Work States

Knowledge is the key to business success. And it begins with the way people work. Research shows that four individual and collective states of work – focusing, collaborating, learning and socializing- enable employees to realize their full innovative and creative potential. A high-performance workplace needs to consider how to support these four states of work.

• Learning
  Learning is about building knowledge. Whether in a classroom or a conversation with peers, learning happens best by doing and building on what we already know. When we make our thinking visible to one another, learning is accelerated and becomes an integrated part of an organizations culture. 
   
• Collaborating
  Fundamentally, collaboration is about working with one or more people to achieve a goal, such as collectively creating content, brainstorming, etc. Ideally, all perspectives are equally respected, brought together to leverage the group’s shared mind.
   
• Focusing
  Every worker needs some time that’s uninterrupted to concentrate and attend to specific tasks such as thinking, studying, contemplating, strategizing, processing, and other “head down” work best performed in one’s own mental “zone.”
  
   
• Socializing
  In order for knowledge to be fully internalized and useful, it needs to be socialized. When people socialize and work with others in both formal and informal ways, both learning and trust are built. Combining trust with a company’s intellectual capital crates the necessary ingredients for innovation.

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