First easy answer : “it depends”. Of course, between those who overshare and those who withdraw into themselves there is a wide range of behaviors due to a tangle of complex factors.

Then : “it’s (as usual) a matter of culture”. Everybody nows agree that in some countries people want a clear separation between their professional and private life and what to belongs to one has not to be known in the other.

Then again : “what makes us say that people share information on the web after all ?”. They share statuses, emotions. They answer their contact, give them some help. Does it mean being “social”, obliging and is it enough to make us deduce that people want to be connected and bring something to their fellow contacts ? No.

If we look at what’s happening on the web, the act of sharing information is rather about “I am” than “I give”. “I am at such place (and you aren’t)”, “I want to talk about my experience”, “I have something to say (most of all I want to be heard”. At the end, sharing looks much more like self-promotion that a will to help and share that seem to be only means to a personal strategy. It’s a little bit like people (some politicians for instance) that are very active on the field for 10 minutes and stop at the minute the TV cameras leave. Should we regret it ? In my opion no, if egos contribute to a common good then Adam Smith was right. But we have to admit this is rather show-off than deliberate sharing.

Quoting a good friend I’d say : that’s ego-altruism.

What does it mean in the workplace ?

Businesses may be quite happy with such behaviors. Only the result matter, not the driver, and if we find normal to incent people with money, a “soft” reward like ego satisfaction can’t be less acceptable. That’s the point where the Invisible hand stops to do its job. The concept of deliberate information sharin in the workplace can be seen from two standpoints :

- I give to help. It’s a typical ego-altruism case and it should work. But a problem comes : giving takes time and I don’t own my time in the workplace as I do in my private life. Someone is paying me to do a defined job and may consider that helping another employee, most of all if we’re not members of the same team, is wasted time. Most of all, drawing attention on oneself, even for good reasons, may be something on can be disapproved of. Rather stay discreet.

- I share to get help. While most of our work is to find answers and solve problems, such an attitude is essentiel. Moreover, it stimulates the production of ego-altruist anwers. But in the workplace and in many cultures that don’t tolerate failure, it means I admit I don’t know how to do something or that I don’t have enough knowledge to do something. Better fail or find a makeshit solution rather than makes things well by sharing a problem.

Let’s also consider the employee personal logics I mentioned here and seem to be everyday more confirmed. People first try to to things alone, if they can’t they expose themselves a little bit and ask their team members, if that’s not enough they ask to their strong ties, then week ties and then only they ask to anybody, to an open community for instance. Consequently nobody exchange, share or collaborate when they think either they can be successful alone or that sharing may be risky.

So, are employees so “social” ? At least, they’re less social internauts. The truth is that employees are internauts that are in a rationalized environment in which they are not the only judges of their own acts but are also judged by their peers and their superior.

That leads to the next question : what is needed to make employees behave like internauts ? Have an approach that is as rational as their engagement.

Anyway, building a strategy on the assuption that sharing and being a part of collective dynamics are parts of employees’ deep nature may lead to some disappointment. Sense and reason are more reliable pillars than good feelings.

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Big agitation in the small enterprise 2.0 word : since some people at the last Enterprise 2.0 conference suggested that business processes had to be taken into account this topic has become very trendy. Salutary brainwave for those who see there the evidence that enterprise 2.0 is not a funny gadget disconnected from reality and unable to deliver any measurable benefit, crime of lese-majesty for those who see a horde of hungry wolves entering a house full of little red riding hoods.

Cela fait plus d’un an que je milite en faveur de cette approche (ou en tout cas de ne pas refuser de l’aborder et être dans le deni permanent) et je ne vais donc pas me priver de commenter la chose.

