Managers Can Support—Not Create—Social Learning Communities

As a professional community of practice, The eLearning Guild cares deeply about creating and fosteringcommunity, particularly social learning communities. But in the digital age,the meaning of community can be tough to pin down. Turning to members of thecommunity, Guild executive director David Kelly facilitated a discussion on thetopic at DevLearn 2017 Conference & Expo in late October. The sessionfeatured panelists Julian Stoddand Trina Rimmerfielding questions from a highly engaged group of about 40 attendees.

In pre-digital times, physical proximity was a key elementof community development. While in-person meetings can be instrumental inhelping some community members feel a sense of belonging, in the digital age, communitiescan and do form among individuals who are separated geographically and mightnever actually meet.

One element of community that has not changed, as both Stoddand Rimmer emphasized, is its voluntary nature. As corporate trainers attemptto leverage and measure social and collaborative learning to create a sense ofcommunity at work, some companies mandate participation in social learning orproblem-solving digital communities. This rarely works.

Just as getting together periodically is insufficient to turna group into a community, social learning shared among colleagues does notnecessarily create a community, the panelists emphasized. Stodd pointed out whatmight be obvious but is often overlooked in clumsy attempts to create communityfrom the top down: Community requires a level of trust and shared values. Thesecannot be externally imposed.

Identity and exclusion

Participants raised two of the less positive aspects ofcommunity creation: Defining who may join, by definition, excludes some people;and some communities propagate or tolerate “bad” behavior from communitymembers. “How can a large group do awful things that a majority [of communitymembers] say they deplore?” Stodd asked, then answered his own question: fearof ostracism.

Community is defined by a sense of identity with the group,including shared values. Thus part of a community’s definition is “what we arenot.”

Communities require rules and consequences to function;these exist on formal and informal levels. The more formal rules might includecriteria for joining and remaining a member and rules governing conduct. Communitiesgenerally stipulate consequences for breaking their rules—for example, whatbehaviors can result in a termination of membership. Whether and how evenly rulesare enforced affects how much trust members have in the community.

But the informal rules, social norms—and consequences forgoing against the norm— are equally, if not more, significant to determiningmembers’ level of trust and cohesiveness in a community. Severe social consequencesfor “bad” behavior, such as ridiculing a member who shares a failure, can helpensure that a community is supportive to its members, regardless of their levelof knowledge or skill. This is because the loss of community is felt morestrongly than the “gain” of joining a community or continuing to belong, Stoddsaid.

The flipside is also true: If bad behavior is ignored, somecommunity members lose trust in the community. “Toxic” communities are communitieswhere the negative behavior of one or a few members is broadly tolerated. Peopledon’t speak up, he said, because they fear the repercussions. An audiencemember concurred, mentioning a group where a member had been ostracized (andultimately left) because she had spoken up to protest homophobic bullyingoccurring in the group.

Managers can create “scaffolding”

Managers often claim that promoting, measuring, and perhapsformalizing “social learning” among their employees is a key goal. Social learningis already happening, Rimmer and Stodd said; the question managers should askthemselves is not how to make it happen but what they hope to accomplish bytrying to capture it. If their goal is to foster employees’ sense of communityat work, there are steps managers can take to create conditions where sociallearning communities can develop.

Social learning on its own does not create community, but itis one of the elements that can contribute to communities forming. However, itcannot be forced; the social learning can, should, and generally does developorganically.

But managers can provide logistical support tonascent communities. This can include a physical or online meeting place andstorage space for physical or electronic documents and other shared materials.

Managers can nurture conditions where community can developin other ways. They do this by providing “scaffolding”: a safe space forcolleagues to build networks, develop trust among members, and shareinformation. A community must include the safety for any member to askquestions, even “stupid” ones, and get genuine answers—not insults or attacks.This echoes elements of Guild Master Jane Bozarth’s idea of communities of practice(cited at the beginning of this article), where more experienced members oftenmentor less experienced members, and professionals share knowledge—as well astheir own successes and failures—with the goals of improving their own practiceand helping other members improve as well.

In fact, the idea of community underlying a community ofpractice is deeper than mere membership or even showing up at communitygatherings. Members need to be engaged and motivated and committed to “notmaking it hard for others,” Bozarth said in a DevLearn session on communities of practice. That means, in part, offering helpfulfeedback to new or inexperienced community members, not “trolling” them, shesaid. (Editor’s note: Trolling refersto providing negative or insulting feedback that does not offer anythingconstructive to the inexperienced.)

Bozarth addressed the issue of “lurkers,” a phenomenon thatoccurs in both in-person and online communities. These members do notparticipate or contribute, but they take advantage of the information andadvice shared by more engaged members. The presence of lurkers or “free riders”causes resentment among more committed members and can, in the long run,destroy the feeling of community, Bozarth said. Members of a community ofpractice should be motivated to contribute, often follow a trajectory ofparticipation as they grow in knowledge, and should be accountable to oneanother. “People have to want to be there and take part,” she said.

Besides providing the conditions that allow communities to form,Rimmer, Stodd, and Bozarth are in agreement about what else management can do: Getout of the way. Managers should not mandate membership or participation, imposerules or demands on the community, or turn members’ “passion projects” intowork assignments.