The Immensely Beneficial “30-year old Social Network”

Social networks existed in 1982. You reckon they didn’t? Yes, they did! I know they did because I’ve got a proof. I saw it close to me; right in my house; grew up knowing it, seeing it work and experiencing its benefits—first hand! Albeit, it existed in a different form than how it does today—it existed outside the spheres of technology (or the Web 2.0)—yet, it existed!

In the summer of 1982, my Dad had just established his own business. He was only 28 years old and had become the Founder/Chief Consultant of the first private Physiotherapy Clinic in West-Africa’s largest city—Ibadan. Moving into a four-bedroom apartment rented from his best-friend’s father-in-law, the Clinic started full operations just about the time my immediate younger brother was born. A proud father of three had also become a Director of a new establishment with the desire and determination to ensure its growth and create a laudable social-health impact in the couple-millions populated ancient-city. To become cutting-edge and a center of excellence, it was important he sourced relevant knowledge beyond the territory of the “usual, popular, local expertise” in Physiotherapy. Dad started growing his network of contacts by subscribing to International Professional Journals (via a more tedious process compared to modern-day) by mailing-back subscription post-cards to the various bodies-of-knowledge who disseminated relevant knowledge through periodic Magazines and Journals. Each of these Magazines and Journals were sent and received through the post-office—taking several weeks from point of distribution to receipt. I can remember how important it was, growing up, to frequently commute to the post-office in a bid to check the post-box for new letters. Dad would excitedly react to the receipt of any new Journal as he added to his number of subscriptions year in, year out.

In the course of time, we realized Dad had a good friend we reckoned he’d never met. In the morning prayers, he usually mentioned his patients’ diseases and afflictions to God for intervention—signifying his belief in the Clinic’s motto: “God Heals, We Care”. We noticed he’d started praying for someone else’s patients—a professional friend called Dave. Dave? That sounded strange! We knew about all of everyone in his professional network—an old-friend of his (who also went into private practice a few years on), his network of past colleagues at the University College Hospital, and old-classmates who taught at a couple of Universities, at that was all—we thought. Who then was Dave? We later got to know that Dave was Dad’s new professional buddy who is American and lives in Kentucky. Amazing! Dad had a professional friend from America?!

Their friendship grew stronger; they would exchange series of letters discussing and sharing ideas on patients’ conditions and various approaches they had applied and are applying. Dad was gradually becoming more renowned in his practice sequel to the success being achieved as regards patients’ faster recuperation rates at the Clinic. He learnt from Dave; Dave learnt from him. However, the flow of communication will be described as painstaking (in today’s world)—several months required to exchange letters on a single issue; a few telephone calls (sometimes once in several months)—albeit, they were both committed to sustaining their connection as they continually drew immense benefits from it.

After five-years of keeping in touch virtually, Dave wanted my Dad to come-over to the United States for a month or two as a Consultant in his Clinics. Due to the bad reputation of Nigerians in the late-80s and early-90s, Dad was denied visa to the US. And therefore, this professional relationship had to be continuingly sustained via post-office-delivered letters and periodic and expensive phone-calls.

Ten-years after Dad’s visa denials, Dave had the opportunity to meet his friend’s son, born the same year the Clinic was established—1982!— who incidentally studied Physiotherapy, is a practicing Physiotherapist and is posed to take-over Dad’s Clinic when he retires.  My immediate younger brother had gone to the US for training and had scheduled his trip to accommodate a short stint at Dave’s Clinic. Recounting his experience of the moment they met, my brother said “he (Dave) hugged me like a long-lost son he had just found”. That, to him, was the offspring of a friend he had never met in person; however, they had spent the past 30 years as professional buddies—having met and kept in touch through the “30 year old Social Network” system—post-office-delivered letters and the “plain-old-telephone-service” (POTS) box [that had the “screamy” bell-like ringtone]. A year after, Dave offered my brother a two-year job experience in his Clinics inviting him to come learn and share professional expertise.

