Stage Six - Beware Managers Bearing Pizza...
Today, we’re joining Dave and his community again. Since we last met, things have been going really well – his Community of Practice has been growing steadily over the course of a number of months. People have been hearing about it and joining, and whilst some are leaving the majority are staying. Dave is very happy to see that each session they run together, there are one or two extra people in attendance and the group continues to grow.
One day, Dave notices a new face in the room – the Senor Test Manager has heard about these community meets going on and has decided to come along and see what all the talk is about. On another day this could have been problematic, but there’s no need to worry – in this session Dave has lined up an experienced speaker with a really interesting and successful session, and everything goes as conveniently as you would hope.
As the session draws to a close and the members begin to return to work, Dave is pulled to one side.
“Dave that was really good, I really enjoyed the session” he’s told by an excited looking Senior Test Manager who we’ll call Joe “I can’t hang around for long today but I’d love to talk to you more about it and how I could support you”
And this is how Dave finds himself discussing his thoughts and hopes for the Community of Practice with Joe over coffee one morning. Dave tells Joe how he’s always found it hard to use his personal development time on something meaningful, and how the CoP is primarily focussed on learning and sharing new ideas and approaches. He tells Joe how he’s proud that he’s giving people the opportunity to learn from some of the more experienced members whilst ensuring that there is space for the less experienced to speak as well, and how he hopes the community continues to grow and expand as over the coming months and years.
Joe totally gets it. He recognises the value in learning and expanding the teams quality capability. Sharing knowledge removes silos and bottlenecks, and boy do we have bottlenecks! He also knows that Dave is not alone in finding it hard to use his personal development time – as a business they recognise that despite their best efforts, people just aren’t using it and developing new skills in the way they need them to.
“That’s why I see so much potential in what you’re doing with the community” Joe tells Dave. He tells him that its filling a much needed gap for the business and he wants to support Dave to help him make it even more effective. “I have some budget to support things like this that each year we always struggle to spend, do you want to buy some pizzas next time to encourage people to come along?”
Eagerly Dave accepts. This is the legitimacy and opportunity that he has been hoping for, and he intends to grab it with both hands. Next time out, fuelled by the backing of the business he sends a wide invite out with the promise of opportunities to learn and to fill up on pizza, and there is an immediate effect – a last minute change of meeting place is required in order to find a bigger room! The session is a great success ended by a huge round of applause, and everyone agrees this is a great opportunity for them to continue to keep coming together.
Joe really takes a genuine interest in the success of the CoP. Before the next session he meets with Dave again to check he has everything he needs, find out what types of things are going to be covered, and makes sure he knows there is an open offer for support if he needs it.
A couple more sessions go by and Joe and Dave meet again. “As a business we’re concentrating on using and migrating to using Cypress” Joe tells Dave “it would be great if the CoP could help support that, maybe if we could find someone to run a session or two on it?”. Dave says no problem as it sounds like a sensible idea, and finds someone within the department who’s been involved in the migration to come and speak at their next meet.
Time continues to go by and again Dave and Joe meet. “I’ve been thinking” Joe tells him “as a management team we all agree the CoP is a great use of our people’s time, and I personally believe it’s a great opportunity for people to build their presenting and speaking skills as well. I’ve always known that you have to be able to speak articulately about something to truly understand it, and this is an excellent opportunity for people to do that. I’ve been asking the line manager’s across the department to encourage people looking to progress to get in touch with you and volunteer sessions to you”.
Time goes by again and once again Joe and Dave meet. “I’ve been casually keeping track of who comes to the sessions” Joe tells him “nothing formal, but just keeping a note each time to see if there are people who aren’t coming and are missing out. It’s hard to know that a message is getting out to everyone if there are some members of the team who aren’t taking part or being there to hear it. You don’t need to do anything, I’ll keep an eye on it”
As time goes by, the community takes a turn. Instead of a room full of people excited to learn something new, its now half full of people who want to be seen there. Instead of speakers who have discovered something interesting and want to share it with others, Dave finds he only has available people volunteering to run a session because they are trying to get promoted to Senior, don’t have any real passion for what they’re sharing, and just bring whatever they think they might be able to get away with to get the box ticked.
