A while back I was at a party and found myself in a conversation that turned into the area of leadership and the lack of follow-through on decisions and decision making. It actually started out as a discussion on social media and the availability of information, and my friend felt that part of the problem was that there’s simply too much information. Though I see his point, I’m not sure I agree, but that may of course be because of my interest in social media.

My friend described a scenario where the same issues that were debated four years ago was still being debated today, with the same arguments. In other words, not much of a discussion because of the new information or development and progress, just simply the same old situation.

This got me thinking about the lack of following through on decision making, but I found myself thinking also that the root of the situation has more to do with indecision that decision making. If you make a decision, at least you have the opportunity to measure the result, and if it’s not what you want, set a different course after your evaluation. With indecision, no one’s made responsible for a further course of action… and so nothing happens.

The Blame Game

The conversation I just mentioned came back to me a few days ago when I saw a couple of clips from the climate meeting in Copenhagen, especially with regards to decision making, or the lack of it depending on how you view the agreement they finally reached.

The first clip was of John Kerry talking about how China will be the biggest contributor to the climate problem in the years to come, and therefore should make major changes to their policies. The second clip was of Hugo Chavez telling all rich countries in general that if the climate crisis was a bank, it would be saved right away (I believe he also mentioned how he got this from one of the signs from the activists).

Now, both of them are probably correct, so I’m not going to pick sides here. China is going to be a major contributor to the problem, and I can’t believe anything else than that rich countries in the world could do (and should do) more to amend what is happening to the climate. However, is this really the right time to play the Blame Game? Put differently:

What’s going to happen if we are more focused on pointing fingers, than actually doing something about what’s happening?

Make A Decision, Take Action

There are lot of voices on both sides of the climate issue, but it seems to me that we’re at a point where something needs be done. In light of this it’s quite interesting, and I guess sad, that even world leaders from across the globe fall into the same patterns as the leaders at my friend’s workplace. What do you do when no one wants to take responsibility themselves. Are we looking at a “climate cold war”? I think it’s a strong image of just how little we trust each other.

Of course, these were just a few news clips, so the accuracy may not be that spot on, but I still think it’s telling that everyone was trying to push their wishes on everybody else, rather than do something about the situation themselves. This was one of those times in history where it was time to lead by example. Imagine what could have been if this had been the case.

Avoid The Crysis, Or The Need For Immediacy

In the game Crysis the US and North Korea find themselves fighting together against an alien enemy. They are thrown into a situation that requires other conflicts to take a backseat. A common threat puts a higher value on what we have, and what we stand to lose unless we take action NOW!

Typical in fantasy and science fiction literature, movies and games are the encounter of races with a lifespan far longer than that of human beings. This length of life beyond what humans are used to give these races a different perspective on what we do to each other and the way we live. I wonder of this is the case with the climate challenge. As fast as it is moving, it’s still too slow for the world to actually join forces and take action. We’re still waiting for everyone else to make a decision.

Why is it everyone else’s responsibility to take action?

Or, how about: how could we make that responsibility our own, take action, lead by example, and share our progress and innovative thinking with everyone else in order to create a better environment?

Share your thoughts.

And on that note, to all of you stumbling onto my blog, I wish you Merry X-mas

I’ve been doing some writing on the self-help area lately (post on the subject coming up), and one of the topics typically covered are time management. It’s a popular topic no doubt, and there’s probably a reason why people say things like “there’s only 24 hours in a day“, “wish I had more time” or “I don’t have the time” and so on. To a certain extent I understand this very well. I’m a project manager, and at the moment I’m working on building a new course from more or less the ground up, and believe me, If I could have a few weeks extra before launch, I wouldn’t say no.

The Time Mangement Process

Whatever you choose to call your approach to time management, it usually covers a few standard points:

• Categorize where you spend your time
• Define areas in a matrix, continuum or similar ranging from “highly urgent and important” to “not important at all”
• Prioritizing your areas and actions that need to be done
• Create a to do list
• Do the most important action item, cross oit ff the list, go to the next one etc.

Some of the more advanced ones (which I like) go a step further (or before), focusing on your outcomes, purposes, and then planning (where many of the other programs start). If you’ve ever heard of NLP or Tony Robbins, this might be familiar ground.

However, this post is not about how to manage your time. There are probably more than enough resources online for this.

What’s Your Mindset Like?

There is a group in the population that has a very different approach to time and the amount of it that we have available: Kids. Remember when you were a kid and you were waiting on, say your favorite TV show (when I grew up in Norway we had one channel, and about half an hour devoted to kids at 6 pm) and it wasn’t on until an hour later? When you’re a kid an hour lasts five billion minutes if you’re waiting for something (consider waiting to unwrap presents when it’s Christmas). A kid will find a hundred things to do for an hour. There are trees to climb, action figures to play with, that lego car you’re going to build, run around with the family dog, say hello the kid next door… you know what I mean, right.