It’s 17^th February, 2011. I’d just checked my LinkedIn profile. It tells me I have 538 Connections and a whopping 24,689 new people in my network since February 14! At least 50% of my Connections are professionally relevant to me and I perhaps have not met 20% of the 50% in person. It’s unlikely that I’ve made contact with 90% of the 20% within the past year; and yet, these are the people who are my potential professional contacts who possibly hold the future opportunities I or my kids might desperately desire years ahead. Wonder what would have happened if Dad’s commitment to his professional buddy was this lax!

Just like I did, many of my friends have linked their Twitter accounts to LinkedIn such that anytime we post tweets, it appears on our LinkedIn page and updates our Connection on our new posts. That, in itself, is not worrying! What gets me worried is the content of our tweets. We are totally and usually unaware of the impression it proclaims to our world. Those tweets tell our professional network—potential employers, potential professional buddies etc.—who we are! And subsequently, influences their decision on how and if they will like to be intensely committed to us as contacts. Wonder how carefully Dad had to frame the content of his letters and phone conversations  in a way that gave Dave a great impression of him—and by extension, his Physiotherapist son who is immensely benefiting from “the 30 year-old Social Network”!

Wonder, wonder, wonder how effectively and appropriately I and you are utilizing our “Techly-Sophisticated and Instant” 21^st Century Social Networks!

"I'm not a social person"--You Are! Real Facts!

Two days ago, I attempted something that turned out to be insightful. Wanting to test my popularity on the internet, I typed my first and last name in the search page of Google and hit the "enter" key on my laptop. In a second, there laid a list of search results including: Tobi Odunowo-Facebook; Tobi Odunowo- LinkedIn; Tobi Odunowo (tobiodunowo) on Twitter; a few other search results and then one that caught my attention had the caption: Head management development & organisation. What?! I wondered how this has got anything to do with me. I clicked on the result and straight away, a page opened. It was the Yatedo homepage that had an outline of profile pictures with short career descriptions. Taking a closer look, I realised these were profiles of top leaders in the area of Talent Management and Organization Development (TM & OD). But how did my profile get on this webpage, I thought [especially when I do not regard myself as a top leader in TM & OD]? I was to later discover that my Yatedo profile had been extracted from my LinkedIn profile. Yatedo (http://www.yatedo.com/) is a search engine intended to help users find and contact anybody throughout the web; and does this mean that if a recruiter is in search of people with a particular experience or background all s/he needs to do is enter key words into the Yatedo search engine and then profiles appear? My new finding changed completely the way I see social networks—the use of my LinkedIn profile, after all, isn’t controlled by me or by LinkedIn. Whatever I have on it (and on other social networking sites I’m subscribed to) matters beyond my social life—it has consequences on my professional outlook too.

A few weeks ago, I uploaded some pictures from some official working sessions on my Facebook page. A close senior colleague called and advised me against it. Recruiters, she said, prefer people who can separate their social life from professional life—indicating that Facebook, and what it’s used for, portrays an individual’s personal life separate from professional life. Whether I saw this perspective as entirely correct or not, a big learning point was the need to awaken my mind and become conscious of the increasing use of social network in search for professionals and subsequent background checks. Top organisations are increasingly utilising the social web-space to achieve many people management goals including search, selection and development of people. If this is the case, it is then wise for every professional to be mindful of what his/her social web-presence tells the world—what is the content on your LinkedIn profile compared with the best CV you ever developed?; what sites (dating and related sites etc.) are you registered on and what do they say about you? How can you use the social web-space to the advantage rather than disadvantage of your professional ambitions without compromising your personal preferences (what and how you use the social network tools)?

You could say "I don't have a social (outgoing, extroverted) personality". You do not need to. As long as you have a presence on social networks, you are a social person! Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn makes you social, albiet virtually. Thus, it is needful to start living with the awareness of your social presence. It is important to learn and apply the right attitude to the emerging realities of the social network and its impact on your professional life. For all you know, social networks might be doing your professional advancement more harm than good! Won't you want to turn that around?

What if you lose your job today?!

Without an iota of doubt, this is probably one of the scariest questions anyone is willing to entertain in the mind—“What if I lose my job today?”

