Collaborative capacity: The role of Culture in Enterprise 2.0

 

  So earlier this month, I delivered a session at the Santa Clara Enterprise 2.0 conference together with Margaret Schweer – a colleague of Tammy Erickson from nGeneral Insight (Moxie Software).

Margaret outlined the factors which are important in building collaborative capacity / culture, and some of the things organisations are doing to develop it.

I emphasised the need for E2.0 (and HR) practitioners to switch their focus to social outcomes like collaborative capacity (and/or I’d suggest other social outcomes such as innovation, speed, learning, customer service etc).

And I suggested the two key things companies wanting to take advantage of these opportunities need to do are:

• Have a strategic / social intent – or mojo
• Plan face-to-face and technological activities around this mojo and desired outcomes.

 

This is the important point - just implementing 2.0 technologies won’t necessarily produce these outcomes – you need to plan for them.

This doesn’t discount the role of emergence – but these things are too important to be left to chance.

Comments /thoughts?

 

See this write-up on the session.

 

Some of the tweets:

• VictorHeredia: Interesting concept of Organizational Capabilities as an improvement of core competencies presented by @joningham at #e2conf
• joningham: RT @VictorHeredia: @joningham:"Successful, sustainable collaboration platforms have to work for the individual" at #e2conf, and help the individual in his work
• rdeis: Trust is essential for collaboration. For most, trust develops through relationships. Margaret Schweer @nGeneraInsight #e2conf
• rdeis: Create employment practices consistent with a ?Community of Adults? Stop measuring time. Margaret Schweer @nGeneraInsight #e2conf
• rdeis: Employees First, Customers Second. book by Vineet Nayar. Recommended by @joningham People, Culture, Behavior Session #e2conf
• mijori23: RT @joningham Business people may not like the word ('social') - that's the problem. #e2conf Their customers use it - learn to like it!
• joningham: RT@lehawes @roonoid Want to improve collaboration culture? First realize that most collaboration doesn't happen online #e2conf
• jdthurber: @joningham I think it is more than that. "Social" doesn't really describe the full impact/purpose of the new "social corporation." #e2conf

 

And I liked this tweet from earlier on as well:

• ITSinsider: "You're going to succeed or fail on culture." @bsandie presents for 30 min on adoption and has not yet talked technology. #e2conf

 

Why would you need to?

 

Picture credit: Ryan Coleman

Technorati Tags: Culture,collaboration,social,Margaret Scweer,Ngenera,Moxie,Enterprise 2.0,conference,Santa Clara,HR

 

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HR Technology Strategies

 

   In July, I noted my beliefs that June’s E 2.0 conference needed a greater focus on HR issues, ie culture, behaviours etc and also on the HR function itself – but also that I didn’t think either I or this subject would get on the agenda.

It looks like I’ve been proved wrong, and I’m pleased to see HR Technologies promoted to a new track at this November’s conference in Santa Clara:

“Human Resources professionals are at the center of managing the most valuable asset a company possesses - its people - and how to get them to interact and collaborate more effectively. Enterprise 2.0 planning typically straddles the intersection between Line of Business needs, Human Resources and Information Technology.

While Line of Business and IT typically have specific and often urgent needs, the realities and complexities of human resources can have longer term implications. And in today's economy, scale is key whether in terms of growth, downsizing, or merger and acquisition strategies. Keeping the nucleus of a business collaborating while blending other cultures into the mix is a challenge often underestimated by strategists who assume the 'boxes are checked' in software solutions.

The HR Technology Strategies track will discuss how to ensure the HR voice and perspective is heard in strategic planning, and that the Enterprise 2.0 technology being contemplated is appropriate for your company size and personnel profiles. We will focus on realizing business value from collaboration tools, and how to strategize around building on existing technology foundations—including payroll, comps, benefits, incentives and training/learning—to transition into a more connected and aware culture and organization. The realities of staff types, ages and workflow needs will be addressed, including how to shape them so they evolve over time to meet your business goals.”