What are we talking about ? (Or the story of a big misunderstanding)

The word process is so scaring for some that they run away as soon as they hear it without even listening to the rest of the sentence. It’s not about turning informal and unstructured dynamics into carve-ups but making sure all the energy goes in the right direction. As I said earlier, serendipity is a very limited model for value creation and I find legitimate that businesses want channel what looks like chaos to them. As Rex Lee brillantly wrote recently :

Enterprise 1.0, would suggest that only specialized, trained individuals with the resources knew how to find pearls (i.e. where to dive, specialized equipment, knowledge on how to abstract the pearl from the shelled mollusk, etc.)

.
Enterprise 2.0 suggests that we can simplify and remove some of the “specialization” barriers to enable more people to search for pearls.
Enterprise 2.1 would suggest that rather than “serendipitously” finding pearls, that we coordinate our efforts to actually create pearl farms.

The purpose of any business is to create value and to do so it tries to optimize its production. Nothing shoking here. So sets of tasks are defined in order to make things more predictable, manageable and cost efficient. It often ends with a very rigid result and that often is the main point of friction.

In a manufacturing world, where production flows are tangible and can be normalized, rigidity is well adapated, exceptions to the rule being very rare. In a world where people work on knowledge, continuously solve problems, exceptions are the new normality and rigidity only works in a few cases.

As Sigurd Rinde wrote in 2008 : there are processes that are easily repeatable and some others that are barely repeatable. For the first we already have tools and some best practices, the other still being a world under construction.

1. The Easily Repeatable Process (ERP for me)

Processes that handles resources, from human (hiring, firing, payroll and more) to parts and products through supply chains, distribution and production. The IT systems go under catchy names like ERP, SCM, PLM, SRM, CRM and the biggest players are as we know SAP and Oracle plus a long roster of smaller firms.

2. The Barely Repeatable Process (BRP)

Typically exceptions to the ERPs, anything that involves people in non-rigid flows through education, health, support, government, consulting or the daily unplanned issues that happens in every organisation. The activities that employees spend most of their time on every day. Processes that often starts with an e-mail or a call. A process volume, measured by time and resource spent at organisations, probably larger than for the Easily Repeatable Processes.

The misunderstanding with processes is to believe they are rigid and restricting by nature. That’s what has been done to them but, now, a gradation has the be implemented in rigidity and constraint. If we defined processes are a sequence of tasks with variable flexibility depending on their object aiming at turning raw material (even intangible) into a product or service, maybe the concept would become more reputable. To keep up with Sig’s analogy, enterprise 2.0 may help with ERPs (at least in an ongoing improvement process) and is the best way to run BRPs, which will become more and more essential in the workplace.

That’s what John Tropea mentions here with the concept of “adaptative case management”‘, as well as David Mastronardi when he writes that processes has to be designed for chaos.

In one sentence and to be done with this misunderstanding, when we talk about processes and enterprise 2.0, it’s not necesarily about processes as they are but as they should be.

When Taylor is shown as the embodiment of Evil, of standardization and deshumanization there is a common mistake : the focus is put on the result and not on the method. If Taylor was living today, his method would lead to other results just because context has changed. And when it’s said that processes are the legacy of an old world while we have to build a new one, I have to disagree. Saying that means looking at things with old eyes and an old mindset : being modern means understanding that process has to apply to a wider range of situations and operating models. Don’t dream : even with a lot of flexibility, there will always be a need to define how things are done and provide a least a little structure and direction to people’s activities.

Why should we deal with this issue ?

There are many reasons to that. Some are more respectable than others, some more rational, some more politically correct, some have to used very carefully but at the end it does not matter. Since we won’t be able to afford overlooking the issue, anuone should find the reason he’s comfortable with…and go. Only the destination matters, not the reason why people get into the train?

- that’s the only way to articulate a tangible value proposal in terms of efficiency, productivity etc… since businesses currently mainly rely on processes. That does not mean they won’t have to be refined, fixed, changed, made lighter. But it’s impossible to change something you don’t want to deal with.

