Category Archives: Company

10 Simple Strategies for Creating a Social Movement – Part II

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Its not that it took so much time to think about the next 5 : ).  Here we go!

Make it more Democratic

Agreed that the platform is meant for official work. And you’ll set this context by defining the appropriate use cases. However, be slightly open and liberal. Open forums where employees can share more informal stuff, have water cooler conversations. It does not really hamper their productivity. Instead it has shown to trigger new ideas and solutions. If you really think that its going to affect productivity, then think again – it’s not because of the platform and it doesn’t necessarily happen through the platform.

And in our experience so far, employees have been far more responsible on what they say and how they act on their networks.

Show them Success

Nothing is as powerful as peer reviews. Good reviews add to the credibility of the initiative. Success stories tell people how to use the platform and what benefits they can derive. Besides, emulating is far easier than leading. Keep a watch on teams actively using the platform, gain feedback, follow-up on what they’re achieving, where they face trouble. When results are evident, make a splash.

Proliferate

Based on initial experiences, create best practice guides. Use successful teams to coach other teams and departments. That way, you make these teams responsible for others’ success as well. After all, isn’t that what collaboration is all about?

Lead

Nothing is more effective than employees finding their leaders active in their collaboration platform. Its lame if leaders site their age or their busy schedule as reasons for not actively engaged in the platform. That tells their subordinates that their leaders don’t consider the platform important.

Besides several benefits, a social collaboration platform provides a great channel for recognizing your people’s talents and achievements.

Is microblogging now and then sufficient? The author of this post in CEC Insider doesn’t seem to think so.

Be Patient

This will be perhaps the first point if we ordered all these strategies in terms of their importance. Like any new initiative or invention, a collaboration platform takes time to catch on. People will take time to understand the new channel, move away from their ‘very convenient’ emails and adapt to the platform. Andy like any other typical social media, not everyone will contribute, at least immediately. It doesn’t mean that they’re idle. Showing them the benefits will help them switch.

How did you drive adoption for your internal collaboration platform? Do share your views.

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10 Simple Strategies for Creating a Social Movement – Part I

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Jagdish’s previous post on the need for a community manager prompted me to think more on the topic of bringing people to adopt the social media initiative in an organization.

“This is social. It should work by itself. People should flock to the network. After all they all are in FaceBook,” is a very common attitude that I have come across in many organizations. Well, this logic is fundamentally flawed in its premise. As Aaron Weiss points out in his article, there are incentives for people to be in FaceBook. What’s the incentive for employees to be in their company’s collaboration network?

That’s a good question to start with. And there are a few other things that you, as an organization, can do to bring in the social change, for the better.

The following are a few strategies that worked for our customers. They are not in specific order:

Set the Context

It helps if employees understand why they’d use the network and what they’d accomplish by doing so. Leaving the network open and letting people figure out its purpose is not a wrong strategy per se. However, people will make their own meanings of the platform. The management should be open to this possibility and not expect people to stick to its agenda, which it never communicated.

This HBR article on Social Media’s Leadership Challenges succinctly communicates this message – “Successful communities all have compelling and inspiring goals for their existence and their leaders are passionate about these goals.” (The article, by the way, has plenty of good advice to offer.)

In fact, the context and the use cases should have been defined right at the beginning – product evaluations should have happened based what you intend to achieve by using the system. Also define appropriate metrics and success criteria so that it becomes easier for you to find if intended results are being achieved.

Provide Flavors

When defining the use cases, remember to have a variety in the kind of activities that people are going to do in the network and in the content that they’re going to consume. Its more interesting if I can get to know HR-related updates in my platform where I also work with my colleagues on my day-to-day projects.

Get in people from the business, HR, Training and Corporate Communications as stakeholders for the platform. Discuss and finalize what use cases each of these departments is going to bring to the platform. Consistently stick to it.

Create the Buzz

Mail Campaigns, posters, SMS and other announcements are definitely useful, especially when the platform has been introduced by the management. One of our customers organized a live chat on the platform with the CEO. Employees got an opportunity to interact and quiz their super leader. The conversation was not about the new platform, but was more about the company and where its heading. That’s another point to remember – focus on the content, rather than the technology.

Bring in the SJs

Like all jockeys, Social Jockeys can make the crowd jig. SJs are people with high-voltage enthusiasm, who know how to create the buzz, the fun and make people want to participate.

No, they are not essentially community managers – people with administration and moderation roles; though community managers could be SJs as well. SJs are people who are acknowledged by their peers, for their knowledge, expertise and thought leadership. So, yes, they need not be necessarily heads of department and line managers.

The initial team you put together from different departments should essentially be made of SJs.

Don’t Scare Off

Policies & guidelines are important, especially when the organization is trying out a new communication channel. Strict & clear definitions of do’s and don’ts are absolutely essential. But do not stress them often, that too, when users have not got a full hang of the platform. This only sets a context that the platform will be highly monitored and curated. People do not want to participate in (one more) initiative where they have to play by very strict rules.