 

More on this soon, and I suppose I should also, as promised, finish my blogging from the June conference!

 

 

Technorati Tags: HR,technology,enterprise 2.0,conference,Santa Clara

 

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Looking back to September 2009

 

   You may also be interested in these posts from September last year:

• Social Media in Business conference
• My definition of Social Business
• My further thoughts on the Social Business
• Netflix – Enterprise 1.0 or 2.0?
• My thoughts on 2.0
• Directors pay and Social Advantage
• Management models and Social Advantage
• Social Advantage after the downturn.

 

Or even from the year before?

• Web 2.0 Hype
• Kennedy Information webinar: Building your social ...
• Social connections and social intelligence
• Linking social connections & social media
• ...and Prediction Markets
• Crowdsourcing
• Unjust Rewards
• H2O / social media in the UAE
• Tomoye / communities of practice
• Bersin / social networks.

 

Picture: Halogen incandescent light bulb (banned by the European Union in September 2009, beginning a phase-out in favour of energy-saving compact fluorescent lamps.

 

Technorati Tags: Jon Ingham,Social Advantage,September 2009

 

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Social Future: the Connected Organisation

 

    I’ve been interviewed by Matt Alder on his new site, Social Future:

“Social Future is blog the looks at the way companies communicate and how the manner and indeed the concept of communication itself is rapidly changing.

The aim of the blog is to explore the emerging power of “Connected Organizations”. The content is a series of exclusive interviews with practitioners and thought leaders in this emerging field.”

 

Listen here.

 

Technorati Tags: Matt Alder,Recruiting,Social,Future,connected,organisation

 

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Work your Strengths

 

As what I hope will be part of a regular series of guest posts, my wife and colleague, Sandra, reviews a new book, ‘Work Your Strengths’, by Chuck Martin:

 

This book is promoted as a ‘must-read’ for those who are keen to identify their executive skills and match them to the most natural, best-fit career solution.

Martin explains that, particularly when under pressure from stress or fatigue, research shows that the weakest executive skills fail first. Once you know your executive skills strengths and weaknesses it is much easier to predict where issues may arise and which positions are likely to be unnatural or difficult for you and which positions best match your strengths. You are in a good situation if one or more of your top three executive skills is required for the job.

Knowledge of executive skills enables you to assess those around you. It becomes easier to understand and anticipate the behaviours of others in work situations, gives you the knowledge to suggest to others what you are good at and the ability to make the right move by selecting those openings that play to your core strengths.

Call it a mid-life crisis if you must but I was suddenly curious to find out if I am following the correct career path, particularly as an online assessment is included with the book. I decided not to read the book cover to cover but instead chose to steer my way around Chuck Martin’s map of 12 executive skills which, he says, are hardwired into our brains from birth. In order to creative this effective executive skills map Chuck Martin analysed each of the executive skills and matched them against industry, department and job titles.

I will say that it is important to do the online assessment before reading the book. I think if it had been the other way around I would have got it in my head that I should be answering questions in a certain way to be a high achieving director! As it turned out Chuck Martin’s careful analysis of all 12 executive skills was such that through the online assessment tool he was able to order my top three strengths and, oh God, my top three weaknesses and I have to say that all of them rang a familiar bell in my head!

As it turned out I am naturally suited to marketing, sales and communication which is my area of work. Now that I am nicely reassured what else can I do with his findings? Well, Chuck Martin uses research to show that under pressure from stress or fatigue the weakest executive skills fail first. Ah! Yes. That does means I have a tendency to put things off to the last moment and then go all out to meet an oncoming deadline – I just knew you would want to know my weakness! Although, I would like to point out to potential clients and employers that now I know my natural strengths and weaknesses I will be able to predict where issues may arise and which situations are likely to be unnatural or difficult for me and plan things accordingly (once I’ve had that cup of coffee, that is!). And the important thing about me is that, as Chuck points out, it's as if my memory is always on, no matter how busy I am or what I am doing. I am able to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks and I can draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or project into the future. I am usually able to do one task and not lose sight of other commitments. I am considered by others to be reliable, can be counted on to follow through, and able to keep my eye on the ball. Now, you’re reassured!