- that’s something known and reassuring. But be careful not to lie or overpromise : it’s not about turning enterprise 2.0 into processes but improving processes with 2.0 approaches,  bringing0 some flexibility and “human power” where rigidityand constraints were the only know solutions.

- it’s the only thing that’s measured (sometimes well, sometimes wrong). Waiting for a global reflection on “measuring what and how in 2010″ to come, rather start from the existing.

- It’s the smallest common denominator to all employees or businesses, the only thing that makes sense, drives people activities (even if they don’t like it) regardless to corporate or national culture issues.

- even if eveything is about people, culture, management, these three dimensions are currently thought to fit a world of processes. It’s impossible to reivent management, to change the corporate culture without, at the same time, tackle what they have to support to be able to update the whole paradigm.

- one of the lesson learned from the Enterprise 2.0 conference 2009 (one year ago !) was that enterprise 2.0 has to learn to speak the corporate language. Businesses speak process, so let’s speak process even if it’s to make them open their eyes and inculcate them into a new vision.

Enterprise 2.0 refusing to tackle the process issue is like the captain of the Titanic saying “Sorry, I don’t want to see this iceberg”.

One more thing to avoid any misunderstanding : enterprise 2.0 is much more than process enrichment as well as it’s much more than random community dynamics driven by a kind of invisible hand, but after having spent a long time on the “above the flow” layer and got the demonstration that is was not an easy to start, it’s logical than businesses start to work on the lower ‘in the flow” layer to create synergies between both and help enterprise 2.0 to deliver its full potential…and not only through “process socialization”.

Another point of view would be to admit enterprise 2.0 aims at improving the way work is done without caring about how things are done today. Keeping our eyes away from actual and current managers and decision makers’ concerns ? Let’s be serious…

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Illustration from “The Golden Rules for Success“.

Thanks to Thierry d’Auzers for this excellent book, the rights of use and Dimitri Tolstoï for the pictures.

Offer yourself The Golden rules for Success.

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He was telling me he heard something very challenging at a panel. Here’s what it was about :

“Are we sure that Yers are connected and networkers to this extent (and it also applies to the following generations) become they grew up in a digital world when internet was a common thing that determined thir behaviors ? Or is it a pernicious effect of a society that is risk averse ? When we were 8, 10, 15, we were able to meet our friends outside, go out for an afternoon or after the school without hearing anything from our parents except “be careful and don’t be late for diner”. Today, with all these kidnapping or paedophilia things, the young are confined at home par parents that are more anxious than ours were and see in Facebook, MSN etc.. the only means to escape from this lock up. They are not connected or networkers by nature but because it’s the only answer they find to face their lack of freedom of move and a world that is overcontrolled by their parents. So it’s the consequence of the reaction to an unfortunate external constraint due to safety reasons”.

Mark told me “I don’t know if this guy is right or wrong but it must make us wonder about some of our assumptions. When I look around me and compare with when I was young, it seems that he’s right”.

And the conversation went on…

- we are both interested in these media and use them a lot so it’s an evidence it’s possible to come to it in a “natural” way, regardless of any generation factor.

- if we have had internet, Facebook, MSN… when we were young and, at the same time, the opportunity to join our friends outside, what would have our choice been ? Obviously, we were quite sure than we would have prefered one hour “outside” with friends rather than one our in front of our computer.

So, even if now that we are 30 and something we use social networks a lot, even if we were interested a lot in computers when we were young, its not sure that we would have used the net as a socializing space if we had the opportunity to do so.

So let’s try to push the reasonning a little bit further. Many “over connected” people seldom have the same behaviros at work, that personal usages seldom bring professional ones and that people even don’t want it to happen.

One explaination could be that as social networking is seen as a way out to lack of freedom embodies by parental authority, it may be logical that it can’t happen under another kind of authority, the corporate one. In short, social networking would be a discharging practice that has to take place out of any kind of regulation or authority, should it be parental or coporate.

