Above and Beyond KM

A blog post entitled 10 Ways to Be Productive During Downtime on a Job forced an incredulous chuckle from me, along with the following question: “Who has downtime on their job?” Call me misguided, but I was under the impression that the last few years of workforce “right sizing” had left everyone else with so much to do that there wasn’t enough time for downtime. Did I miss something? Nonetheless, in an effort to learn something from what I’d encountered, I wondered whether the issue was not so much that downtime is generated when we have under-demanding jobs, but rather  that downtime is a function of how we as humans work.  If it’s the latter, shouldn’t we  plan to make the best possible use of it?

In his book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance,* Tony Schwartz and his co-authors remind us that we aren’t like computers — designed to be on constantly while operating multiple programs simultaneously over long stretches of time.  Rather, we’re meant to oscillate between periods of intense, focused activity, and downtime.  In his view, this downtime is a vitally important opportunity to refresh our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual resources so that we can bring them all to the work we’ve chosen to do.  Further, the downtime (if done correctly) gives our brains a chance to operate a bit more creatively, taking advantage of internal processes of which we’re unaware and cannot direct.  This suggests that even the most overworked person needs to plan for downtime.  Not because they have too little to do, but precisely because they have so much to do and need to ensure they bring their best to their work.

Whether you choose to use your downtime for chores or choose deliberately to recharge your batteries, remember that even robots require time in the workshop for renewal and repair.

[Photo Credit: Swansea Photographer]

*Disclosure: As an experiment, I’m trying the Amazon Associates program, which means that if you purchase this book via the link above, I may at some point receive a small commission from Amazon. Here’s the formal statement recommended by Amazon:  VMAbraham is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC  Associates Program, an affiliate  advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn  advertising fees by advertising and  linking to amazon.com.

Greg Lowe and Kathleen Culver gave a reprise of their much-praised presentation first given at the E2.0 Conference in San Francisco.

Background:

[These are my quick notes, complete with  (what I hope is no more than) the occasional typo and grammatical error.  Please excuse those. Thanks!

From time to time, I'll insert my own editorial comments - exercising the prerogatives of the blogger.  I'll show those in brackets. ]

Notes:

• Constant electronic connection provides lots of well-known benefits
  • Gives flexibility
  • Reduces need to travel
• However, there is a downside – and that’s the Dark Side of E2.0
  • You are constantly interrupted
  • You lose the flow
  • There is less downtime – required to respond constantly
  • less play
  • put your close relationships at risk
  • problem of burnout from being “on” 24/7
  • poor performance – interruptions distract you and make you less able to perform – almost as if you had too much to drink
• Cites Tony Schwartz’ The Way We Are Working Isn’t Working
  • We aren’t computers that can stay “on” all the time
  • High performers have a particular pattern to their work – they have periods of deep focus followed by downtime — even they don’t try to perform at a peak level 24/7
• Because we can use E2.0 to avoid travel, we can work remotely.  This means that we don’t meet in person as much any more. This leads
  • to more misunderstanding because we miss subtle non-verbal clues
  • it is harder to achieve comaraderie and a sense of rapport with out colleagues.
• Part of how we absorb information is involves more than just ingesting raw data – we absorb  information better when we have other physical sensations at the same time (you remember better what someone tells you when you are holding a cup of hot coffee in the cafeteria – more inputs -than when you are reading an e-mail without other physical sensation)
• Cites Daniel Goleman’s work on mirror neurons, which are important for our ability to empathize.  University of Michigan study reports that there has been a 40% decline in the empathy of college students in the last 20 years due to the fact that they interact remotely more frequently.
• Why should a company care? Comraderie and rapport are correlated to loyalty.  Empathy helps build comraderie and rapport.
• New 2.0 venues give us broader input/perspective, multlingual advantages, opportunities to buildcorporate knowledge and creates new corporate behaviors and culture.
• new 2.0 venues can lead to “Exposure Bias.”  Because not every employee will be able to master these new 2.0 venues, the ones that do will enjoy the benefits of visibility (exposure).  The quiet ones will be crowded out. The ones who contribute and participate will have more perceived popularity and expertise.  Will this lead people to game the system in order to drive up their rankings? This isn’t the desired behavior – we need the true experts participating.
• Old behaviors then appear in “new clothes” – for example, managers press gang people into their communities in order to show higher participation numbers even though these people haven’t joined for the right reasons and most likely won’t add value
• E2.0 can provide easy access to information.  Greg Lowe calls this the “information candy store.”  The downside of this is information overload.  This can lead to huge loss of productivity.
• Citing Daniel Schwartz’ work on The Paradox of Choice – the more choice we have, the higher the stakes regarding the decision, yet we tend to lose confidence in our ability to make a good choice.
• With too much information, even the most careful, focused person can fall into analysis paralysis in a good faith attempt to make a good decision.
• The biggest risks of E2.0:
  • loss of productivity
  • risk of burnout
  • negative impact on the quality of decisions
  • threats to employee morale and happiness
• However, the Dark Side still can’t be quantified.  Therefore, E2.0 is still safe from business case risks – however, there is a risk to individuals.
• How do you mitigate the impact of the Dark Side?
  • Avoid “alert fatigue”
  • Unplug yourself
  • Make an effort to meet in person as often as possible
  • Remember the ‘wallflowers” – make sure you’re engaging with the folks who are less likely to jump into E2.0
  • Improve your ability to filter the noise – this is not a one-time action. As your priorities change, you need to change your filters so that only the most relevant information comes through the filter.
• This advice is like “eat healthy and exercise.” In other words, it’s easier saiid than done.
• For example, we get addicted to Alerts becase we get a little rush when someone gives us a good comment on our work or our activity stream.
• We fear loss of reputation if we aren’t always active and recognized as an expert.
• We don’t want to be seen as non-responsive.
• Immunity to change – it’s extremely hard to makes these changes.  We have habits for how we work.  While it is possible to change habits, this requires real mental focus. Unfortunately, multitasking has a negative impact on our ability to must the level of focus and persistence necessary to change habits.
• Citing [Daniel Segal called Blindside]
• Citing Barbara Ehrenreidt Brightsiding – about the relentless flood of positive information that masks the real issues and helps people avoid the thought, analysis and discussions that are necessary to actually achieve true rather than fake positive results.
• Focus: We are responsible for what we pay attention to.  What we attend to is what we remember and shapes who we are and what we are able to achieve.  Therefore, pay attention to your attention – just as much as you pay attention to your health and your money.

Wired Man

Whether we’re compelled by an urge for productivity or a chronic lack of time, many of us spend our days multitasking. Even though there are serious questions about the true efficacy of multitasking, many feel that we simply have no choice.  While some say this is just the new reality in today’s world, others point to research that indicates that human multitasking is a myth:

As technology allows people to do more tasks at the same time, the myth that we can multitask has never been stronger. But researchers say it’s still a myth — and they have the data to prove it.

Humans, they say, don’t do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly.

This suggests that when we try to multitask, we’re really just doing multiple things serially with less than full focus.  Depending on the circumstances, that can be delightful (e.g., listening to music while doing household chores), dumb (e.g., having a serious “relationship” conversation while watching a sporting event on TV) or even dangerous (e.g., texting while driving).  But have you considered the ethics of multitasking?

All lawyers in active practice in New York are required to attend ongoing education sessions in order to earn a specified number of continuing legal education (CLE) credits and, thereby, remain in good standing.  In a recent post about “Blackberryheads” on the Legal Ethics Forum, renowned legal ethicist Stephen Gillers challenged lawyers by asking,

Is it ethical to claim CLE credit for a talk on legal ethics if you’ve spent nearly the entire time a captive of your Blackberry? Or laptop? Or editing a brief? Or reading a book on your iPad?

Even if you’re not a lawyer, is it ethical to give only partial attention to the task at hand?

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Additional Reading:

• Leo Babauta,  How NOT to Multitask – Work Simpler and Saner
• Jim McGee, Asking more relevant questions about focus and multitasking
• Christine Rosen, The Myth of Multitasking
• Jack Vinson, When is multitasking not multitasking?