Living in a world recently hit by global financial recession with major world economies experiencing record down-turns in decades; organizations issuing letters to employees they regrettably have to part with, visualizing a job-loss, you’ll agree, isn’t a hard task after all.   

So, say you get to the office tomorrow, and then rumours start to fly in the air: “learned we are about to down-size and redundant positions will be announced today” or more nicely put “the board has approved that the company is right-sized and letters will be dispatched today”. First thought that comes to mind: “Is my job secured?” Obviously, you will probably be unable to find an answer.  You have no idea why the organization has decided to trim-down its size or what direction they are headed. Then reality sets in—you could lose that job today!

You are a high-performing staff—as much as you know—but that’s as much as you know. However, your boss had just issued you a set of queries in the past few months following a relationship break-down between you both. It’s tough to escalate to your Manager’s Manager who is almost inaccessible; and no one is there to help your plight and refute your boss’ assertion that you are a “poor-performer”. Two queries issued plus a warning means you might just be on your way out today! You could be asked to leave—“dismissed” or in milder terms “relieved of your job”.

Still day dreaming—nightmare or whatever you call it—say you get to work tomorrow and right there the dispatch-man arrives at lunch time, hands you a letter and BUM!...“we regret to inform you that the company will no longer need your services”! Shivers run down your spine; you start to sweat…think of home, family, kids' school fees, other commitments—you remember the benefit…free mobile-phone and calls, housing allowance, security, official car with driver—all gone! The most reasonable question appears: What’s Next?

“What’s next?” might stay unanswered for as long as you remain in that shock. In fact, the answer to that salient question dwells in “your past actions” not “subsequent actions”. "What’s next?" should have been prepared and set—like an already baked cake, ready to be decorated and presented.

Major question! When you are on a job, do you go to work to fulfil your tasks as meticulously as you can to be a great-performer on the job; or do you go there to explore how much development and value your job is adding to you. There might be a thin-line between these two purposes; nonetheless that thin line is the differentiator that predicts what sort of life is next when you exclaim: “What’s Next?”

Jim Rohn advises: “the greatest value in life is not what you get; the greatest value in life is what you become. Major question to ask on the job is not “what am I getting here?”...major question to ask is “what am I becoming here”. Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job”

My attitude, when I work for any organization [note that I’ll rather say “I work for an organization” than say “I work with an organization”—Bottom-line: I work there to add particular value and in turn gain particular development; not just pass time with the organization even if I’m percieved as very productive] is to take inventory of my development within the organization in relation to the new tasks and responsibilities I handle which are complaint with global best-practice. If I am not getting that from my organization, then it’s time to walk away! (even if I do not have a new place I am walking to) Crazy idea uh? I’ll tell you how that works.

In this time and age, organizations have discovered that competitive advantage lies with their people and apparently within the tacit knowledge possessed by each of these individuals called employees. Tacit knowledge is defined as “knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it” [source: Wikipedia]. This kind of knowledge is required to perform tasks and more importantly to generate such innovative ideas that can out-compete the competition. In contrast, explicit form of knowledge can be taught and learnt—such are common work practices, tasks and routine responsibilities—anyone can learn it, anyone can do it. The more tacit knowledge you possess, the more valuable you are! Big question: How many more people can do what you do?

Waking up to the reality of the “knowledge market”, “future-thinkers” and "next-generation-talents", who are bound to survive the increasingly competitive job availability, have started giving greater “priority” and “loyalty” their own development over company interests. Don’t get me wrong, I do not mean that they do not have the interest of the companies they work for at heart. They are people of integrity and see themselves as being in an agreement with the company to ensure growth within their area of work. As such, they are committed to that “bound”—the agreement, the contract! However, should the interest of the company compromise their development (acquisition and utilization of their tacit knowledge—the competitive advantage), it seizes to make common sense why they should remain in such companies at the detriment of growing their tacit knowledge for competitive advantage. Such people possess the guts to initiate “the loss of a job” all by themselves--they do not even wait to be told to go.