Also, curious person that I am, this newly acquired knowledge of executive skills helps me to assess those around me so making it easier to understand and anticipate the behaviours of others in work situations.

Above all, I now have the knowledge to suggest to others what I am good at and the ability to make the right move by selecting those openings that play to my core strengths (the above was just a modest flirtation!).

Duly tried and tested, I am inclined to agree with Chuck Martin that this book is good for personal career planning and for managers and executives to discover more precisely who might be best suited to a particular job/industry or department.

 

Sandra is an experienced internal & external communication professional who consults alongside me through Strategic Dynamics.  Please contact her with any communication requirements at sandra dot ingham at social-advantage.com.

 

Technorati Tags: Check Martin,Strengths,book review,assessment,Sandra,Ingham,Harrison,communication,consult,Bracknell,Berkshire,Thames Valley

Looking back to August 2009

 

   You may also be interested in these posts from August last year:

• Enterprise 2.0 crock? Depends how you define it…
• Cisco’s management experiment
• Whole Foods: Conscious Capitalism
• The broken society / Morality in politics
• RSA Bloggers’ Circle

 

Or even from the year before?

• Trends in Digital HR
• Collaboration in talent management
• Orange: ubuntu
• Ubuntu / Changing social thinking
• Aberdeen Group: Workforce collaboration and web 2....
• McKinsey: Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise
• Social Workers

 

Picture: Asta (Haggis invented 'by the English' not the Scots -August 2009)

Technorati Tags: Jon Ingham,Social Advantage,August 2009

 

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The hyper-social organisation

 

    I’ve been listening to Francois Gossieaux and Ed Moran talking about their new book, The Hyper-Social Organisation (which I’ve not read as yet).  This is another of those books which made by heart skip a beat when I found out about it (“oh no, someone’s written my book!”).  But no, once again, they haven’t.

It sounds like a good book though – I like the idea of web 2.0 and human 1.0 ie that a lot of social media behaviours are triggered by our social brains.  I agree that if you want to understand what’s happening, you’re best of understanding the human 1.0 rather than the web 2.0 tools.

So you need to understand these 1.0 behaviours which seem to fly in the face of logic or you get lost in the tools.  Examples:

• Reciprocity – people are prepared to make an investment with no expectation of a return - as a human 1.0 hard-wired reflex
• Fairness – people will pay a price to ensure that fairness is done, ie that everyone does what they say they’re going to do
• Emulation – our mirror neurons drive us to do the same and to look the same as other people
• Buyology – we lie to people because we lie to ourselves to to make ourselves look good (we make up excuses for why we’ve made purchases etc)
• Herding – we combine with and follow tribes (leading to increasing emphasis on the head of the power curve, not the long tail)
• Status – allows us to progress and be respected within a community, but it can be stultefying too.

 

Hyper social organisations are those businesses which are being successful because of their use of social media.  They think differently about their business, and are doing things differently too.

These companies recognise that the human with all his (or her) socialness is coming back into business – as employees and everywhere else.  They understand that hierarchies and legal employee processes are becoming increasingly less important, and that communities crossing these vertical lines based upon passion and social factors are becoming more important.

These companies also change their business processes into social processes – things which are done by people because they want to, they have a passion for something etc.  This way of working is about using human reciprocity and social contracts to get others to help you do your job.  Just about every process (apart from Finance and Legal) is socialisable (or social mediafiedable!).

One idea if you want to become a hyper-social organisation: don’t put a firewall between your people and your company eg by forbidding people to tweet- they’ll just do it on their iphones anyway.  And anyway, two research studies have shown that people using social media are more, not less, productive.

