Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63913
Management Meets Education There was a time when an MBA degree meant a partial, if not total, shift from learning to doing—from student to employee. That model also is quickly becoming obsolete. In a knowledge economy, no managers can afford to rely on what they have known in the past to see them through their careers indefinitely. They must continue to learn, and managers and educators cating their members, and vice versa, the line between business school and the workplace also will become blurred. The shift between learning and doing will become not a shift at all, but a continuation, as people move from one collaborative learning environment to another. Moreover, as managers play a more prominent role in edu- alike must create environments in which learning is ongoing and "stealthy"—that is, invisible and effortless. "Stealth learning" happens simply by doing our work in virtual and real-world envi- ronments specifically designed to develop new capabilities. As a result, management development no longer is limited to organizations such as business schools or corporate universities. Organizational professionals develop new skills and better maps of the knowledge landscapes in which they travel through "peer learning" or "collaborative learning." Also known as "c-learning," a term coined by the Gartner Group, collaborative learning occurs everywhere people interact, and it is most prevalent in environments optimized to support their collaboration. If their environments, and their potential, are not optimized, it starves the organization's knowledge ecosystem. To promote a healthy knowledge ecology, managers have a new responsibility before them. To inspire their members' best contributions, they must: s Be master learners and encourage better practices of indi- vidual and c-learning. s Elicit the leadership qualities in all who work with them. s Become future-responsive, anticipating and articulating future possibilities. s Be a model for all of the above, so that others can learn to Working and Learning in Cyberspace Mastering the right combinations of social and electronic tech- nologies for collaboration, learning, and coordination of action is an essential ingredient of organizational effectiveness. Recognizing that, more organizations are using online environ- ments to connect their members to each other across the office, the campus, or the world. Cyberspace, however, will neither replace nor diminish the value of face-to-face communication. It will, in fact, oblige us to become smarter about how and why we use the latter. When someone convenes a meeting that brings together 20 managers from around the world, both the convener and the participants are aware of the combined value of their time and attention. As face-to-face meetings become more expensive, planners will take more care to ensure that each meeting is effective and efficient, and that all participants enjoy and benefit from the interaction. And as the volume of work done in cyberspace increases, so, too, will the value of well-designed, face-to-face events. Where cyberspace will thrive most is in its capacity to provide a do the same. If managers are not master learners, they will not be able to "place" where groups can share their energy and genius freely and easily. Cyberspace allows for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions, in which groups can work, share, and learn together. To be viable in the knowledge economy, an organization must absorb and apply the new practices they need to win in the mar- ketplace. If they cannot inspire leadership in all of their members, they cannot mobilize the full potential of the organization to deal with a broad range of situations. If the primary goal of all business is to generate value for its sur- rounding market ecosystems, we can say the same for education. The difference is that most business organizations deliver that value through their goods and services as their primary market offer, while educational organizations tend to do so through stag- ing, eliciting, and guiding learning experiences for their customers. However, even that differentiation may disappear or become more nebulous, as more businesses realize that selling memo- rable experiences is what brings customers back. The subtitle of The Experience Economy, a popular management book by two Harvard professors, B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, tells it all: "Work Is Theater and Every Business Is a Stage." 32 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 develop competence in designing and nurturing diverse kinds of c- learning communities. Some of these c-learning communities also are known as "communities of practice" and refer to groups of col- leagues who face the same types of challenges, and who learn together to become better practitioners. Their primary purpose does not lie in a specific, goal-oriented project, but in their shared and collaboratively negotiated learning agenda. As technologies that enable c-learning continue to improve, communities of prac- tice—the stewards of organizational competence—will become more and more strategic and valuable to the organization. "Competition Is Dead!" Author James Moore, who has championed the idea of a market ecosystem in which all organisms function in concert, wrote, "Competition is dead!" This makes sense, considering that if value is created through sharing—not hoarding—knowledge, then an organization's most valuable strategic advantage is its capacity to share knowledge across multiple organizations. When