CoP sessions become even more sparsely populated. Although the budget is still available, Dave no longer bothers to put food on as he can no longer rely on the number of people who accept the invite but actually have no intention of ever turning up. Sessions where only four or five people turn up are not uncommon, and in private some of those tell Dave that they’re only there because they’ve been challenged by their line manager as to why they weren’t attending these mandatory training sessions.
Dave stands amidst the wreckage of all the collective hard work and passion that had gone into the Community of Practice and realises he no longer recognises it – he reflects on the fact that he’s had all the support he could have wanted and still the community has fallen apart…..he can’t find an external factor to point to that may have caused it so finds himself looking internally and say “it’s my fault”. He wants to stop, but Joe encourages him to keep going – “it’s important and valuable to the business that we keep offering these sessions” he’s told, so on and on it goes, trapped in something that used to be exciting and beautiful but now his own personal purgatory.
It doesn’t have to be like this, but it so often is – thriving communities hugged to death by the good intentions of others. What we’ve just observed is the impact of a change in culture and dynamic can have on a Community of Practice. The gradual evolution from something people want to be part of to a mandatory meeting that they have to endure. The slow creeping change from an opportunity to share something they’re passionate about to an unwelcome task on a journey to something they want. A move from something that has an element of counter-culture that is built by and for its members to something that has been assimilated into the corporate machine and is now just another meeting that they don’t want to be part of.
And what about Dave? Is he really to blame for this? What was he supposed to do, reject the offer of additional support to help the community grow?
For any Community of Practice that starts organically in the workplace, this critical moment arrives sooner rather than later. There is a moment where someone above takes an interest in the community and its potential to support the wider business objectives. That may be so, but by enforcing a change in purpose on the CoP (from serving the membership to serving the business), we are changing the culture of the community and therefore challenging the investment of its members. Those who wanted to be part of it will question their own personal investment in the community if its purpose for being is no longer the same.
This tipping point is difficult to manage. My advice to any new community is – as early as possible – to identify a shared goal and purpose. This is important for alignment purposes, but it is also groundwork for situations like this one. When Dave and Joe first sat down together, Dave shared his goals for the Community of Practice. Whilst admirable and aligned closely with those of the CoP, they are HIS goals, not the community’s goals. In each of the conversations that I added in this story, there is an opportunity to stay true to the CoP’s culture and purpose. When asked to focus on Cypress, Dave could have pointed to a session backlog and, whilst happily adding in some Cypress focussed sessions or even bumping them up the priority list, could demonstrate that the membership chooses what it wants to cover. When Joe said that he wanted to get people focussed on promotion to speak more frequently, Dave could have reminded Joe that there is a focus that the CoP has set itself and that they may not be able to speak confidently as part of that(I personally wouldn’t have much to say at a Cypress session!), and maybe this is an opportunity to set up similar community’s with a different focus? And when Joe mentioned that he’d been tracking who was turning up to the sessions regularly, Dave could have reminded him that as an informal community no one is obliged to come and continue coming if it isn’t offering them value.
I am not blind – I know none of these conversations would be easy for Dave. I’ve been involved in many of them myself and often I’ve not been able to answer in the way I’ve suggested now with the comfortable benefit of hindsight. But no one ever said that leading a Community of Practice is easy, and in my experience those communities that are clear and open and advocating for their purpose are the ones that have longevity compared to those that don’t.
In other news…
This past week I got to go to the Ministry of Testing Cambridge meetup, where I spoke about a learning pathway for anyone involved in Leading Communities of Practice. As part of that I pulled together a list of useful resources that I’ve been asked to share. I’m just in the process of adding links to everything (not affiliate links, they’re safe to click on I promise!), and I’ll share that here in the next couple of days. Lucky you for getting two emails from me this week!