Collaboration
Collaboration is Social; Work and Learning are Social
In today's electronically networked work environments, collaboration
is often accomplished through technology. There are many types of computer-augmented
collaboration tools. Groupware is the generic term for software that helps
people work together collectively. Email is perhaps the most common tool
for individual and group communication. But, whereas technology can foster
collaboration, technology by itself does not create it.
Many work processes are complex and teamwork is essential. Total Quality Management (TQM) organizations overtly culture teamwork. Self-Directed Work Teams (SDWTs) are favored by TQM organizations. More recently, the concept is being widely applied to work groups in rapidly changing work environments, where they are called "high performance teams," or "semi-autonomous work groups," or "self-managed teams."
One definition is that such a team is
a highly trained functional group of employees who have the responsibility for a well-defined segment of work. Management has delegated to the team the authority to plan, implement, control and improve all work processes within that segment.
Major points of difference between the traditional organization and SDWTs are summarized as follows:
| Traditional Organization | Self-Directed Work Teams | |
| Supervision | Outside of the group | Within the group |
| Roles | Fixed | Interchangeable |
| Control | Individual | Group |
| Skills | Specialized | Multi-Skilled |
| Tasks | Rigid | Flexible |
| Work Effort | Divided | Cohesive |
| Status | Differential | Equal |
Companies may use team based pay and team effectiveness evaluations. And, their reward systems are likely to recognize teams -- when teams perform well, each team member gets a bonus.
Web sites on workteams include High Performance Team <http://rampages.onramp.net/bodwell/home.html>,
and
Self Directed Work Team <http://users.ids.net/~brim/sdwth.html>
Even in business settings that do not emphasize teamwork, collaboration is seen as critical. Collaboration means that employees contribute skills and knowledge towards group accomplishment.
And why does collaboration and teamwork matter so much more in the Information Age? Stewart claims that the content and culture of knowledge work require it.(1) Work these days is more complex, more cross-functional, drawing on a diverse set of skills. Individuals who collaborate may not be in the same physical space. Collaborative efforts often draw on individuals with diverse backgrounds and skills.
In the current organizational literature, learning at work is recognized for its social elements. It is also recognized that the most relevant learning occurs close to actual practice. At work, learning happens among individuals in groups. Learning occurs both on the individual level, and on the level of the group. Organizations are more and more relying on employees to take initiative and responsibility to train themselves, and to train each other. Work environments are coming to be referred to as "learning organizations." (2)
Communities of Practice
"Today's economy runs on knowledge," begin Wenger and Snyder in
their Harvard Business Review article on communities of practice
(CoPs).(3) CoPs are cross-functional groups of individuals
sharing expertise and knowledge primarily, often to foster new approaches
to problem-solving. Dove talks about a "culture of collaborative learning,"
where CoPs are "an effective mechanism for nurturing a collaborative
culture and increasing the velocity and richness of knowledge diffusion."
(4) Adjectives applied to such groups emphasize their
unplanned, unbudgeted nature: organic, spontaneous, informal continuous
learning, free-flowing, experience sharing, self-selected and self-motivated.
Although CoPs are informal and unstructured, they can be cultivated and nurtured. They are an extension of the collaborative concept, in essence, a real-world application of personal knowledge assets to solve a problem or pursue a new course of action.
In today's environment, many companies are moving away from strict hierarchies and towards work that is done through networks of individuals. Acknowledging that "knowledge" and "learning" are two of the most frequently used words in current writings about top-level managers, some investigators find that "knowledge and learning occur with equal importance at the shop-floor level."(5) Throughout the organization, it is people, and what they know, share, and can learn together, that are the key elements.
In a 1999 book(6), Botkin suggests that establishing knowledge communities are a way for recognizing CoPs, and constitute the next step beyond teams and task forces:
Communities of practice don't appear on the organization chart because they are invisible, informal, and largely unaccountable as a group for what they do. Transforming them into knowledge communities is a process of making them visible, formal and accountable.
(1) Thomas A. Stewart, "The Great Conundrum--You vs. the Team," Fortune, vol. 134, no. 10, 25 November 1996, p. 165-166.
(2) Peter M. Senge (The Fifth Discipline, New York: Doubleday, 1994) apparently first coined the term "learning organization," and it became widely seen as descriptive of continuous improvement practices. The term is used in the same breath as CoPs, e.g., David Stampe, "Communities of Practice," Training vol. 34, no. 2, February 1997, p. 34.
(3) Etienne C. Wenger and William M. Snyder, "Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier," Harvard Business Review vol. 78, no. 1, Jan/Feb 2000, p. 139+ The term "Communities of Practice" was coined in about 1989 by the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) at Stanford <http://www.irl.org/>
(4) Rick Dove, Implementing Stealth Knowledge Management 8 May 2000 <http://www.parshift.com/Essays/essay054.htm>
(5) Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld et al., Knowledge-Driven Work, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 4.
(6) Jim Botkin, Smart Business: How Knowledge Communities Can Revolutionize Your Company. Boston: Free Press, 1999, p. 192-3.
Investigating
Information Age Realities in the World of Work