At the end it’s another side of the cultural side of social networking. Corporate culture, of course, but local culture too. Generally speaking, it makes us question the relationship between people and the enterprise in a given local and social context. Is the workplace a place for self development or a place for constraints and slavery ? Depending on the answer, could we deduct people appetition for enterprise social networking ?

Phew…. And you ? What do you think about it ?

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There are many ways to deal with the articulation of enterprise 2.0 dynamics with business processes. Here’s the presentation I made at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum in Milan in June.

And here are some explainations…At the beginning it was an HR topic : how to get the most out of any organization’s human capital.

1°) Originally seen as a cost (people that are paid to produce), human capital is more and more seen as a strategic asset, a resource that can give much more than its workforce, and even more that what’s expected from it in a defined and rigid work process.

2°) The nature of work has changed. Before, knowledge and intelligence were used to design processes that could be executed by anyone without any special competency. Today, intelligence and knowledge are used by those who execute processes because proceeding from one step to another requires them to solve problems.

3°) Knowlegde is embodied (someone owns it and stores it between his two ears), can’t be stocked, is contextualized and is delivered through conversations because people needs stimulis to remind and tell what they know.

4°) So providing people with the right tool to connect, share and have conversations would be enough to solve all problems ? Unfortunately it does not work.

5°) First because organizations are not comfortable with the “gambling” side of enterprise 2.0, the vague promise that things will happen without being able to tell what, when and how.

6°) Second because there are many barriers that prevent peopel from adopting these logics : some cultures are more skeptic than positive, privacy is a key issue and people can’t link social dynamics to business issues intuitively.

7°) One possible solution : start from the smallest common denominator shared by any person even if skeptic, even if he doesn’t want to hear about unstructured work. This denominator is day to day processes and worklows that have to be enriched by a social routine built around structured work, what reassures and makes sense.

8°) One only goal : speed up process delivery by solving real problems employees actually face.

9°) One thing to keep in mind : the cost of human capital is impressive for organizations. Without such an approach that helps to go beyond limits that are inherent in the very nature of current processes and make the investment in HC (hiring, trainging, salaries…) profitable, they will get very few from what they are spending because employees won’t be enabled to deliver their full potential.

Of course it’s only one of the many possible entry points but it applies to lots of situations and often makes sense for organizations of any kind, whatever the context is.

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Illustration from “The Golden Rules for Success“.

Thanks to Thierry d’Auzers for this excellent book, the rights of use and Dimitri Tolstoï for the pictures.

Offer the Golden Rules for Success as a business gift.

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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It means that beyond the myth of multitasking, employees focus on two things and that all their attention goes there. It’s not a matter of lack of goodwill but they can’t do more if they want to do things well and keep their concentration. So any other issue is seen as peripheral, and dealing with it will force employees either to make it superficially or to stop doing something important, come back to it later and make up the delay later. Nothing pleasant at all.

Every day, people have one hand in their email client and the other in their structured activities (call it process, workflow…) and the tools that help them to manage and deal with these activities. The first is their principal means of communication, the only that even if it’s not properly used, keep them in touch with everyone. The second is the reason why they have been hired, what they are evaluated on, what they have to do (and do it well) before thinking of doing anything else.

That can help us to draw some conclusions in terms of change management. Since, in order to grab a hand we have to know where it is, it’s impossible to do anything without taking into account the email and its place in employees workaday life or the relationship between the new things and the structured activities. Any other angle won’t impact employees and will fail. Then, we’ll have to explain how to put their hands elsewhere won’t prevent them from doing what they used to do before, what is essential to their job.

Any other approach would be like telling a driver “take you hands off the wheel” without telling him that, on top of being enabled to do much more things, he’ll be provided by something that will at least help him to drive better than with a steering wheel.

It also has consequences on technology for both companies that try to implement social software and vendors who provide solutions to these companies. There is an incredible number on players on this market despite it has reached a consolidation phase and each of them is pushing a different approach, focusing on a specific kind of social activity to seduce buyers. The truth is there are only two valid approaches and not one more. The rest is only marketing blah-blah and even if the verbiage may sound seducing, it never survives to the confrontation with real business.

