dues revenue. I’ve written on this topic in other places. What follows is a repeat of some earlier writings with some new thinking peppered in where appropriate:

Know Your Market
Successful association e-learning initiatives start with a clear understanding of whether target stakeholders want e-learning, why they want e-learning, and what form of e-learning will best serve their needs. I am amazed at how many organizations do not conduct a focused, disciplined needs assessment before spending significant amounts of money on e-learning content and infrastructure. Fight the temptation to make assumptions, and to the greatest extent possible, conduct surveys, focus groups, and interviews with key stakeholders before starting to make e-learning content or technology decisions.

Don’t Devalue the Learning
Many associations start with the assumption that they should charge less for e-learning than for their traditional classroom-based training. This positions them poorly for achieving positive returns on their investment in e-learning and can ultimately create downward price pressure on their classroom offerings. If the online and classroom content are substantially the same, the price charged for them should also be the same. (See also Pricing Online Learning). If it really makes sense to charge less for the online learning, be absolutely certain that the difference in value propositions for the online and offline options is crystal clear to the potential purchaser.

Go for Critical Mass
I have seen focused, single offering online learning programs do quite well in areas where there is a perennial compliance, licensing, or certification need. As a rule, however, just like a restaurant with only one item on its menu will not be very successful, an association e-learning initiative with limited offerings is not likely to meet with success over the long haul. Beware the “let’s just put a toe in the water” approach. If necessary, look to partners and vendors of off-the-shelf content to help your organization flesh out its initial range of offerings. There are a wide range of content vendors that may be willing to license content to you for re-sale. These include large companies like Skilsoft, ElementK, and MindLeaders as well as smaller players like JED New Media.

Remember also that with tools like Articulate Presenter, you can convert existing seminar content into online offerings quite rapidly.

Choose a Business Model, Not a Technology
I had originally titled this section “Choose a Partner, Not a Technology.” I think that is an important thought, but it is subsumed within the overall question of developing a viable, sustainable business model. It is easy to get swept up in the exciting range of development tools and platform options that are now available for e-learning. As the market matures and consolidates, however, the differences between the available technologies continue to decrease. And remember that if you are going to actually make money through e-learning products, you will most likely need to operate a relatively high volume business. Often times, the array of bells and whistles introduces operational “friction” that interferes with high volume sales.

As far as partners go: to the extent that you look to vendors for support, focus on finding one that really understands association and nonprofit business needs and that can play the role of a true business partner. Yes, it really does make a big difference!

Prepare to Sell
The sheer convenience of e-learning often helps to drive initial adoption by stakeholders, but substantial ongoing adoption will require a focused sales and marketing effort. Make sure everyone on your staff can speak knowledgeably about your e-learning offerings and seize every chance you can—at meetings, conferences, and classroom-based training events—to convey your value proposition for e-learning to stakeholders. Most importantly, make sure you are focusing your efforts to where you can really make the most sales—which often means finding other organizations that may be able to by in bulk from you—and develop a compelling message for those areas.

Basically, everything above points to the need to develop a solid, well-articulated (but brief!) e-learning business plan—something that, like a needs assessment, I see too few organizations undertake in a truly systematic, effective way. As with any other new initiative you might launch, spell out clearly where you want to go, how you will get there, and what measurements will enable you see that you have achieved your goals. With those pieces in place, your chances of success will be high.

JTC