‘Building successful communities of practice’ by Webber

Building successful communities of practice: Discover how connecting people makes better organisations – Emily Webber

Who should read this book?

 Here is what the author writes herself 🤔

“This book is a concise guide for anyone who wants to improve working life for themselves and others in their organisation or across organisations:

• if you have ever felt unsupported and frustrated at work, feeling like you are expected to have all the answers and no one to talk ideas through with or to give you feedback
• if you are leading a department, organisation or profession and want to create ways for people to learn and help them love their work
• if you are in charge of learning and development, or training budgets, and are looking for ways to get more value for staff
• if you are responsible for line management, hiring and professional development and want to find ways to support growing talent within your organisation rather than always turning to contractors or suppliers
• if you want to find ways to get a deeper understanding and knowledge of what you do by connecting with others like you”

Why you should read this book (or not)?

I can’t recommend this book. I found myself grappling with its overly general and conceptual approach. I had high expectations because of reviews and recommendations. However, my journey through its pages left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed and unprepared to tackle the real-world challenges of CoP implementation.

One glaring shortfall was the absence of hands-on tips, exemplified by the discussion on setting goals. While the importance of defining a “good goal” was stressed, I found myself longing for concrete examples and analyses of both successful and less effective goals. Anecdotes and misconceptions, which often serve as invaluable learning tools, were regrettably omitted, leaving a void in the narrative.

Moreover, the book’s treatment of CoP value proposition felt lacking in depth. While it elucidated the benefits CoPs bring, it fell short in addressing how to integrate them seamlessly into organizational strategies. I craved insights into the nuances of aligning CoPs with broader organizational goals and navigating the specific contextual challenges that arise.

One notable omission was the failure to distinguish between CoPs and Centers of Excellence (CoEs). As these concepts intersect within organizational ecosystems, understanding their differences and synergies is paramount.

So it left me with many unanswered questions. 

Interesting extracts

“Our natural human desire is to connect with other people and to seek out a sense of belonging. People need to feel supported. Because of this, communities naturally develop in many places.

Business organisations are no different. People who don’t feel supported in their jobs don’t stay around for long, or if they do, they are unmotivated and unhappy. In a time where organisational structures and culture changes so rapidly, helping people connect and feel supported is more important than ever.”

“I have experienced first hand that communities of practice can: support organisational learning; accelerate professional development of their members; enable knowledge sharing and management; support better communication; build better practices; make people happier; break down silos; and help with hiring and retention or staff.”

“Having a community of practice in place can support many of these ways of learning. A community will create the connections for shadowing, and will help people build their own classroom learning curriculum through recommendation and even taking classes together. Members will share their own self-initiated learning with each other, share ideas with each other, and support each other while trying out new techniques. The support network of a community will create the safe environment in which to try out new things, as well as creating social motivation among its members to learn.”

“Your vision for the community should be aspirational, achievable and easy to understand. There are many tools you can use to help build a vision, You’ll find ideas in books and on the internet. One possible workshop format follows four steps.

1. Align the group on what is meant by vision. This will help set the scene and make sure everyone is talking about the same thing.
   1. Ask the group the question: “What are the qualities a vision should have? Ask them to individually write their answers on sticky notes, without discussion.
   2. Ask the group to stick their notes on the wall one by one. Read them out, discuss any differences, then agree a list of qualities.
2. Gather words that are relevant to this group
   1. Ask the group to write down single words which they think represent for them the group’s vision.
   2. Ask them to stick their notes on the wall one by one and read them out: group them where they are the same or similar in meaning
3. Share some vision statement examples
   1. Share some good vision statements with the group. You’ll need to find some vision statements that you think are good from other organisations (you’ll be able to do this online).
4. Build your vision statement
   1. Divide your group into teams and ask them to use the words to create a single-sentence vision.
   2. Present back and discuss, then pick a statement (or combination of statements) that is right for you. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect: you can tweak it later.”

“To help guide people with their skills confidence mapping, it’s useful to use an existing model of skills development. For example, the Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition, created by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus in 1986 [29], defines five stages: expert, proficient, competent, advanced beginner, and novice.

Another tool I have used in skills mapping-less nuanced than the Dreyfus Model – is ShuHaRi, a martial arts term that relates to learning a technique. It breaks down into three stages.

Shu: The protection stage, where the student follows what the master teaches them.

Ha: The breakaway stage, where the student starts to learn the underlying principles and theory behind a technique and begins to integrate learning into their practice.

Ri: The creating stage, where the student creates their own approaches and adapts what they have learned to their own particular circumstances.”