One of our customers attached the policy document to the launch email.  Another customer just provided a link to the policies link the platform.  Employee responses were definitely different in both cases.

The need for a community manager

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The need for a community manager

While it always ideal that networks evolve and grow with minimum intervention, a role of a community manager cannot be ignored. A community manager who understands the power a social collaboration tool can act as a catalyst, to ensure that the organization derives the desired benefits. I read  good article recently which provides insights into what kind of roles a community manager plays.

 

Here are some:

 

  • Welcome Wagon
  • Gardener
  • Referee
  • Listener and Moderator
  • Member Advocate
  • Brand Spokesperson
  • Nurturer of Brand Champions
  • Someone Who Measures, Analyzes, Adjusts, Rinses, Repeats

 

For more details checkout the article.

 

HBR Blog: Unleashing the Power of Networked Learning

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HBR Blog: Unleashing the Power of Networked Learning

This excellent HBR blog stresses the importance of informal, collaborative learning and presents some strategies for implementing one.

Though the blog presents the case from an educational organization perspective, I think it’s highly relevant for business enterprises as well.

Read the full series.

The book “Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know” has been published.

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The book “Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know” has been published.

I had the opportunity to contribute a chapter, “Social Knowledge Workspace”. Enjoyed sharing my learning with this great team of researchers, academicians and practitioners around harnessing knowledge using social collaboration platforms like KineticGlue. Here is the abstract of the book:

 

For the past two decades, executives have struggled to develop effective ways of sharing what their organizations know.  Organizational leaders are now seeking ways to share knowledge with both internal and external stakeholders driven by concerns such as downsizing, the impending retirement of baby boomers, terrorism, and a host of other organizational challenges.
Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know aims to provide relevant theoretical frameworks, latest empirical research findings, and practitioners’ best practices in the area. The book is multidisciplinary in nature and considers a wide range of topics, each of which is related to social knowledge. It is written for professionals who want to improve their understanding of the strategic role of social knowledge in business, government, or non-profit sectors.

 

For more details please visit the IGI site.

 

Why Slacktivists are Good for You

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Why Slacktivists are Good for You

Continuing on identifying the different varieties of people at the workplace – there is another breed of people, who are ready to do anything. These people have strong affinities to ideas, causes and to their beliefs; they talk passionately about them – it might sound that they’ll jump off mountains to prove their commitment. But don’t worry – they will not even move from their chairs.

These are the Slacktivists – they take the minimal personal measures required to turn their words into actions. A slacktivist involved in ‘The Save Trees Campaign’ might show his support by wearing a green arm band.

Because they take no strong action, slacktivists, in general, are considered ineffective to the causes they support. It doesn’t mean that such people are bad at work, but it’s just that they cannot spearhead organizational programs or projects.

However, in an online collaboration platform scenario, slacktivists can do much more valuable work. Companies can use slacktivists to create the spark, light and momentum necessary for energizing organizational initiatives. These are factors why this is possible:

- Slacktivists are among the firsts to rally behind a good initiative or an idea.

- They make ideas more visible, speaking about them openly and frequently in the platform.

- They become local champions of a cause or a project, supporting and defending it passionately and pulling in their friends and contacts as well.

For a slacktivist, these are just his natural style of work. Further, the platform throws brighter spotlight on him (which he usually will not get in the physical world), egging him to do more. Such visibility has found to make people take real responsibilities and stop being just advocates.

Thus a collaboration platform, can help employees turn their intentions into actions, cut the slack and keep the activity.  It can make the one with the green band, to go, plant  a tree.

How many stars in the sky?

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How many stars in the sky?

A Forrester report states that, on an average 5 to 15 per cent of an organization’s staff can be considered as high potential. Does it mean that the remaining 85% is lesser than being high potentials?

The truth is that the 85% is comprised of a good amount of the silent do-gooders..

These are brilliant people with great ideas, who however,  will take those ideas with them to their graves. These silent people, are often the most knowledgeable and competent people in an organization.

They are often unnoticed. They are trusted and revered by their project mates, but their shine doesn’t reach further than that. Perhaps, a manager who takes a very careful look at his subordinates will spot and nurture such employees. However, the typical talent finder programmes, have been seen to identify and reward people who talk and make themselves visible.

The result? These invisible Samaritans of the organization eventually find themselves ignored and leave the workplace disenchanted. The greater issue is that the organization never comes to understand this, as it continues to spend all its efforts on safeguarding its top 15 per cent. On the ground, projects suffer, work gets delayed and customer complaints mount. The problem is very generically attributed to attrition. The issue is not of attrition, but of attrition of these highly talented, but unspotted individuals.

The good thing about collaboration platforms is that they enable such employees to come into a broader limelight without having to shed their usual style of working or without having to change their character. They become central hubs of expertise and drive and channelize their large group of followers. They become more visible and are recognizised.  Its not as if this phenomenon is not happening  now; but unfortunately, it is happening outside the organization.   An internal collaboration platform will enable organizations to  bring this knowledge back into their domain and discover a new lot of people that it can depend on.

