The New Workplace Weekly Digest 11/20

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Owner of this photo is Flickr user Raphaël Labbé. Original location of the image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ulikleafar/2875709614/
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Every Friday, we prepare for you a short digest with news covering subjects related to employee engagement, collaboration, organizational culture, knowledge sharing, leadership and the future of work.

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Here’s this week’s brief:

Companies are sitting on far more knowledge…

…and expertise than they realize, Christopher Myers, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches leadership and organizational behavior says in his latest article. His research focuses on how people learn vicariously and share knowledge in high-reliability, knowledge-intensive work environments. “Many of the things we need to know to be successful – to innovate, collaborate, solve problems, and identify new opportunities – aren’t learned simply through schooling, training, or personal experience. Especially for today’s knowledge-based work, much of what we need to know we learn from others’ experiences, through what’s called vicarious learning.”. If you’re interested in knowledge management practices, read his article Is Your Company Encouraging Employees to Share What They Know? for Harvard Business Review.

As a company grows, individuals tend to develop…

…specialist roles and knowledge. The result can be that vital data and experience ends up locked away on individual devices and in individual heads. A smart approach to collaboration can reduce the bottlenecks of knowledge and expertise in your business, and help your staff work more effectively. “Employees waste time reinventing the wheel, because they don’t know that someone else already has the solution.” says Pete Tomlinson, product director at Eclipse Internet. “If your business is genuinely ready to collaborate, the first step is to start moving important information out of the silos it naturally collects in.” says Darien Graham-Smith, author of this article. Businesses of all sizes can benefit from information-sharing – read Darein’s post How can businesses collaborate more effectively? for Alphr to learn why.

Information technology enthusiasts have been…

…using chat apps as a means of external communication in the early days of days of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Today, many companies use chat apps for internal communications — providing an open channel for employees to collaborate on projects and an emergency communications method during times of crisis. But as it looks, chat apps have their weaknesses as well. “To be effective, the channels have to be active. If someone starts a conversation on an important work-related topic and only one or two people have time to respond to it, the topic might go away, leaving a lot of interested parties without any input because they weren’t on the channel at the right time.” says James Fields is owner and president of IT service provider Concept Technology and IT staffing company Scout Staffing. Learn about users adaptation to this internal communications tool by reading James’ article Chat apps in the workplace: Collaboration or chaos? for The Tennessean.

Want to bulletproof your job and get ahead?…

…Then forget about ‘me’ – it’s all about ‘we’, Janine Gartner uses as subtitle of the post we’d like to present you next. She gives five key things that you can do to succeed as a team player and future-proof your career. One of these five tips is appreciatng the value of intellectual currency. Focusing inwards and seeing only your own KPIs and bonus targets means that you miss out on banking others’ knowledge. Skills are an increasingly valuable currency for both corporates and entrepreneurs alike. “Teamwork and collaboration is the only way to stabilise and stand firm in a shifting and unsteady work environment. The ‘Me’ thinking space doesn’t get you very far. Make the change to thinking ‘We’ instead, and flourish!”. To find out what the other four keys are, read her post The five reasons you need to be a team player in today’s workforce for The Sidney Morning Herald.

The organizations that will become the household…

…names of this century will be renowned for sustained, large-scale, efficient innovation. The key to that capability is a strong collaborative community, Paul Adler, Charles Heckscher and Laurence Prusak conclude their latest collaborative piece about organizational structure. “Collaborative communities encourage people to continually apply their unique talents to group projects—and to become motivated by a collective mission, not just personal gain or the intrinsic pleasures of autonomous creativity. By marrying a sense of common purpose to a supportive structure, these organizations are mobilizing knowledge workers’ talents and expertise in flexible, highly manageable group-work efforts.”. Read their article Building a Collaborative Enterprise for Harvard Business Review to learn more on the subject.

Happy Knowledge Sharing!

Looking for a great way to ask questions and build knowledge with your co-workers? Quandora enables simple, efficient knowledge sharing with your team, way more fun than a mailing list or a forum. Try Quandora

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