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Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 22, 2022 at 12:11 PM
I’ve been reflecting on this whole Working From Home thing (in principle, a CRIMPer’s dream!), and after, yet again, having had to untangle yet another appalling administrative mess perpetrated by one of our major corporate clients (a client who should know better – and in fact has many processes in place that theoretically mean no such mess should happen in the first place), I realised something interesting.
When I first started working for a larger company, I learned an awful lot from working alongside much more experienced people, each of whom had their own personal methods for getting things done. They were all characters, and they didn’t all always follow standard procedures (although they had devised all kinds of cunning “I did really, honest” compromises). But they were, on the whole, very efficient, because they knew exactly what they were trying to achieve and enjoyed the interactions and teamwork involved in getting there (not always, of course; there are always a few things which everyone hates doing!)
In a pure WFH environment, that opportunity to watch/listen to more experienced and often very different people in action pretty much disappears. Lots of little opportunities to learn from their methods, the way they interact with others (or don’t!), their little warnings or encouragements, their persuasive tricks or prevaricatory cunning – how does a WFH environment emulate that? I honestly don’t think it can – and I speak as one who works in a small company that virtualised its working environment many years ago.
I know this isn’t directly related to outliners (well, actually, it isn’t related at all!). But it is, I think, related to knowledge management and in particular, knowledge transfer. As well, of course, as human psychology (ultimately at the root of all knowledge management).
Has anyone else thought about this? Are there WFH solutions that could replace an in-person learning experience (based on personal observation rather than standard e-learning techniques)? I’d love to know.
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 22, 2022 at 12:31 PM
That’s a very interesting observation. Steven Johnson in his book Where Good Ideas Come From says ideas come from networks. Here’s a quote from his Ted talk:
“We take ideas from other people, people we’ve learned from, people we run into in the coffee shop, and we stitch them together into new forms and we create something new. That’s really where innovation happens.”
So how do we establish those networks working from home?
Building 20 on the MIT campus built during WWII to help bring science to the war effort is alleged to have been such a great incubator of ideas because of the disparate fields of expertise of its occupants, and the informal way they could network.
In some ways, the web (and forums like this) can mimic that in person interaction. But is it enough?
Very good question, Bill.
Steve
Posted by Franz Grieser
Jul 22, 2022 at 01:46 PM
I think that documenting what you do - for yourself and for colleagues, coworkers, virtual assistants etc. - is more important than ever in the WFH workspace. Not only because there is usually no one who you can look over the shoulder. And it gets easier than ever: You can, for example, use a video-capture tool such as Camtasia (expensive but worth it) or free alternatives such as Loom to quickly record the steps you take. Or you use screenshots (WINDOWS+SHIFT+S does the trick in Windows).
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 22, 2022 at 03:07 PM
All good points, Franz, but not quite the same thing as being able to watch an actual person in action, talking on the phone (not, of course, such a frequent occurrence nowadays!), cajoling suppliers, calming clients, etc.
But I guess one could put together such a system, and maybe even devise classes based on it. Video would certainly be more “personal” than mere writing (and I’m sure I’m not alone in finding that many people don’t read more than half an e-mail in any case. Young people nowadays
!)
Hm, there’s a really interesting training opportunity here for someone – not unlike the real-world case studies they use in business schools.
Role-playing is something that used to be very popular, too, but I’ve recently had the impression that it’s not used as much as it was (perhaps because of the gradual fadeaway of direct personal contact). And yet in many ways, it’s more important than ever before.
Franz Grieser wrote:
I think that documenting what you do - for yourself and for colleagues,
>coworkers, virtual assistants etc. - is more important than ever in the
>WFH workspace. Not only because there is usually no one who you can look
>over the shoulder. And it gets easier than ever: You can, for example,
>use a video-capture tool such as Camtasia (expensive but worth it) or
>free alternatives such as Loom to quickly record the steps you take. Or
>you use screenshots (WINDOWS+SHIFT+S does the trick in Windows).
Posted by Paul Korm
Jul 25, 2022 at 08:47 PM
I don’t think there is a way to replace in-person in-office interaction with co-workers and customers, in a WFH situation. I don’t think it’s hyperbole, but looking back over my career as I changed jobs and responsibilities, I cannot count the hundreds of interactions that proved to be irreplaceable in terms of knowledge and skills. Including the times I effed up and the facts of life at corporation “X” were explained to me, rapidly, in detail. LOL
Most of interchanges these were casual, in-the-hallway, waiting-for-the-elevator, going-to-the-parking garage types of engagement with co-workers or supervisors. Most of these interactions didn’t “bear fruit” then, but paid me back weeks, months or years later. When look back over the decades, I always remember these conversations more than I remember the work I was actually doing.
The work we do in offices is ephemeral—not much of it matters beyond the time we do it. But what we can receive from others in person is irreplaceable and over the long-term makes us who we are. Good and bad, of course.
And I don’t think this can happen the same way with the same results, over Zoom or Teams or Slack or whatever, the same way it happens in person. If I were starting out today, and had to think of a lifetime of Zoom hell, I think I would head for Montana and find work on ranch.