It’s a thing. I’m sure of it.

After being in the field of Learning and Development and spending most of my work life in the social learning space helping people build communities of practice, using enterprise social networks (like Yammer) to help them build authentic and trusted relationships and networks in their organisation, helping people to show and share their work and thinking out loud, helping people with their own agency in the organisation, encouraging them to look beyond how companies are currently (and I believe incorrectly) using and promoting these platforms internally for all the wrong reasons like – “personal brand”, “thought leadership”, marketing, self-promotion, gamification and vanity metrics all of which are meaningless in creating long and sustained behaviour change and personal transformation….

…..I’m spent.

I couldn’t go on any longer.

….I feel that I have lost the game.

I feel exhausted, unacknowledged and unvalued.

I started to become jaded and cynical. I noticed my behaviours were passive aggressive.

This was not “me”. It was a facade.

You cannot maintain a facade when espousing generosity, authenticity and transparency in human work relationships.

Something had to go.

I had to go.

Just like I decided to opt out of using public social media because I couldn’t compete with the algorithms, narcissism, self promotion and toxicity anymore. The same algorithms were changing our behaviours believing that what we see in public social networks is the benchmark of how we must behave on enterprise social networks.

No!

I still hold the idealistic view that enterprise social platforms must be where people feel safe. A place where where they are empowered to have a voice, share their knowledge and expertise in the spirit of collegiality and agency in their organisation. A place where they can be themselves – not to change their behaviours and act in ways that feel foreign to them. A place to drop their facade. Managers, leaders and employees.

Not to be bombarded with one-way company announcements, competitions for their attention, gamify their work, or be measured on the value they provide to the organisation based on their LinkedIn influencer score.

However, I don’t think others think this way. At times, I feel like I’m a lone voice in a rising tide trying to push against the standard thinking when it comes to enterprise social – and that is, treat it like what they’ve been seeing on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or TickTok or <insert any other social network>.

No!

Treat it like a relationship with another person – one of respect, humility, curiosity, openness, civility.

I had seen the value of online communities PRE-algorithms and before the platform capitalists took them over and added their marketing spin. I have seen the possibilities where people talked to each other and valued what they shared, learned from each other and with each other – we need more of THAT now.

I have been working in this field since 2011 and before that, in the field of learning and development. I have over 25 years of working experience in this field and I have reached my limit.

I couldn’t go on anymore and answer the same questions from people that they had been asking me for years. I couldn’t go on having to show and explain the value of my work. I was tired.

When I started to dread the idea of going to work on Mondays, that’s when I decided that it was time for me to stop work. It wasn’t fair on me nor my colleagues.

I feel that I have achieved a lot in my working life and for that I’m grateful however, now it’s time to rest and recuperate and get my own mojo back.

Earlier this year, I contacted the UNESCO to explore how I can get more involved in building learning and knowledge sharing communities at a city level. I also explored UN Goals around Lifelong Learning. Something in me wants to make a bigger impact in society. The time is right now. If I was going to continue working for corporates or for-profit organisations, it was going to kill me slowly inside because the impact of my work was not helping for the greater good, but for the bottom line.

I hate that bottom line.

What are YOU doing for the greater good? And how can I help YOU get there?

The world needs a change of thinking, a change of approach for a sustainable future.

We simply cannot follow the examples that platform capitalists sell to us as the ‘be all and end all’ solution or to measure me as a number and not a person.

That means, I need to do the same thing: I need to change my thinking and approach.

But for now, I need to rest.

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