During university years, in order to share knowledge and research for our projects, a few of us created a Yahoo group. What started off as an academic platform, evolved to become a group which now helps exchange different experiences in different work domains. At the time, we neither knew what ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoP) stood for, nor did we ever anticipate for this Yahoo group to become one of our rescuer work-tools that we could turn to, when we are faced with a work challenge. Through the years, we have supported each other, shared our work and of course, updated each other on our personal lives. For us, it has now become a small online community, based on profession, interest, trust and commitment.
 This is no unique example. Online social networking and professional networking are increasingly popular amongst most of us. Apart from these online groups, CoP include people sharing knowledge, views or ideas and interacting with each other for a common purpose. Some example of CoP are: a clique of students in a school defining their identity, a band of artists looking for new forms of expression, a group of physicists attempting similar problems or a network of experimenters working on an assignment.
CoP are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning. Lave and Wenger, coining the term CoP back in the 1990s, mentioned that this type of knowledge transfer and practice, has existed for as long as humans have shared their learning and experience through storytelling. Imagine yourself in the lunchroom talking to a new recruit about the merger that took place in your company about a year ago. With or without your knowledge, you are passing on cultural information and your thoughts about the history of the company to the new-comer. In about a month, this new employee may have heard many such stories that will eventually be digested to help him form his own opinions on the company and its people.
As a part of initiating learning and sharing at the management level, we once introduced the concept of a ‘management book club’ to a multinational organization, where participants were asked to read a particular chapter of a management book or an article, and share their views with the rest. Relating this case to the three elements of CoP- (1) the domain, (2) the community and (3) the practice, let’s explore the concept in more detail.
The domain of knowledge is the common ground that provides general areas of interest, inspires members to contribute, directs their learning and gives meaning to their participation. In the above example, the domain would be the management knowledge relevant to professional development.
The idea of a community creates a social web where the learning occurs, say the team of management personnel within the organization who are interested in this book-club initiative. A strong community fosters relationships, interactions and an eagerness to share ideas.
Finally, the practice is the ‘how’ aspect of the initiative, around which the community develops. The practice of the office book club was to meet once a month, in the main board room for two hours, to discuss a book or an article agreed by its members in the previous meeting. The practice was also to have an elected moderator for each month.
CoP can have a bearing on the time taken for the new employees to learn and integrate into the organizational culture, prevention of reinvention of the wheel, responding more effectively and rapidly to customer needs and inquiries and coming up with new ideas for products and services. There is evidence that it improves productivity, team work, collaboration and culture.
Today, the creation and application of new knowledge is vital to the survival of almost all businesses. CoP can be influential, enterprising, progressive and aggressive hence, magic can happen in groups, organizations and communities where the ‘many’ becomes ‘one’. We all know how such dynamic groups can drive change and push the standards beyond expectations. The only sustainable competitive advantage is continuous innovation. And more often than not, innovation is a collective effort.
(The writer is a Business Psychologist and can be reached at
rozaine@forte.lk) |
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