Too much has been written and talked around about the potential benefits of turning organization into socially networked enterprise- wherein employees and customers exchange ideas, views and information about common areas of interest- almost dynamically, collectively and in an open format supported by appropriate set of technologies. At the same-time, not all organizations have actually gained through these transformation initiatives despite investments in technology and leadership support. Here are few decisions that have to be made right, to evolve organization into socially networked enterprise- that delivers Value:
1- What are the top two most compelling features of social network enterprise that will provide immense value to business and employees- be it expertise location, customer problem solving, new product idea generation, operational best practices identification and assimilation. Agreed all of these usages will have some value to business, but prioritizing those areas where enhanced collaboration will deliver maximum business benefit makes designing, targeting, incubating and tracking adoption more effective. Besides organizational pay-off, there must be equally compelling response to “what’s in it for me?” for employees to participate.
2- Is primary purpose of social networking initiative to facilitate or to substitute the normal delivery route to goal accomplishment? It could be both or either depending upon nature of goal and delivery requirements. Expertise location or Idea generation aspects provide facilitative support, while crowd sourcing, task contracting- such as documentation, reviewing, analysis can actually enable work to be delivered through communities instead of dedicated teams. Linking communities’ outcome to mainstream work processes and formal decision making avoid potential conflicts and encourage participation.
3- Who is the right leader for the initiative?: Asking enterprise or business unit head to lead this initiative may not the right choice, as his/her presence may stifle openness or promote projectionist behaviors, besides potential time and attention challenges on his/her behalf. Choose someone that is foremost passionate about enterprise objectives and is recognized as credible boundary spanner among colleagues and not necessarily social media tools and technology expert. Those who are very active at individual level on blogging, surfing, or community activities for self pay-offs, may not be necessarily be effective in driving social business for the enterprise. Besides leader, make sure there are other suitable stakeholders engaged as part of governance and nurturing committee.
4- What is the right unit level to start with? Most value unlocking/creation comes from cross silo dialogue and marrying of conflicting perspectives tied to common objective. Hence, the initial coverage should span multiple boundaries to ensure significant diversity and inclusion of employee sets those do not otherwise mingle so often. Also it pays to limit number of communities, otherwise too many gated communities may sprout up reflecting existing organizational silos, defeating the very purpose of enhanced enterprise-vide collaboration. Further multi-community memberships may spread employees’ contribution too thin to create meaningful impact.
5- What technological choices to provide for? To begin with, simplicity should rule over extensive choice of technologically available features. Calibrated introduction of other features periodically generates excitement and also help in easy adoption. Search facility made available in the beginning especially when there is not much content looks odd! Integration with the existing software applications helps in migration, but may be achieved in phased manner.
6- How elaborate should be the usage guidelines? Not as big as operational manual but a bit more than statement of good intentions. It pays to link to existing behavioral guidelines in the enterprise. More than acceptable norms, its important to provide examples of some behaviors that are clearly not acceptable- say writing about client business or behavior.
7- How do we measure success? Tracking activity levels are easy and do give some indication of adoption levels, especially when details such as average response to discussion threads, ratio between writers, contributors and visitors etc are considered. Individual level gains from community participation come as good stories supporting the benefits case. User’satisfaction score does give pointers towards effectiveness of design and ease of usage. However, numbers of proposals/ideas generated by the community that get accepted (and eventually adopted) by Management for enterprise adoption provide real measure of business value add.
8- How to reward contributions? Shall we reward winners in the form of social recognition or money? No straight answer. Depends on the contribution and the person involved! Customer contribution that leads to direct business benefit needs to be surely paid in tangible form, while employee’s contributions of ideas or information in response to of discussion threads surely does not warrant payments, but recognition among the peer group and enhanced visibility to Management. Including community contributions into performance evaluation decisions may make sense to promote collaboration in general, then specific adoption of social media. For if collaboration is a general norm, social media platform will be lapped up anyway.
If strategy is all about making right choices, there are some key choices that need to be made right on path to becoming social business enterprise that delivers Value.
Although business context, organization culture and employees profiles will dictate most of the choices, there seems to be growing evidence of some choices being more effective than others. It pays to take cognizance of “what seems to be working more often”.
But note that Social business strategy helps design the instruments to enable collaboration, but can not by itself address intent level challenges that may be characteristics of prevailing culture.
Reflect, as always!
1- What are the top two most compelling features of social network enterprise that will provide immense value to business and employees- be it expertise location, customer problem solving, new product idea generation, operational best practices identification and assimilation. Agreed all of these usages will have some value to business, but prioritizing those areas where enhanced collaboration will deliver maximum business benefit makes designing, targeting, incubating and tracking adoption more effective. Besides organizational pay-off, there must be equally compelling response to “what’s in it for me?” for employees to participate.
