Enterprise 2.0 transformation can expose some fascinating insights into the psychology of the organization. And it illuminates those leaders who are reluctant to value input from their employees. In the world of e20, where the “crowd” engages in more decision making than ever before, there’s no room for leaders who cannot listen with care. Most importantly, the presence of any leaders on new communications channels can freeze efforts to get employees engaged. It’s really important to keep an eye out for this phenomenon.
Recently I was talking with a colleague about our early efforts with the Procurement Leadership Blog. We were desperately trying to get leaders to post, and trying to get everyone to participate by commenting and discussing. I was trying to figure out why activity on our initial blog post had started off strong, and then totally dried up.
Well, my colleague, a seasoned leader in Procurement who knows and understands the politics and the leadership, gave me insight into what had happened. Here’s the story:
I had persuaded the leaders of a strategic planning initiative to use our new collaboration tools to engage the entire community by soliciting input on important challenges for the future of Procurement at J&J. A very senior leader took the first step and posted to the blog, asking the community for input.
We then pounded the pavement to get participation. I was really excited to see some folks actually respond. Remember this was very significant in a community which is really very conservative and extremely reluctant to participate online in any way.
The first two comments that came in suggested the same area of concern and challenge for Procurement. The next comment was the senior leader who had posted in the first place. What he said, basically, was “thanks, but you need to think of something else.”
And not a single person added a comment after that.
Everyone froze. Nobody wanted to risk posting their thoughts, lest the same thing happen to them.
So from this I gleaned a few interesting things:
First: In the very early stages of e20, it is critical to monitor exactly what’s being said. It’s not enough to note activity alone. I had actually not really paid close enough attention to the comments to notice this at the time. I saw comments, and thought “Great!” And then I wondered why nothing more.
Had I looked closer, I would have approached the leader right away to do a bit of mitigation. It may have been too late - but it would have been important to note the issue. I would also have asked a more senior leader to step in with encouragement - so that employees might feel “safe” again and re-commence participating in this important discussion.
Second: I realized it is important to advise leaders on best practices as we start to open up these processes. Tips could include:
1. Accept all input without public judgment: When you ask your community to engage, you need to be prepared to accept all answers. In the WWW, the numbers alone allow for the garbage to sink and the good stuff to float. In e20, this doesn’t happen as efficiently. What’s important is that people are engaged and talking. Any hint that leaders don’t like what they hear will freeze everyone in their tracks, and you’ll never make progress.
2. “Praise the good, ignore the bad” - what works for my 5 year old applies here. Leaders who are eager to get everybody blogging, chatting and participating need to praise, praise, praise, any and all activity - and just ignore the stuff that is not useful (barring anything inappropriate, of course). In these early stages, it’s really about supporting the activity and giving employees the courage to find their voice. The more people who participate, the more chance you have of getting some GREAT insights from really smart folks.
3. Remember the demise of the org chart: As a leader, embracing e20 may mean that you need to step entirely out of the picture, so that conversations are unrestrained by organizational hierarchies.
In retrospect, our approach may not have been the best, since it presented a leader talking and the common folks responding - a very hierarchical approach to what we really wanted to build as groundswell activity. But given the natural constraints of the organization - I don’t think anyone would have even paid any attention if a senior leader did not kick off the discussion. More organic conversations will come to us later on when people have gained their confidence.
We continue to gain what to me are really valuable insights into the realities of implementing these tools - which go far beyond just the the application of the technology.
But the bottom line is that our e20 efforts exposed the kind of leader who is not good at listening. It reminded me of one of my former managers, who had in his office a garbage can that said “Thank you for your ideas.”
Weeding out leaders who think they have all the answers is probably the best outcome of any successful enterprise 2.0 initiative.