No solution can be sustainably adopted on a large scale in any organization if it doesn’t meet at least one of the following requirements (both is better) :

- high integration in email clients. It can come in different ways, from the most simple one (alerts / notifications) to the most accomplished (widget in the client, shared data and services)

- integration with tools that are used for structured activities (CRM, ERP, BPM…even ECM). Interactions and conversations often come from the need to solve a business problem…guess where these problems emerge and are identified ?

Many lines can be taken in front of employees, many tools can be proposed. The truth is much simple : who does not tackle one of these points of entry is saying things that make no sense for employees, adds problems without bringing any solution.

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Jack and John are community managers (or, at least, in charge on figuring things out on social media on behalf of their employer). Both are working for an airline (what was a trendy and volcanic topic at the time I thought about the case). Jack is working at AirShy and Paul at AirSocial.

AirShy knows things have to be done one on Twitter, Facebook and all these new medias but is not comfortable with that. The company is used to keeping everything under control, to avoid any kind of risk. On the other hand, people at AirSocial think that if they don’t dive into the pool they have no chance to learn how to swim.

So AirShy decided to occupy the field in the only purpose to have a presence. They asked to someone who likes these new media to deal with this work : Jack. he reports to the communication department but could have reported to any department that would have taken the leadership on this subject.

At AirSocial, people wondered what these medias could be used for. Half of the answer was in que question : things are worth when they allow to serve the customer in a better way. So how could they serve their customers better with new medias ? Deliver information to eveyone, but also to people with individual concerns. That means the company should engage in conversations…about what, with what tone, to what extent ? And what should not be tackled ? Confidential issues of course ! But also what people don’t want to read in such channels. The communication department is in charge but they quickly realized that they had in their hands a pipe that can be used by anyone in the company. Even if it’s still quite vague they decided to start and learn from their own experience. John is told to deal with these media, on the operational side.

At first sight, Jack has less constraints than John. There’s no doubt he’ll achieve better results. Not that sure…

John know what he’s expected to do, the purpose of his job, the goal of his activities, and what he’s supposed to do. He tracks what is said about AirSocial, brings answers, try to be friendly, helpful. He does not go beyond the frontiers he was assigned but, at least, knows to what extent he can go and does not refrain from doing so. Jack is in a less comfortable situation. The range of possible things is wider for him but since he was not given any explicit limit, he’s affraid of crossing an implicit one by mistake. He knows the company will have to assume any of his words, that he contributes to its image and reputation and, since he has neither objectives nor guidelines, he prefers refraining from doing rather than doing wrong.

While John is engaging in conversations, Jack contents himself with occupying the field without taking any risk. Anyway, that’s what he’s asked to do. The one is giving advices, answers, pay a special attention to those who talk about the company, the other is only pushing elements from the newsletter, special offers that are mentioned on the corporate website…the whole in 140 characters. He never answers to questions or engage in a conversation because he doesn’t have all the information needed to answer…he’s not even sure that’s a part of this job.

With time, AirSocial realizes that John needs support. He’s now allowed to “bother” people to get the information he needs to answer customoers online. Now, being on social media is a ful time job. As for him, Jack keeps on “being there” without engaging so much. Anyway, he has no time for that, he’s got a “real” job in the company and does not want to put his carreer at risk for a side occupation that does not look strategic.

Meanwhile, AirSocial is getting a clearer idea of what they want to achieve. They understand that, more than a communication tool, a service tool, twitter is also a sourcing tool for product/service innocation. So, people in charge of customer service, innovation…are taught how to use John inside their own process. John is becoming “one more channel” that can be used to improve their efficiency and they think about how to work better together, build synergies. Objectives and operating models are being refined, it makes more sense in this work and provides him with reassuring guidelines (he know what to do, how to do it, what not to do….and why). The company is also reassured : they know John won’t do anything wrong. He collaborates with marketing, innovation, customer service departments… he has objectives, indicators, and demonstrates every day his contribution to the organization performance..