If organizations are asking for merits or ROI of using such platforms for workforce, then this should proivde the answer.

Why KMs don’t work?

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As we start talking about enterprise collaboration, most customers talk about the Knowledge Management (KM) systems and tools in place in their organizations. But even as they describe, there seems to be a sense of self-doubt if the initiative is working or paying off to the objectives that were originally defined.

When speaking to the HR manager of a large Indian corporate, he mentioned that the organization does not get understand if people are using it. And if they’re using it, how’re they using it. The organization sure gets the basic statistics, but not any specific insight – for example, did people find the artifacts useful and effective. Another organization tries to overcome this issue by sending periodical survey forms, expecting that 10% of the recipients will respond.

Wikipedia describes Knowledge Management as a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice.

This definition perhaps gives some hints to why KM initiatives lose their charm soon after their launch:

- Most organizations focus on identifying, creating and distributing insights and experiences of specific people and practices in the organization. Hence the range of knowledge resources that gets created is limited by specificity of first, the people involved and second, the topics on which they write.

 

- Secondly, the KM initiatives almost do not focus at all on the adoption side. Some who do, approach it in ways that are unsustainable. A well-known IT company makes it mandatory for employees to read and contribute to the KM repository. And of course, there are surveys and internal campaigns.

 

- There’s also a bigger issue. While KM strategies include a wide variety of knowledge sharing tools, most KM strategies are synonymous with document management systems (DMS). And it is not uncommon for KM strategies to be taken as pure training and learning strategies.

As a whole, the implementation of these initiatives makes them less democratic than they should be. Given that the source of knowledge in an organization could be anyone, and that data gets refined into knowledge by steady inputs from several people, over a period of time, locking it to a few specific users does not make sense.

Also DMS is just one instrument for KM. They lack the ability to capture the fluidity with which information grows, refines and is consumed.

A holistic collaboration platform is a great tool for KM pioneers. A collaboration platform supports a wide variety of KM strategies – story telling and experience sharing, communities of practice, knowledge forums, expert voices, pre and post analysis, and of course document repositories as well.

They are open – inviting people to share and contribute. However, it’s not about unsupervised, uncontrolled information deluge. It’s rather about allowing anyone in the organization to contribute and add value within a given context, in a meaningful and responsible manner. With such platforms, organizations get to know the knowledge sources that are popular, effective and most talked about, enabling them to focus on the right strategies.

It frees the organization from the whole creation – consumption monitoring cycle. It shifts these responsibilities to every user who strive to provide the best, most relevant and correct information to their fellow colleagues. Yeah, it is democracy, as good as it can be.

Give that thumbs-up!

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The radio is tuned to a popular radio station. A lady is very happily sharing with the RJ, how her, otherwise reticent boss, came out his cabin and appreciated her good work, openly in front of her team members. How apt!

In his book ‘The Carrot Principle‘, Chester Elton talks about the importance of day-to-day recognitions. He says that the value of such day-to-day recognitions is high, as they are low cost, but high touch. They are the regular pat in the backs, the notes of appreciation, a token of thanks that fill the recognition-vacuum between two appraisals. The predominant absence of providing such recognition is considered one of the prime reasons why employees leave organizations.

Chester says that such recognitions are effective when they are frequent, specific and timely.

In most organizations, appraisals are perhaps the most used mechanism for acknowledging performance and providing feedback and recognition. By their very design, appraisals fail to provide the kind of recognition that we are talking about. They are simply not frequent, specific or timely. This is not to say that appraisals are unnecessary, but just that they’re inadequate.

Enterprise social networks can serve as powerful channels for a simple, but effective recognition mechanism:

Writing a note of appreciation in a social network is quick and easy. Managers do not have to schedule an appointment for providing such feedback. This enables them to provide, frequent and timely recognition.

  • The acknowledgement happens out in the open; it carries legitimacy. It not only affects the credibility of the recipient, but also that of the giver. One cannot afford to be biased. A mutual admiration club will not be able to run its shop in such an open network – people will quickly realize what’s happening.
  • Recognitions carry anecdotal references – timely support given to support a customer escalation, extraordinary effort put in completing a project on time, a fantastic presentation made to a customer – all can be said. This makes the recognitions more specific and contextual. Recognition is also provided directly by beneficiary of the employee’s action, making it more ‘in-person’.
  • When an employee receives recognition, it is instantly seen by her network. She is suddenly more visible and recognizable to a large group of people. Such visibility is shown to make people act with more responsibility. In fact, it is seen that such people continuously raise their bars to stay up to their image in the organization.
  • By making the recognition more visible, the organization effectively sends a message to all its employees on what it values and rewards, thereby triggering a simple ripple effect of such good behaviour.

 And of course, there are no budgets to be considered for appreciating good work.

The motivation that such social recognition can provide to employees is not surprising – just think how much you value the ‘Likes’ to your Facebook posts. So, go ahead – be generous and give that thumbs-up!