[Photo Credit: Mike Licht]

“Women love drama!”  I overheard this pearl of wisdom on the street the other day. If I hadn’t been racing to a meeting, I might have stopped to engage with the two “gentlemen” who were pontificating about women on a busy street corner in Manhattan. Perhaps it’s just as well that I was in a rush. After all, how do you begin to address a hopeless generalization like “women love drama”? Somehow I doubt that creating my own drama on that corner would have helped the cause of women.

As I walked away, I wondered how often we make generalizations in our lives and thereby avoid the need to analyze closely what’s really going on around us. For example, in law firm knowledge management circles I often hear statements that begin with the words: “THE LAWYERS…” As a lawyer and a knowledge manager, I know that I’m not part of a monolithic indistinguishable mass. In fact, I know lots of quirky people who act in unexpected ways — even though they are lawyers.  Therefore, building a knowledge management system around someone’s personal generalization of an entire group of people makes no sense at all.  However, it does happen.

What’s the antidote?  Start by being honest about your sample size.  How many lawyers have you spoken to or observed with respect to a particular generalization? Then, look outside your experience of your firm to the experience of other firms.  Does your generalization hold up?  If not, is it because you’re working with a truly unique group of lawyers or are you working with a flawed view of lawyers?

If we can’t safely rely on personal generalizations, what other shortcuts can we reliably use in planning, deploying and maintaining KM systems? There are by now many studies (backed by lots of data) regarding human behavior and usability preferences.  Make sure you stay aware of this literature.  And, if you’re working with a good vendor, you should be able to take advantage of their experience of deploying their product in a variety of environments and with a range of users.

At the end of the day, don’t assume that all users are like the handful you actually know.  Failure to follow this rule could lead to a great deal of unwelcome drama that is a whole lot more substantial than the female drama some think they’ve experienced!

[Photo Credit:  Schroedinger's Cat]

One of the great challenges of KM 1.0 is that we have to make guesses about the future when populating our document repositories. When considering whether or not to add a particular document to the collection, we have to make a bet as to the likelihood that this particular content item will be useful or even remotely interesting at some point in the future.  But how do you really know?  How often are you right? And do you have the metrics to vindicate your guesses?

To add insult to an injured system, law firm knowledge managers ask their lawyer colleagues to invest in these document repositories by contributing content in the hope that some of this content might be helpful someday.  Not surprisingly, law firms around the country have reported that few lawyers actually make the effort to contribute content.  Before you launch into a diatribe against lawyers, I should remind you that this lack of engagement is more a human failing than a commentary on lawyers.  If you don’t believe me, consider a recent article by Jane Brody in which she discusses the widespread failure of society to motivate people to exercise more.  Some try threats, while others try promises.  However, the results are the same:

… for many people, future health benefits may just be too abstract and speculative to overcome inertia and take up walking, running, swimming, cycling or working out in the gym.

According to Dr. Michelle Segar, a motivational psychologist, we shouldn’t make exercise (or contributing to the KM system) a chore or matter of obligation.  With respect to exercise, she suggests ” borrowing the motivational approach used by commercial marketers, `an emotional hook that creates positive, meaningful expectations of how exercise can enhance people’s lives, a way to feel better.’”

If we can’t get people to exercise now in the exchange for promises of good health and long life later, why do we think that promises of future benefit will increase levels of lawyer engagement in law firm knowledge management?  When it comes to exercise, Jane Brody reports that people tend to be more willing to stick with an exercise regime over the long term if they receive current tangible benefits from exercise buddies or communities that spring up around exercise activities:

For years now, I’ve been struck by the camaraderie among the elderly women, most of them widows, whose water aerobics class follows the morning lap-swim. Few knew one another before they joined this activity. Now they lunch together almost every month, celebrate birthdays together, check on one another if someone fails to attend a session or two, even raise money for a beloved staff member who lost her job in the recession.

Are there ways we can apply this approach to lawyer engagement in law firm knowledge management activities?  And, when we are asked “what’s in it for me,” do we have an answer that explains the current, tangible benefits of lawyers engagement and contribution?