And when you ask them “What of if you lose your job today?”…the response is loud, clear and said with utmost conviction “I will be out there tomorrow doing something more valuable and profiting, working for the next “client” that needs my value-adding tacit knowledge!”

Learning from my Arabic-attire dressing Experience to a West-African Workplace - V1

The Article Below is a excerpt from a paper written in partial fulfilment of my MA in Management Learning and Leadership. Steming from the practices of Experiental Learning, Life-long learning and Living Life as Inquiry, the interesting piece (albeit wordy) emphasizes the changing approaches to individual and organizational learning.

Abstract

This paper was written with the intent of reflexively learning from a self-stimulated experience of dressing in an Arabian-attire to a West-African workplace. It explores the major learning embedded in the experience for the writer, and examined the social issues echoed from the reaction of his colleagues.

Key Words: Reflexivity, Learning, Labeling, Stereotypes, Post-Colonialism, Religion

My Arabic-dressing Experience

When I decided to wear a traditional Arabic attire to work, my intention was largely to portray myself as an international, widely-traveled, open-minded and exposed young-man. Some weeks before my Arabian-dressing experience, I was hitching to wear a “rare”, non-routine work-outfit to the office. Weary of the traditional English official wear (suited up in shirt, tie, a pair of pants and a jacket) and the Friday dress-down sports wears or Westernised African traditional outfit, I decided to dress to work in a complete traditional attire of my tribe (the Yoruba tribe) two-weeks before my Arabian-dressing experience. This Yoruba traditional attire is widely associated with politicians and as such, I attracted a relatively high level of attention and comments from colleagues which I did enjoy and even craved for more. As I will later discover, those were much more positive comments than some of those that ensued in reaction to my Arabian appearance.

Prior to the Friday that saw me dress in the Arabian outfit, I reflected on my expectations of people’s reaction when they see me in the “strange” outfit. In actual terms, I did anticipate that some observers will equate the attire to me being a Muslim and was determined to educate them on the fact that it is rather traditional than religious—however, this awareness instilled in me some expanse of perturbation, a fear of what such perceptions could lead to realizing that the topic of religious affiliation is quite sensitive in my environment. In contrast, I expected great comments like “nice outfit” or “Nice! Where did you get that from?”—which ultimately will help achieve my aim of generating some level of attention from colleagues and depicting me as an exposed, widely-traveled, international young-man. In retrospect, the only instance when I ever saw a Nigerian (who had) dressed in an Arabic-attire, was during my undergraduate days (pre-9/11). He had recently returned from the holy pilgrimage in Mecca. I could remember the level of attention he drew; and how admirable his outfit was to everyone that saw him.

The first reaction I observed happened right after I left my apartment and walked towards the car-park. A group of young kids dressed for school were walking towards me, and on sighting me, changed the course of the direction they were headed. I felt embarrassed but quickly concluded that they probably have never seen someone dressed in the keffiyeh (Arabian headgear) besides televised pictures and that probably scared them a first-sight. Driving to work, I noticed that drivers and occupants of cars that drove by took extra caution to take a second look at me—an incidence that created the mini-celebrity feeling in me.

On arrival at work, walking through the corridor to my office, I got several greetings of “As-Salāmu Alaykum” –-an Arabic greeting that translates to “Peace be upon you” and customarily spoken by Muslims when they meet people of the same faith. Others called me “Alhaji”—an honorific title given to a Muslim who has completed the Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. My determination soured as I thought on ways to achieve the up-hill task of re-orientating my colleagues to make them realize my outfit is traditional and not religious. I was in doubt, however, of how much impact my affirmations could make in a bid to influence their existing perceptions—it became more glaring to me that there is a stereotype associated with my outfit and in relation to the Islam religion. This in itself became a learning opportunity for me recognizing that achieving success in convincing at least one person will indorse my self-stimulated experiences learning approach as a way of helping others to learn or accept a particular fact.