 

Some thoughts

I go along with a lot of this, particularly the important of socialisation.  That’s what this blog’s about, and also my next book.

And I support some of the authors’ recommendations

• Eg: to think about human-centricity (as in human capital management), not company-centricity.
• Yes: companies need to become human before they can become social.
• And also: think knowledge network, not information channel.
• Yes: that’s a basic tenant of social media – it’s about the conversation not a communication.
• And to an extent: think emergent messiness, not hierarchical fixed processes.
• Partly: emergence is important, but there’s a lot of this you can plan as well (I’ve just been having a conversation about this in the comments to my last post about Enterprise 2.0 on Strategic HCM).

 

What I don’t like so much, or why my own book is still going to be different to (and better! than) this one is that I don’t see, once again, why all this needs to be so linked to social media.  Basically, it doesn’t.  Social media has given us one more enabler to influence these social (human 1.0) factors, but these exist in all workplaces.  2.0’s largely an irrelevance to this.

Also: I think we need to move away from descriptions of the environment.  This is where so many books go wrong.  There are just too many descriptions of ways that people in companies can think differently, and things that they can do.  Too many to have much of an impact in my view.

We need to switch the focus to outcomes – to what we’re really trying to achieve based upon our increasing understanding about the social workplace.  And this isn’t to think tribe.  Finding groups of people who have something in common based on their behaviour may be something we want to do, but only if it achieves something else.

Social Advantage anyone?

 

Technorati Tags: hyper,social,organisation,Francois Gossieaux,Ed Moran,webinar,Jen McClure,book

 

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Enterprise 2.0 summary

 

   I still need to catch up on quite a few posts from the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston.  I captured them live in draft but didn’t get time at or since the conference to publish.  They will out before the end of the month!

Of course, you will find commentaries on all the sessions elsewhere, but I hope you’ll value my additional insight built into the posts as well.

And I thought I’d give you a summary of some of these insights, in terms of my major overall reflections on some of the key themes and debates at the conference.

 

Culture and tools

There seemed to be a significant split in attendees / perspectives between a focus on on culture, and a focus on technology.  I’m not saying anyone thought culture was unimportant – that certainly wasn’t the case, but it’s about prioritisation.  Some people clearly understood that culture (the way people work together, collaborate etc) is the most important element in e 2.0.  At the other end of the scale, there was a view that we’ve reached the end of the ‘culture 2.0 crusade’.  I believe this focus is important, and suggest it does need to be on culture.

I’ve got another draft post on this which I’ll be posting here shortly as well.

And I’m proposing to speak on this subject at the next e 2.0 conference in Santa Clara in November.

 

Creating and adding value

A further issue was around the role of e 2.0 in bringing around changes.  The prevailing train of thinking suggested that e 2.0 technologies need to be embedded in business processes, and what people do within their jobs.  Ie that 2.0 adds value to existing processes to help them and the people performing them work effectively.  Or maybe that 2.0 can create value, ie help people and organisations do new things by applying appropriate innovations faster than elsewhere (as a solution in search of a problem).

To me, its people, and their relationships, that create value.  2.0 technologies play a role in helping them do this.  And most of what people do happens on top of and around business processes.  So if we want 2.0 to create value, to lead change, we need to extend its use beyond the workflow.  We need to focus on peoples’ working-lives rather than just work-flows.

The challenge in doing this is in getting people to do something that goes beyond their narrowly defined jobs.  But this is where the benefit lies as well.

Again, I aim to post on this in more detail.

 

HR and IT

E 2.0 is not an IT conference, but there were certainly more CIOs and IT Directors than there were people from any other function.  A couple of people and tweets commented on the lack of HR people.

Actually, there were about 15 of us there.  Not a huge number perhaps but the conference agenda is going to have to change to encourage more, eg less headache inducing product demos dressed up as keynotes, and just a broader agenda too – choosing between various social technologies that all do pretty much the same job isn’t to me what 2.0 needs to be about.