[Photo Credit: Scott Ableman]

Over the last few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with and talking to some fantastic law firm knowledge management experts. They work in a variety of firms, with a wide array of technology tools and organizational cultures. These most successful of all law firm knowledge managers stand head and shoulders above the rest. While I know they’ve worked hard, it’s indisputable that many of them have been lucky. Now before you criticize me for damning with faint praise, take a look at what Richard Wiseman describes as the attributes of lucky people:

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

Translated into the world of KM, this suggests that successful knowledge managers are plugged into their organizations and notice changes, looking constantly for opportunities.  Their experience helps them trust their intuition – which is the great gift that experts have in abundance.  Their orientation towards opportunity is, by definition, positive and helps them focus on the good that can be achieved.  Finally, they understand the value in learning from each experience.  Prior failures and successes remind them that they can trust themselves to make some good out of even difficult results.

Those of us who do not feel so lucky should not despair.  According to Richard Wiseman, we can learn to be lucky by using the following techniques:

• Listen to your hunches.  Don’t focus solely on the “rational side of the situation.”  Pay attention to how you feel about a decision.  Your “gut feelings act as an alarm bell – a reason to consider a decision carefully.”

• Break out of your routine. “Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties.”  Wiseman contrasts them with lucky people who seek out variety, thereby increasing the likelihood of “chance opportunities.”

• Accentuate the positive. “Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse.” Take the example of one positive thinker who had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his leg.   When Wiseman “asked him whether he still felt lucky and he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck.”

What will you do today to change your luck?

[Photo Credit:  Kelley Mari]

The heartbreaking photos from Haiti are compelling. How can you not help? In fact, most folks I know have been looking for effective ways to help. And, as they look, many find their instincts clash with reality. For example, some feel compelled to get on the first available plane to Port-au-Prince and DO something. But what? Unless you are trained in medical or emergency services, what will you do? Others instinctively feel that giving things must be superior to merely giving money. But is that true? Not according to the Haitian Embassy (pictured above):

Embassy officials and relief organizers say while packaged good donations are welcome, the best way to help the earthquake victims is with monetary contributions to reputable relief agencies. They argue that the damage to Haiti’s infrastructure is so great that it’s hard to know when and how donated goods will actually make it to the ravaged island. [emphasis added]

Big-hearted people of goodwill feel instinctively that this can’t be right.  But are they right?  If the picture of the Haitian Embassy is any indication, the gifts in kind will pile up in the United States until there is a reliable means of transporting them to Haiti and delivering them to the people in need.  (Assuming, of course, that these things can even be delivered before cold, wind and rain destroy them in their makeshift storage areas outdoors.)  This is hardly ideal.  In fact, this is a terrible waste of the wonderful human impulse to help those in need.

So, the first step is to get comfortable with the idea that giving money is, in fact, the most effective way for most of us to respond to the disaster in Haiti.  Then, be careful not to give into the impulse to give blindly.  Texting a donation may seem trendy, but is it the best thing to do?  Be sure you give to a charity that guarantees to send nearly all of your donation to Haiti rather than spending too much of it on administrative costs. (For guidance on this, see Charity Navigator.  Their four-star charities have good track records.)   And, while you’re at it, see if your employer is willing to make a matching donation. In this way you double the impact of your contribution — thereby maximizing the assistance that can be provided.

Sometimes even our instincts for good lead us astray.  The only known antidote is to gather information with an open mind and critical eye.  And then, when the evidence requires, question our instincts.

[Photo Credit:  Jonas Hosmer]

Jonah Lehrer has written a thought-provoking piece on why we too often miss the great opportunities presented by failure. In Accept Defeat:  The Neuroscience of Screwing Up, he explains how our brains purport to “help” us by screening out information that doesn’t fit with what we believe we know.  Here’s how he describes it:

The reason we’re so resistant to anomalous information — the real reason researchers automatically assume that every unexpected result is a stupid mistake — is rooted in the way the human brain works. Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.

Ignoring failure can occasionally be a sanity-preserving, efficiency-enhancing approach to life.  However, when we ignore repeated failure, we may in fact be ignoring the only feasible explanation on the horizon.  Realizing this and acting on it requires strength of mind, openness, and a certain measure of humility.  It requires a true empiricist’s approach to life.

So how do we turn perceived failure around?  How do we find an epiphany amongst the rubble of unwanted test results?  Jonah Lehrer has the the following advice:

Check Your Assumptions: Ask yourself why this result feels like a failure. What theory does it contradict? Maybe the hypothesis failed, not the experiment.

