I had arrived in Jordan the night before. Best my circadian rhythms could tell, it was about 0100 and I seemed to have been cheated a few hours in transit. Jet lag is a funny thing. Kinda the cheap strip club of consciousness. You know it isn’t real, but man…the scenery is deceptively attractive, hours are rounding errors, and for the love of God, why is the sun up? Either way I was determined to hit the gym and hopefully help force the hand of the unrelenting “workday”.

The gym at the Intercontinental in Amman is respectable as far as hotel gyms go. Not usually crowded, it can be a respite to the weary/bleary/eerie traveler on their way through the middle east. I was all three the fateful morning I discovered a mildly cultish experience I have since bought into in a mildly obsessive fashion. Check that. Majorly cultish experience in an obsessively obsessive fashion.

I was huffing and puffing my way through a set of pullups when an ominous, somewhat bearded man of significant magnitude approached from the far side of the gym. He was clearly (hiding being) American but with a smile and an overly firm handshake he said to me…

“How long you been doing CrossFit?”

Racing through my memory bank, cluttered by the trans-Atlantic-business-class-all-you-can-convince-that-nice-woman-who-works-for-United-wine-fest of last night’s flight,  I stuttered something that hopefully would garner an iota of respect.

“Yeah…it’s cool. I just uhh…started but am not really…umm…sure yet.” (cue man shrug and realization of complete idiocy).

He stares at me quizzically. Perhaps wondering whether English is my first language and after what might have been against his better judgment, smiles again and says, “Keep it up. It will change your life.”

We exchange another (awkward on my part) handshake and he moves on to what I assume is a day consisting of a flight directly into the IZ. However, I was intrigued by this thing he referred to as “CrossFit”. Was I doing that? Should I be doing that? Why am I not doing that now? Do I need to grow a beard? After completing the balance of my paltry workout, I immediately set to googlin’ and came across a phenomenon that in fact, has changed my life. And maybe, just maybe, might provide a corollary to helping spread the goodness that is Enterprise 2.0.

In short, CrossFit is an open source “strength and conditioning fitness methodology”. There is a website/blog where daily workouts are posted and in turn, the participants post their results. The key differences between this and other programs that may sound similar is that these workouts are blow-an-o-ring difficult, usually require little equipment, and encourage competition through public reporting of performance or achievement. As a result of this, the community that has developed around CrossFit is extremely loyal, passionate, and somewhat insubordinate with respect to the “old way” of exercising. “Forging Elite Fitness” is more a badge of honor than a slogan, and gyms catering to xfitters have sprung up across the world. In my experience, the approach produces superior results yet is often shunned by the traditional fitness complex, starving for consumer dollars. It can be argued that CrossFit is the land of zealots. Yes, we are in excellent shape. Yes, we are training not to suck at life. Yes, we have a supportive community and almost limitless, free resources. Yes, organizations like the Marine Corps, law enforcement, and emergency services have adopted the approach. Yes, all indications seem to point to the fact that CrossFit might be the best way to get your widening derriere off the couch and into those hipster jeans. The results form a somewhat bulletproof business case.

Yet…we are the minority. We are overshadowed by Zumba classes and Bowflex. We are surrounded by Old Country Buffets and other food borne assaults on the human condition. Critics have painted us as cultish, a fad, and lacking rigorous certification standards. Despite what I have seen as overwhelming success in my own life as well as those around me, CrossFit is still not yet mainstream. In some instances, traditional gyms have banned its practice altogether.

In preparing for my participation in the “Reality Check” session at the E2 Conference this year, it occurred to me that this is not a dissimilar situation from the state of transparency within the enterprise.

In my current (past?) company, the use of our Enterprise Wiki to peel back the layers of otherwise tacit knowledge bears the same characteristics of the situation surrounding CrossFit. We are a somewhat cultish group of contributors who passionately believe in this way of working. We have wholesale adopted the practice of creating content in the clear, seek and use input from across the organization, and raise an indignant grimace to the “old way” of collaborating. Our approach requires little client side equipment, a puny corporate investment, and focuses on driving value from the crowd by changing yourself first. Yes, we are writing more informed deliverables. Yes, we have a supportive community and almost limitless free resources. Yes, organizations like IBM, Cisco, and the DC City Government have adopted the approach.  Yes, all indications seem to point to the fact that Enterprise 2.0 might be the best way to get your darkening corporate knowledge base out of Exchange (or whatever) and into the light of utility. The results form a somewhat bulletproof business case.

Yet…we are the minority. We are overshadowed by large corporate investments in permission-granted, file-driven technologies. We are surrounded by the easy and familiar technology mega buffet of so called collaboration suites. Sure, there might be grilled chicken in a steam tray somewhere, but in comparison to the volume pumping through the mac and cheese hopper, the healthy options look a bit lonely. Criticism is not as vocal, but passively manifested in lack of participation or continuation of traditionally opaque practices. Depite what I have seen as overwhelming success in my own life as well as those around me, Enterprise 2.0 is still not yet mainstream.

More respectable and knowledgeable bloggers than I have pointed out too many times to cite, that this may have something to do with fear. While I agree fear is a part of it, perhaps transparency, the core of Enterprise 2.0, is avoided for the same reason we choose a leisurely twirl on the elliptical machine over a fight gone bad.

Simply put – transparency is hard. Transparency might hurt while you are doing it. Transparency might actually injure you if not practiced with common sense and an objective view of your capabilities. Transparency requires you to think about work in a different way, not a different place. Sure, you can check the transparency box by standing up a corporate-apedia, viewing it a couple times, and maybe adding a link or two. But immediately sending a status report as an attachment thereafter is like doing a single pushup before riding a desk all day. Might make you feel good about yourself, but the marginal gains are lost in the grand scheme of things. Much like CrossFit, I believe transparency can only improve both an individual and an organization. With time, it becomes easier. With time, you begin to better understand your capabilities. With time, the community helps to gauge your performance and ultimately drives a greater, leaderless good. With time, you can forge your own brand of elite organizational fitness.