A few people did make pleasant comments about my outfit in a way that helped realize my desire to be perceived as an exposed, widely-traveled individual. However, there were contrasting reactions. One of these was from a Muslim female colleague who surprised reaction to the sight of my dressing and subsequent remarks insinuated I might be intending to join a terrorist organization; relating my action to following the path of the Nigerian Christmas-day-bomber who attempted to detonate an explosive in a US-bound aircraft on Christmas day of 2009. I found this Muslim female colleague’s reaction astounding, considering the fact being Muslim she should have displayed more tolerance and familiarity with my strange attire. However, I began to wonder if the Arabian attire echoed terrorism rather than religion to her.

Another highpoint of my “single-day-dressing-experience” developed from a conversation an older colleague (in his 50s) initiated which attracted a good number of colleagues in no time; as it developed into a heated debate. The older colleague had questioned my decision to dress like a Muslim when I am not one. I attempted to re-orientate him and insisted that the attire is not a religious wear but one of the numerous traditional wears that exists in the world. He persistently opposed my opinion as he started to outline the dangers I was being exposed to by dressing this way. He inferred that colleagues’ impression about me will change as I will be labeled a potential terrorist or could even be attacked by Muslim fanatics if they find-out I am of a different religion. I was dumbfounded! This was a grave impression of my appearance—considering the very serious implications associated with it. A number of other colleagues joined in the debate. Most of them shared the opinion of the older colleague. They emphasized that my dressing could have been okay without the keffiyeh (Arabian headgear). As I struggled to convince them otherwise, I realized I had become frightened by the threat that I could be a possible target for religious attack. Being in a country (and a city) that is quite susceptible to religious violence between Muslims and Christians, my colleagues’ assertions on the implications of my Arabian traditional attire got me panicky and a few hours after, I lost the courage to keep the keffiyeh on my head.

Defying my perturbed situation while the debate was on, I raised my voice to make reference to other forms of stereotypes especially “the discrimination we Nigerians face being notorious for internet scamming and other vices”. I pointed out to the audience that having a few Nigerians as scammers does not make all Nigerians scammers invariably affirming that being dressed in an Arabian traditional attire does not make an individual a terrorist suspect even if a number of Arabians have been linked to terrorism following the 9/11 incidence and subsequent terrorist acts in and from the Middle-East.

Sadly, there was no certainty that I was able to pass across my message proclaiming—“this dressing has nothing to do with religion, it is just a traditional wear”!

Albeit, I had gained a first-hand experience similar to the stereotyped population—it was an experience that probably brought me close to the feelings of thousands of Arabians who, because of their appearance and traditional attires, are subjects of suspicions when they visit other parts of the world.  As the day came to a close, I realized my “single-day-dressing-experience” comprised numerous incidences that had substantive richness for reflexive learning.

The Decision: Reasons and Purpose

At the point where I decided to dress to my workplace wearing outfit that is “stereotyped”, my intentions were not entirely clear. I had a craving to dress in an unusual manner in a bid to attract attention and I also sought to show-off my exposedness across the global terrain. As I thought through possible scenarios that could play-out, there was an awareness of likely reactions from observers that could depict traces of biased assumptions of my intents. Conscious of the commencement of a journey that depicts an experimentation of a learning approach, I lacked clarity on the learning awaiting me. However, I was determined pick-up each learning point by disengaging the “me” from the situation and analyzing it in a rational and objective manner (Cunliffe and Easterby-Smith, 2004).

Reflecting on my action and considering the weirdness of a resolution to create experience for the sake of reflexive learning, I see the need to question my source of guts. Did it have anything to do with my personality, a new approach to living life or is it normal for humans to wish to learn from daily-lived experience?

Archer (2007), in explaining the rapid change of late-modernity, stated that continuous reassessment of experience and information imbedded in our experience has become central to living, describing it as an essential means by which people make their way through the world. Thus, she defines reflexivity as ‘the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their (social) context and vice versa’ (Archer, 2007: 4).

In her submission, all normal people are assumed to regularly exercise their mental ability in relation to social context. It is however unclear what Archer meant by the term normal people. The research was conducted drawing on an initial sample of 174 respondents and a final 128 subjects, each of whom was chosen to reflect differences in age, gender, and occupation (Cicourel, 2010).