At AirShy, Jack is still doing his social media stuff. Nothing special, nothing sparkling but no mistake. He’s so “neutral” that the company does not bothers him and the “social things” project is doing quietly but doesn’t go to an upper scale. He’s not bringing any added value but does not make any mistake so why questionning something that prevents from calling the past into question..

AirSocial fears something : some activity peaks are expected because of upcomming hollidays and the quality of their work on social media is becoming famous on the web so they fear John would be snowed under with work. They decide to train people to help John in case of need. Anyway, in a world where it’s impossible to prevent people from talking about the company online and where employees will have to face it, whether it’s their job or not, better being sure that most of them know how to behave and how to use these tools. It also implies to sensibilize the management line in order they can harness these new opportunities.

Then one day, a volcano erupts in the middle of the Atlantic.

At AirShy it’s “business as usual”. Social media tools being not integrated into any process, nobody thinks about using them to manage the crisis. Anyway, it’s too late : such a system has to be thought beforhand and, in such situations, no one can afford improvisation. So it’s better not  to change anything even if some would like to take the most of this opportunity to change things. To some extent, facing such a situation, most people don’t think these gadgets can be of any help because of the lack of awareness, sensibilization, business/process approach.

No surprise at AirSocial : eveything has been thought and designed beforehand, people know how to use these tools to communicate, deal with individal cases and relieve the call center. The task force is ready, processes are known, they only have to do the job. Seen from the outside, people think they are unaware of the danger of using these unstructured channels and operating modes to manage such a critical situation. Seen from the inside, everything is clear and structured. No improvisation, only responsiveness.

The crisis is lasting more than expected. AirSocial is refining its proces, listening to customers, and improves its service. Time seems very long at Airshy and the company is beginning to be pointed at because of its lack of responsiveness compared to its competitors.The poor Jack is being shout at by customerds asking for things he can’t do, questions he can’t answers, only because no enablement process has been set up to support him. And one day things change because of two things :

- the bandwith of the customer care activities has to be improved

- AirShy’s reputation is suffering from not being active on social media while the service delivered through traditional channels is at least as good as its competitor’s.

So AirShy began to do things the AirSocial way. Internauts welcome the initiative and “fans” are proud to see their prefered airline adopting these new practices. It was a risky decision because it was not a part of a crisis plan but anyway, by luck and because of Jack’s skills, everything went well.

Then, one day, the eruption stopped and things went back to normal.

AirSocial is congratulated by its customers but also by all the industry. They proved their strategy was right and even got some new ideas to improve it in the fure. Things are different at AirShyp : after a wheezy start, they also got the industry recognition for the improvement they made. But what was normal for the one was an exception for the other. So, instead of learning from the experience, AirShy dismantled the whole system and Jack is, sadly, going back to his push-marketing practices. Many people, inside and outside of the company are disappointed because the company was so close to the tipping point. Maybe next time ? Jack has many ideas now, he know what a social media strategy should look like, he know what his job should look like…provided someone decides, one day, to stop considering social media as a communication gadget but as channel that can improve operations.

Let’s end this story with a few works about Peter and Patrick. Peter is AirShy’s marketing director, always looking for new talents. Patrick is the head of recruitment who is supposed to provide him with. These “new talents” watched the whole story on the web, read of the papers that were writen by experts. Guess to which company they’ll send their CVs now ? Employer brand is not only about marketing, it’s also about demonstrating everyday that a company is leading its industry in terms of excellence and innovative practices. Peter and Patrick are painfully learning that…but that’s another story.

Communication, communication-de-crise, community management, compagnies aériennes, crise, gestion de crise, processus, réseaux-sociaux, relation client, support

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