The Upside of Failure
Harvey Schachter writes a good column for the Globe and Mail. His last one was about why people fail in careers. It’s worth a good read so I won’t summarize it here. Instead you can read it yourself: article2313473.
Social Learning
I found a good blog post on social_learning_for_a_social_workplace. In particular I like what the blog says at the very end (which I will reprint here as no one reads to the end of anything anymore.)
The key considerations to successful social learning in the workplace are simple:
- Enable and empower everyone in your organization to teach and learn at opportune times.
- Make learning collaborative and peer-to-peer, crossing department lines and organizational hierarchies.
- Make learning on-demand and experience-based.
- Combine learning with daily business tasks to create a more integrated learning and working experience.
Working Hours
This trend of work going home and home coming to work has only extended the workday and in total made the amount of time worked greater. A study of work time hours shows that those people who supervise employees have longer work hours than those who do not.
“The average for all full-time employees is 46.7 hours per week. Within this group, municipal workers generally work 42.5 hours. Many of these are unionized employees with contracts that specify their maximum number of hours. Once negotiated, they generally stick to this The other jobs that are lower than the average do not have a travel component. Employees stay at one location. Those who are above average have greater responsibilities, more travel, and more people management as part of their jobs. The chart below shows work hours per week (blue bars). Those who supervise employees have longer work hours and occasions than those who do not. Independent consultants are an exception. Unlike most other employees, their income is directly related to hours worked – they have a different incentive from employees to work long hours.” http://getmoredone.com/2010/08/hours-worked-by-job/
Changes at RIM
Well it’s always sad to see a founder, or even two end up leaving an active management role at their company. It could be a natural evolution but it got me thinking about my love/hate relationship with my Blackberry. I remember the first time I got a Blackberry. It was about 2000/2001 and I thought this was a great new device. It was amazing how quickly I became addicted to it, checking messages regularly and answering them at all hours of the day. The first time I noticed that there was a problem with their use was in a meeting at Arch Venture Partners in Chicago. One of the rites of passage in getting venture capital funding is presenting your pitch to all of the partners. We sat in a windowed boardroom and due to cellular reception, the partners had to place their Blackberries on a window ledge. On a regular basis during the meeting the partners would get up from their seats, go over to the window, retrieve their Blackberry and check and perhaps answer messages. Perhaps I was boring or they just were not interested but that was a defining moment for me. I started to look at how I used the Blackberry and discovered that I was becoming involved in a lot of things that my employees should be handling themselves. It was too easy to get me and to get me to deal with things they should be dealing with. It was also too easy to check email at all hours of the day and mentally to never leave work. RIM has managed to change human behaviour by the introduction of an innovative device and whether history will see this as positive or negative change, here’s a thank-you to Balsillie and Lazaridis for creating a world changing company.
Reverse Mentoring
In a twist on an old practice, the Globe has an article in it today about Bottom-to-top Mentoring. The idea behind reverse mentoring is for junior mentors to help senior leaders get a better idea of newer issues and technologies. Reverse mentoring on such issues as social media, diversity, and understanding younger employees will enable senior leaders to get a better handle on up and coming trends. Interesting spin on how to teach an old dog new tricks.