Seek Out the Ignorant: Talk to people who are unfamiliar with your experiment. Explaining your work in simple terms may help you see it in a new light.

Encourage Diversity: If everyone working on a problem speaks the same language, then everyone has the same set of assumptions.

Beware of Failure-Blindness: It’s normal to filter out information that contradicts our preconceptions. The only way to avoid that bias is to be aware of it.

When it comes to implementing Enterprise 2.0 tools, there’s no substitute for constant experimentation.  And, there’s no way to avoid disappointments as you struggle to find what works best in your organization.  That said, don’t be too quick to discard your apparent failures.  When viewed with an open mind, they may point the way to success.  By following Jonah Lehrer’s advice, you may be able to find a breakthrough — an Epiphany.

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Here is some additional reading on Failure:

• Host a Failure Party
• Do You Need a Failure Target?
• The Upside of Failure
• When Failure is Fine
• Safe Mode

[Hat tip to Dan Pink for pointing out this article.]

[Photo Credit: wenzday01]

Given the economic realities of this year, many firms have found themselves unable to offer their employees material increases with respect to either salary or benefits. So how do you let colleagues know they are valued when you don’t have cash?  It’s simple — use Credit.

When I say “use credit,” I don’t mean to suggest that you give your colleagues IOUs.  Rather, you should find many and varied means of letting them (and others) know how much you value them.  In fact, studies have shown that cash is sometimes the least effective way of motivating others to perform.  So look at this year as a wonderful opportunity to learn more effective methods to manage your team.  Here are some tips:

• Be unstinting in your praise for work well done by members of your team.  I know they are getting a paycheck to do a good job, but that paycheck provides few of the psychic rewards most people crave.
• When you are commended for work done by your team, be sure to let your superiors know who on your team shouldered the laboring oar.  (If you are the insecure type who hogs the credit in an effort to shore up your personal position within the organization, let me tell you a secret about this.  When you highlight the excellence of individuals on your team you actually remind others of your good judgment in hiring and managing great people.  The fact that you look generous as well doesn’t hurt one bit either.)
• When anyone outside your team does a terrific job, thank them.  Better still send a note to their supervisors letting them know (and copy the employee so they know as well).
• Be straightforward and sincere.  Most of us sense a con when we hear it.  Credit works in lieu of cash only when the emotion and intent behind the praise is genuine.
• Saying “thx” rarely is sufficient.  If the work done is deserving of praise, then surely it merits more effort from you than is required to write “thx” in an offhand, reflexive manner.  (The only possible exception to this is when you are facing the 140 character limit in Twitter!)

Above all, I’d recommend that you read Charles Green’s fantastic post, Pin the Credit on Someone Else, and adopt that as your modus operandi going forward.  This will be a challenge for the insecure manager, but it will make a world of difference in the way members of the team view their work and their manager.

In this season of gratitude and generosity, try being grateful and generous at work.  It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

[Photo Credit:  chrisjohnbeckett]

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The editors of the ABA Journal have recognized Above and Beyond KM as one of the top 100 law blogs of 2009.  They are requesting your votes to help them determine which of these blogs are the most popular.  To vote for this blog and your other favorites, please click on the picture below.  Thanks a million!

Yesterday we visited the matriarch of our family to celebrate a special occasion — her 100th birthday. She showed us the many humorous and touching birthday cards she had received (including one from the President and Mrs. Obama). Since she’s as sharp as a tack, we were able to have a wide-ranging conversation that covered family, politics and sports. (Just for the record, she’s very disappointed in the Red Sox and unwilling to root for the Yankees.) And then, we shared some celebratory cake.

Just before we left, she showed us a beautiful woolen scarf she was crocheting, as well as the stack of scarves she had recently completed. When we asked her about the scarves, she told us that they were destined for a nearby homeless shelter to keep its inhabitants warm during the approaching winter months. We were impressed.  Given her age, no one would blame her for kicking back and taking it easy. However, she was very clear about her motivation — she makes these scarves because she wants to be, in her words, useful.

100 years old and still looking for ways to contribute.  What a great example for the rest of us.

[Photo Credit:  Jessica N. Diamond]