What are grown-ups like? “hmm…, well, I doubt I have the time right now. I’ve got a meeting in one hour. How about later?”

So the idea I have here is that maybe we (at least us adults) should adopt kids’ mindsets every now and then when it comes to time and time management. How much could you do in an hour if you thought of time the way kids do, rather than what you do as an adult?

What’s your take on it?

You know the scene in the movies where the main characters are about to finally get on with that kiss that you’ve foreseen since before you even started watching, and just as their lips are about to touch, the phone rings and destroyes the moment. This of course, has been used to the point of complete cliché, but what always ticks me off here is, why the hell do they bother with the phone? You’re right there with some superbabe or superhunk, things are getting really interesting and …you’d rather answer the phone?

The worst part about this scenario is that phone behavior today is frighteningly similar to this. A lot of people seem incapable of not answering their phone.

Cell Phone Addiction In Real Life Settings

Want to improve your meetings?
Want to get more out casual conversations with friends or colleagues?
Want to relax without interruptions?

Turn off your cell phone, or at least put it on mute.

Among the things I do, I work as a career advisor. Because of the economy, a lot of people in Norway, as the rest of the planet, are out of work. Some of the people I meet have little experience with work, some have lot, and they come from many walks of life. One frequent similarity, though, is their cell phone addiction. Whether in the middle of a presentation, a great discussion, or even moments of breakthrough for people struggling with self-confidence, I experience people grabbing on to their phones to answer calls or text messages.

This lack of social competence is strange to me. Is it really that hard to wait for a break or a moment where making phone calls or writing text messages are more appropriate?

The Need To Feel Connected

The times when I really become aware of this addiction in myself is when I forget my phone, and wonder what in the world I’m going to do without it. As if it’s a huge problem. I’m left with only e-mail, facebook, twitter, friendfeed, etc … Getting in touch isn’t really that difficult. On the other hand, one difference I notice in myself is that I don’t absolutely have to answer the phone when it rings. I have a cell phone. I can see who’s calling. I can call back if I don’t know the number, or check it online. If it’s an unlisted number it’s usually one of two people, and they can call back.  Or, it’s someone I’m not interested in talking to anyway.

It’s not a problem!

The Cell Phone Challenge

So, here’s the challenge (and this is one I’ll work even more at myself): When your phone rings from now on, consider taking just a second to ask yourself whether or not you want to, or need to answer it. If you’re in a meeting, or having a great conversation or discussion, do you really want risk destroying that great state or atmosphere just because of a phone call? Is what you’re doing right now more important, or the phone call (or text message for that matter) when you don’t even know who’s calling.

Consider this: What if that great meeting or conversation doesn’t get back on track? The moment’s ruined. And all because of a cold call from someone trying to sell you on subscription deal with a new phone company?

Would it be worth it?

In my last three posts I’ve focused on the way we handle conflicts at work, and especially on the way conflicts at work can be productive. Based on those posts, here are 7 strategies that can help facilitate conflict mastery at work.

#1 Have A Plan
Like any project, having a plan for reaching your outcomes is key in facilitating and achieving conflict mastery. Define reasons for why this is an outcome you want for your team and/or organization. When the motivation is in place, create your plan. Ask important questions. How far are you willing to go? When are conflicts becoming destructive? Why are you going to keep disagreements constructive? When should you take steps to change conflict behavior? At what point is it getting too intense?

#2 Define A Mutual Outcome
When starting up a project, meeting, negotiation, etc, be sure to state common outcome at first. Common, or mutual outcome means one that everyone partaking in the endeavor have been a part of setting. That way one can always remind one another of the higher goal in the process if things take a destructive turn. Also, by having mutual focus point, everyone is working with the same end in mind the whole time. This focus from everyone can help make it easier to work together.

#2 Create A Physical Space For Conflicts
Have a room designated for constructive conflicts. Similar to the idea of using different thinking hats, being in a room specified for constructive conflict can help team members or meeting participants adopt the right mindset. With time a conflict mastery approach can be automatically conditioned in such a setting.

#3 Intelligent Team Composition
Said differently, put the people that need to be on the team on the team. Smart conflict management with a goal in conflict mastery have no room, or need, for allergies and safe-teaming in the team composition process. In other words, if someone comes to you and asks specifically to not be put on a team with a certain other person, get to the bottom of it and move on. Losing out on great solutions and possibilities simply because people don’t want to sit down and work things out isn’t a good solution.