2- Is primary purpose of social networking initiative to facilitate or to substitute the normal delivery route to goal accomplishment? It could be both or either depending upon nature of goal and delivery requirements. Expertise location or Idea generation aspects provide facilitative support, while crowd sourcing, task contracting- such as documentation, reviewing, analysis can actually enable work to be delivered through communities instead of dedicated teams. Linking communities’ outcome to mainstream work processes and formal decision making avoid potential conflicts and encourage participation.
3- Who is the right leader for the initiative?: Asking enterprise or business unit head to lead this initiative may not the right choice, as his/her presence may stifle openness or promote projectionist behaviors, besides potential time and attention challenges on his/her behalf. Choose someone that is foremost passionate about enterprise objectives and is recognized as credible boundary spanner among colleagues and not necessarily social media tools and technology expert. Those who are very active at individual level on blogging, surfing, or community activities for self pay-offs, may not be necessarily be effective in driving social business for the enterprise. Besides leader, make sure there are other suitable stakeholders engaged as part of governance and nurturing committee.
4- What is the right unit level to start with? Most value unlocking/creation comes from cross silo dialogue and marrying of conflicting perspectives tied to common objective. Hence, the initial coverage should span multiple boundaries to ensure significant diversity and inclusion of employee sets those do not otherwise mingle so often. Also it pays to limit number of communities, otherwise too many gated communities may sprout up reflecting existing organizational silos, defeating the very purpose of enhanced enterprise-vide collaboration. Further multi-community memberships may spread employees’ contribution too thin to create meaningful impact.
5- What technological choices to provide for? To begin with, simplicity should rule over extensive choice of technologically available features. Calibrated introduction of other features periodically generates excitement and also help in easy adoption. Search facility made available in the beginning especially when there is not much content looks odd! Integration with the existing software applications helps in migration, but may be achieved in phased manner.
6- How elaborate should be the usage guidelines? Not as big as operational manual but a bit more than statement of good intentions. It pays to link to existing behavioral guidelines in the enterprise. More than acceptable norms, its important to provide examples of some behaviors that are clearly not acceptable- say writing about client business or behavior.
7- How do we measure success? Tracking activity levels are easy and do give some indication of adoption levels, especially when details such as average response to discussion threads, ratio between writers, contributors and visitors etc are considered. Individual level gains from community participation come as good stories supporting the benefits case. User’satisfaction score does give pointers towards effectiveness of design and ease of usage. However, numbers of proposals/ideas generated by the community that get accepted (and eventually adopted) by Management for enterprise adoption provide real measure of business value add.
8- How to reward contributions? Shall we reward winners in the form of social recognition or money? No straight answer. Depends on the contribution and the person involved! Customer contribution that leads to direct business benefit needs to be surely paid in tangible form, while employee’s contributions of ideas or information in response to of discussion threads surely does not warrant payments, but recognition among the peer group and enhanced visibility to Management. Including community contributions into performance evaluation decisions may make sense to promote collaboration in general, then specific adoption of social media. For if collaboration is a general norm, social media platform will be lapped up anyway.
If strategy is all about making right choices, there are some key choices that need to be made right on path to becoming social business enterprise that delivers Value.
Although business context, organization culture and employees profiles will dictate most of the choices, there seems to be growing evidence of some choices being more effective than others. It pays to take cognizance of “what seems to be working more often”.
But note that Social business strategy helps design the instruments to enable collaboration, but can not by itself address intent level challenges that may be characteristics of prevailing culture.
Reflect, as always!
Posts
Tushar, very interesting key decisions you have suggested. Social business may require fundamental changes in the culture, behaviors, outlook etc. So, my personal belief is that it will succeed only with structured approach and interventions for managing and adopting this fundamental shift.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Sanjay
Hi Tushar
ReplyDeleteThis is a great write-up! It’s useful to see a break-down of the various important elements for creating a fully-engaged social network organization. Interesting insights!
Kirti
Dear Tushar,
ReplyDeleteA thought provoking article on organisations planning to use social platforms for conducting business. Be it creating virtual offices or virtual employees to engaging with customers and integrating them to the vast network of expertise available within the organisations or just be it to engage customers for PR, Service or Product sales. All this will demand a dedicated approach and strategy coupled with Engage:Learn:Re-engage kind of model for ensuring success. I am happy to share and be part of your work on social business
Regards, Manoj Tiwari
Social Business Practitioner
manoj1971@gmail.com