But was it or has it been always normal for me as an individual to initiate an experience in a bid to reflexively learn from it? I am naturally analytical.  Yes! But in retrospect, I realised that I would not have taken such an action (decision to dress in Arabic-attire), for the sole purpose of reflecting on the eventual experience, a couple years back. Although, the reasons for my awareness of the value-addition in reflexive learning is imprecise, my participation in the MAMLL Programme has certainly enhanced my willingness to be open-minded in exploring various views and perspectives of particular issues and critically evaluating situations as a basis for instituting change (Cunliffe and Easterby-Smith, 2004).

Built on a model of Action Learning, the MAMLL Programme is pedagogically based on learning communities. Expressing the effect of being on the MAMLL Programme, a past MAMLL student stated that:

“It is difficult on MAMLL not to develop some form of critical thinking as tutors and peers constantly ask questions of statements we make and assumptions such statements may be based on, and challenge us to look at things from a different perspective. This happens in all forums of the programme, be it online around our papers, by phone or face to face in workshops. I think that this is perhaps most evident in our questioning of our own ontologies and/trying to understand why we see the world the way we do”. (Ormand, 2007)

 Furthermore, my quest for tacit knowledge could have helped suppress my perturbations and gave me the guts I needed to go ahead and dress in an unusual outfit. In explaining the forms of knowledge, Raelin (1997) stated that explicit knowledge are forms of knowing that could be transmitted in formal systemic language while tacit knowledge are forms of knowing that cannot be reported because they are deeply embedded in individuals’ actions and their involvement in a specific context. Drawing from the Model of Work-based Learning at Individual Level initiated by Raelin (1997) in which four learning types were outlined resulting from a matrix of the two learning modes and knowledge forms, I can identify my transition from one level of knowledge to another before and after my “dressing experience”. The four learning types identified by Raelin (1997) [through learning modes of theory and practice and knowledge forms of explicit and tacit knowledge] are: Conceptualisation, Experimentation, Reflection and Experience. Although this model may not apply to my reflections in its entirety, my experience probably portrays a transition between Conceptualisation and Experience.

Conceptualisation involves the learner going through theoretical forms of learning to gain explicit knowledge. When new principles are introduced to learners, it is conceptualised thereby giving them an ability to solve work challenges in new and different contexts. When learners conceptualise they are better positioned to reflect on their actions based on newly gained theoretical learning. Experience breeds learning—when learners pass through a particular experience and then, upon reflecting upon that experience, they extrapolate learning from it. Experience, therefore, refers to how people learn in practice to gain tacit knowledge (Raelin, 1997).

My prior theoretical knowledge on topics related to diversity and inclusion has made me an “advocate” of equity and equality in diverse societies promoting zero tolerance for any form of discrimination. I have, for a long time, held a firm belief in promoting inclusion of disadvantaged groups whether it is as a result of cultural, racial, gender, sexual orientation or other forms of differences.

I was to later realize that I could not have anticipated the richness of my experience as some of the numerous reactions of the people around me (most especially colleagues) were stunning and even frightening; and how much more practicality I would add to my conceptual knowledge on diversity and inclusion. The reactions to my Arabic appearance could be said to span two extremes. One extreme was the remark relating my action to terrorism and inferring my choice of dressing as “religious extremes”. The other [delighting] reaction was a tolerant reception from another colleague who showed delight in my attire and offered to take pictures with me—though raised as a Muslim, he had grown up in Europe and gone around the world, raising questions of how much influence his “global exposure” had on his perception of my dressing in contrast to the perception of the other colleagues who have not had as much global exposure. An interesting outlook emerged from my thoughts, pondering on the role of post-colonialism in the tacit knowledge embedded our minds as West-Africans about the Arab world. I will attempt to explore this further later on in this paper.

Overall, this single-day experience brought me to a greater realisation and knowledge of discrimination based on culture and generalisations, and fulfilled my aspiration and purpose for initiating a unique experience to learn from.