Focus on developing reliable behaviours - a key aspect to mastering Microsoft 365

If your organization has its e-mail in Microsoft 365 there's a good chance that you have been exposed to some of the other many apps of Microsoft 365.?

Maybe you have received an email from Microsoft Viva with an analysis of your daily work habits? Or maybe you have seen the (blue) ToDo icon in the navigation pane of your desktop Outlook?

In fact, you have access to a lot of apps that have the potential to increase your personal productivity and well-being (the best place to view the apps you have access to use is www.office.com and then on the left side you have a link "All apps").

It might be difficult for you to sense what value you would get from learning and adopting these apps, but let's for now stay with the notion that they represent a modern way to do work with information (as part of your digital workplace) and that they can lead to a lot of value being created for you.

Having worked as a coach for Microsoft 365 for many years now, and having helped many information workers to work smarter, it is clear to me that the road towards mastering Microsoft 365 is full of obstacles and traps. These obstacles can slow you down and also block your learning and adoption of the new modern ways of working that are required.

One such trap is having a sub-optimal approach to learning.

Here's an example of what I mean: let's say that you have discovered a new app and that you now want to learn to use it. You might search for some tips on how to use it which most likely will show you which functions the app has and where you should click in order to have something done. You might open the specific app and perform some random activities (e.g., enter a few tasks in ToDo, create a few note pages in OneNote, etc.). I know this from my own way of learning to use IT tools back in the 1990's and 2000's. The IT tools of the 2020's are of a different breed, however, and they require another approach to learning.

One such difference is that the new tools are designed for intentionality. The app kind of expects that you have an intention by using it. That the interaction with it is part of an information process, where you will get back to at a later stage and reap the value. And of course, if you don't perform the follow-up behaviour (as you didn't know of it or haven't achieved reliability in performing the required behaviour) you will experience that your use of the app is of low value. The likely result is that you give up on the app and stay with the tools and behaviours that you already know and familiar with. Do you recognize this pattern also in your own life??

So, the key to mastering Microsoft 365 is to focus on developing the right behaviours, and to be able to perform these reliably when it is called for. If you learn this, you will be able to gain a lot of value from the apps of Microsoft 365.

I will cover how to go about developing reliable behaviour in a coming article of mine, and in the meantime, I can give you the following piece of advice for mastering Microsoft 365. Make sure that the teacher or training you select helps you to understand which specific behaviours you need to perform to create value and also helps you to develop reliability in performing these behaviours.