Those Who Collaborate Get Ahead

I sometimes run into colleagues who say that they are too busy to spend time in a collaboration work space or go to an event. They are too busy working to come up with ideas. I think such people will have a hard time coming up with any valuable ideas. They will get things done in the short run. But they will lag behind in the long run.

Richard Hamming puts it this way in his essay You and Your Research:

I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't quite know what problems are worth working on … He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. … [T]here is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder.

Good ideas heavily reliant on serendipity. Putting your nose to the grindstone will certainly get things done, but when you want to create something that is new and innovative, derive inspiration through chance discoveries. You will have a better career and a better life in the long run.

Unhappy About Unlimited Vacations

As part of my research for next generation people management software, I spoke to many people about vacation policy. Some companies have a policy of unlimited vacation. I thought that it is a cool idea. Everyone can take a vacation anytime they want as long as their manager and colleagues are fine with it.

To my surprise a former Netflix employee, said that she is unhappy with the unlimited vacations policy. She says unlimited vacation is euphemism for very limited vacation. Employees are always under pressure to work even on legitimate holidays. Initially I thought that the Netflix employee one was an isolated case.

But when I spoke to people from other companies with a similar policy, I learnt that they also hated the unlimited vacations policy. Unlimited vacation policy seems to give too much power to managers. Some managers misuse the power and deny vacations to people. Unlimited vacations do not carry over to the next year. So even those who work hard one year without taking a vacation don't get any benefit. When a person leaves a company, the company owes the person nothing even if they had taken no vacation the whole year.

I think I am happy with a finite number of vacation days.

The Role Of People Managers In Enterprise Collaboration

As part of my enterprise collaboration research work, I spoke to several people about their participation in enterprise collaboration systems in their companies. I asked them about their managers' role in their participation and collaboration with colleagues. I learned about two types of managers.

The first type of managers participated, acknowledged performance and gave feedback. They participated closely in most of the activities their team members were involved. They kept an eye on what is going on so that they acknowledge and, if necessary, give inputs to improve their team members' work. Manager participation also helped team members course correct early. Transparency of work led to feedback and conversations that may not have taken place otherwise. Such participation and feedback from the manager not only encouraged people to share and contribute more but also helped them to improve their level of performance. They executed better towards the goals of the company and became better professionals as a result of this participation from their manager. Thankfully, I work for such a manager.

The second type of managers were insecure, highhanded and thus ineffective. They did not participate or contribute to the team members' work. Instead they monitored and discouraged their team members from participating and sharing content and views even in private collaboration work spaces. This did not motivate the team members to collaborate and share. Instead their performance suffered. They started looking for other jobs  or other managers. The manager did not benefit in any way either, because the team members started mentioning this unprofessional behavior of the manager privately with others colleagues and even with other senior officials within the company. Naturally, almost everyone I spoke to was eager to leave such managers.

I think the level of openness, participation and contribution of a team can be an indicator of the effectiveness of a manager.I think enterprise collaboration software tools need to help managers understand this and overcome the insecurity that some of them have. This can be done by surfacing certain pieces of information. What if team participation in tracked the same way team contribution is tracked today? What if a team's participation and contribution in enterprise collaboration systems is available for senior executives, succession planners and internal job candidates to see?  What if the managers know that such information is tracked and can compare their performance with the performance of other managers in the company and the industry?

Another interesting thing I observed is that even managers who do not actively participate in enterprise collaboration tools, go there to monitor what is going on, if they know their team members are there.

By the way, managers can even acquire new knowledge and develop themselves by observing and participating in the activities of his or her team members.

Validating Mental Models Is Different From Usability Testing

I had a chance to talk to colleagues from SuccessFactors and the SAP User Research team recently. They asked me to explain the difference between customers conversations for product design and usability testing. This is what I shared with them.



1. Verifying mental models is where we show a prototype to a user or buyer and ask them if what we are showing brings any value for them. In such situations the moderator or presenter tells a story using the prototype as an artifact. The purpose here is to engage in a conversation to validate ideas and even generate ideas.

2. Usability testing with a final product or prototype is to verify if the product is usable. In such sessions the user is given the prototype and a script and asked to use the product. Moderator just observes and guides the user. The purpose here is to get detailed specific feedback on what usability issues need to be addressed.

Oliver Conze Might Throw Some Light On Upcoming Cloud Innovation

I want to thank everyone who reached out to me with kind words about SAP Career OnDemand. I am honored and moved by your gesture. Trust me. Good ideas are not going to go away. As David Ludlow said in his interview we are working closely with product management colleagues from SuccessFactors to take the people centric concepts from Career OnDemand and incorporate them into the SuccessFactors talent management and business execution suite, which is already used by over 3000 customers. The end result, I believe, will be innovative people centric concepts delivered from a system that has been field tested by 15 million users over 10 years.  If anything, innovation is going to reach a larger number of people than we had originally anticipated.

If you are at HR Insider 2012, I recommend you attend my colleague Oliver Conze's session on Wednesday morning. He might throw some light and may be even give you a sneak peek into how a future solution might look like.