But HR is increasingly interested in this.  Or at least in the benefits 2.0 can provide.  To me, it’s just that IT and HR aren’t talking to each other sufficiently.

And we need HR to be part of the conversation.  I try to wear a business rather than an HR had on this blog (my HR blog is Strategic HCM).  But I can’t get away from the fact that if culture vs tools is what’s important, HR should really be the key owner and driver of 2.0 oriented (social) change.

So I’ve got another proposal in for Santa Clara to help IT understand the ping points for HR, and develop a closer conversation between the two functions (and I’d like to do one focusing in reverse for the CIPD or SHRM).

 

Best and emerging practices

I felt there also seemed to be growing body of opinion that we all know and share a reasonably similar view about what e 2.0 needs to involve, how best to do it etc.  We don’t (or at least I don’t – see above).

I’d like to see the conference hang back from trying to focus on ‘the solution’ and encourage more diversity in thought (I’d have liked to have seen a few more rather more divergent thinkers like Stowe Boyd and Paula Thornton on the agenda too).

Oh, and a diversity in case studies too.  I’ve already posted on EMC, Cisco, CSC and IDEO and my draft folder includes posts on AXA, IBM, Microsoft, Sony, UBM and Vanguard.  Notice any similarities?  I’d like to see the conference help push interest and usage out beyond the IT sector, even if this means focusing more on current attempts vs successful case studies (actually, I think I’d prefer this anyway).

However, I don’t think getting this diversity is likely.  We all understand enough about ‘culture 2.0’ to know that people link with (and vote for) people like themselves.

So I somehow can’t see myself presenting in Santa Clara!?

 

Picture credit: JoJan

 

Previous posts:

• HR and Communities (Talking HR 029)
• Enterprise 2.0: Social Media and Community
• Enterprise 2.0: Communities aren’t sites, they’re ...
• Enterprise 2.0: Sharepoint – an all-or-nothing dec...
• Enterprise 2.0 tweet-up
• Enterprise 2.0: IDEO and Innovation
• Enterprise 2.0: CSC and Social Collaboration
• Enterprise 2.0: Cisco and the Human Network @ Work...
• Enterprise 2.0: Culture and the islands of Me and ...
• Enterprise 2.0 conference: EMC’s business case

 

and on Strategic HCM:

• Social Learning at the Enterprise 2.0 conference
• HR 2.0 at the Enterprise 2.0 conference: Human Resources and Workforce Collaboration

 

Technorati Tags: Enterprise 2.0,Boston Consulting Group,Santa Clara,culture,tools,technology,HR,workflow

 

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HCL Technologies - collaborative organisation structures

 

   I met up yesterday with Vineet Nayar, CEO at HCL Technologies who has just written a book, Employee First Customers Second.

Although most of the book deals with this EFCS approach (human capital management, in my language), the book does touch on the importance of social connection too.

For example, Vineet writes about the power of fusion:

“Once we transfer the ownership of our collective problems for the supposedly all-powerful CEO to the employees, people… suddenly see the company as their own enterprise.  They start thinking like entrepreneurs.  Their energy quotient leaps up.  And when that happens with a critical mass of employees (usually, 5 or 10 percent is all you need) throughout the company, it creates a kind of fusion – a coming together of the human particles in the corporate molecule that releases a massive amount of energy.”

He explains that he is also attracted by the idea of a Starfish organisation – one which is decentralised, with every major organ replicated across each arm.

 

Vineet’s book describes some of the activities HCLT have already been undertaking to unleash this fusion:

• A social network called U&I that employees can use to ask questions to Vineet and has since been extended with My Problems – an opportunity for him to share his concerns with HCLT employees.
• An updated 360 degree review system which allowed anyone to give feedback on a manager and to then see the results of that manager’s 360, replacing zones of control with spans of influence
• Communities called Employee First Councils around health and hygiene, art, music, corporate social responsibility and dozens of other issues including business related passions such as a particular technology or a vertical domain area, which allow people to enhance their personas at work, brining the whole person, as well as the person’s families, into the culture of the company.
• My Blueprint, another social networking system allowing managers to share plans for their specific business areas and get feedback from another 8000 HCLT managers, including people above and below them in the hierarchy.

 

I asked Vineet if there were any other actions HCLT is taking or has planned to further develop its peoples’ connectivity:

 

Stars and Spheres

Vineet described three organisation structures.

The first is the traditional pyramid with its apex at the top.  This is the sort of organisation developed armies when the Commander realised he was only 1 soldier in 500 soldiers so began enabling people down there at the bottom of the pyramid. It was also the organisation structure in the HCL Technologies organisation – they forgot that organisations needs commitment to work and created an HR organisation.

The second model is an inverted pyramid which reflects the value of work that’s undertaken. There is value in both of these two pyramids eg there’s still value in hierarchy.  You need a control structure – it’s when this assumes control over things you can't control that you get a problem).   So you put the two pyramids together and end up with a star in which a manager is accountable to their employees and the employees to the organisation.

In the third model (pictured), the organisation starts engaging every employee in the star organisation – in which employees are involved in 8 or 9 activities related to their own interests so you have these concentric circles around employees.

In the future, if we were to have this conversation again in another 5 years, Vineet suspects he will be drawing a sphere in which these communities have assumed more importance than either of the pyramids.

 

Social change

We talked a little about Social Advantage too.  Vineet suggested that my thinking around the value in connections, not the individual alone, but about collaboration of employees creating value, is absolutely right.

But he also suggested a need to turn theoretical idea to practical issue happening now.

For him, this is about the growth of emerging markets and therefore changes in the demographic pool of customers – becoming younger, based in emerging economies, with girls doing better than boys.  Everything is changing.

Peoples’ influence zones are changing – because of things like Facebook.  Advertising no longer influence what, how or where consumers buy.

Communities are now behind buying decisions.  It’s a very important change.  People are only just finding out how to engage communities to come and buy products.  How do you influence people to take things back into communities of value?

50% of the world are now under 25 years old.  This means we need to learn to create value through collaboration, through communities like Facebook.  In the future, this will be the only way that business will be able to grow.

 

 

Also see my post on HCLT’s employees first approach at Strategic HCM.

And you can read Vineet’s blog posts at vineetnayar.com or blogs.hbr.org.  You can follow him on Twitter at @vineetnayar.

 

Technorati Tags: Vineet Nayar,CEO,HCL Technologies,Employees First,Customers Second,book,collaboration,social,networking,spider,starfish,fusion,U&I,360,Employee First Councils,My Blueprint,organisation

 

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Looking back to July 2009

 

   This July, I’ll be continuing to catch up on the rest of my posts from the E 2.0 conference in Boston, and I’m sure there’ll be lots more posts besides.

You may also be interested in these posts from July last year:

• Gaining Social Advantage
• HRZone: HR blogging comes of age
• HR web 2.0 applications / resources
• Implementing Enterprise 2.0
• Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0
• Enterprise 2.0 / the Kumbaya Zone
• Reith Lectures 2009: A New Politics of the Common Good
• Does blogging support or hinder conference attendance?

 

Or even from the year before?

• Witty's Number
• Leadership pulse findings on Relational Capital
• Collaborating for business performance
• HR is the new Facebook
• Organisation structure design is dead!
• Web 2.0 in professional services / legal firms
• Leading into the networked world in professional services / legal firms

 

Picture: Crowds gather on the ghats for the eclipse in Varanasi, India

Technorati Tags: Social business,enterprise 2.0,web 2.0,social media

 

• Consulting  - Research - Speaking  -  Training -  Writing
• Strategy   -  Team development  -  Web 2.0  -  Change
• Contact  me to  create  more  value  for  your  business
• jon [dot] ingham [at] social [dash] advantage [dot] com

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