#4 Create Real Teams
If possible, make arrangements to have compositions of real teams when teamwork is involved. Real teams, or real groups, is a term coined by Hackman (1987) referring to teams where all members bring unique competence to the table. Besides saving resources by not having unnecessary people on the team, real teams foster trust among the team members because they all bring their own skills to the project, and are dependent on the other team members at the same time.

#5 Define Roles For Conflict Situations
Share responsibilities to ensure that the constructive conflict processes work as planned. Divide important roles to people in the team/meeting. Who will take charge and break in when the situation seems to turn destructive? Who will play the devil’s advocate and prevent group think, as well as making sure all questions and issues have been raised. Who will make sure that there is progress? What are the boundaries for the project manager?

#6 Choose A Neutral Seating Arrangement
It may seem like trivial point to make, but by making sure all participants are seated in a way that puts everyone on an equal basis (i.e. by using a round or even sided table), no one is put in an immediate “boss position”. That way equal participation in the discussion is encouraged. This can be especially important when brainstorming.

#7 Express Your Understanding Of Situations, Statements And Actions
As Stephen Covey says, “seek first to understand, then to be understood”. Ask questions regarding what is said, and make sure to use the first person when you do this. As I understand this…, have I understood you correctly if what you mean is…, I experienced that remark as if you were trying to… is this correct, or have have I mistaken you? By focusing on the first person form you avoid putting words in someone else’s mouth. Also, you are the only one who can know how you feel, and therefore other participants in a conflict situation will have to take your word for it.

Hope you find some of these strategies useful.

Got additional ideas? Put them in comments and let people know.

Related posts:

• Productive Conflict At Work – Constructive Conflicts, Part 1
• Productive Conflict At Work, Part 2 – LinkedIn Responses
• Productive Conflict At Work, Part 3 – Thesis Results & Reflection

References:
Hackman, J. R. (1987). The design of work teams. In J. W. Lorsch (Ed.), Handbook of Organizational Behavior (pp. 315-342). London: Prentice-Hall.

Thesis Scope

The area of study for the thesis came as a result of interest in the subject, and was fueled by findings in the Healthy Change Processes project at NTNU showing that an openness to constructive conflicts seems to be an important factor when leveraging organizational change.
My focus was on how teams approach conflict situations, with a goal in identifying whether constructive conflicts are actively used, as well as identifying how teams manage to work with conflict productively when they are in disagreement. The teams that were focused on were from the area of consulting and advertising.

Findings From The Study

“We don’t have conflicts”

This is one line that came up in many interviews. This could be for the simple fact that having conflicts at work may feel as a taboo for many businesses. Challenges are fine, and companies love to take them on and solve them, but conflicts don’t exist. The reason for this answer, however, and this may be a Norwegian thing, is that the word conflict is negatively charged. The idea that conflicts can be constructive didn’t seem to come natural for the people that were interviewed. When asked how they would define “constructive conflicts” on the other hand, almost everyone gave a similar explanation: A situation where people are in disagreement, but where they are focused on the outcome of the project, and therefore don’t resort to personal attacks against the other team members. However, there were other views as well, such as the following answer from one person, “Constructive conflict… well, to begin with that sounds like a contradiction. I probably make a distinction between discussions and disagreements and conflicts”.

In essence, the people I interviewed saw conflict as something very different from any form of collaboration. Something worse, wrong, and definitely not constructive.

Conflict Management Approaches In Consulting Teams

One of the most interesting sides to the study was the difference in approach from the consulting teams and the advertising teams. The consulting teams were far more likely to choose what I’ve called “choosing your battles” and “quick-fixing” when there was a potential for a conflict situation. In choosing ones battles I got the impression that whether or not you engaged yourself in a conflict depended on whether there was the chance that your way would be the preferred strategy. It became a question of whether it was worth the argument or not (in ones personal opinion). Inherent in this approach is also a certain amount of disclaiming ones responsibility. What if raising your point of view would have resulted in a better solution? What would that mean in the eyes of your customers?

Quick-fixing a situation relates to a strategy where upper management is called in to solve the situation. Though necessary in some instances, I got the feeling that this was an all to easy solution for “getting rid of the trouble maker”. What if that “trouble maker” was the element that would have led to the best possible result on your project? In other instances of quick-fixing team members would also resort to strategies where they either dropped out (mentally), or took control of the project and did it all by themselves, leaving the rest of the team with insignificant tasks.

The Value Of Diverse Compentence In Advertising Teams

Interestingly, teams working in the advertising industry had a very different approach to teamwork. In the consulting teams they had the team structure in order to share the work load, though most team members could do all the of the work. In the advertising industry the common response was “we have to work in teams. It’s the only way”, as well as statements like “without my team doing their tasks, it’s impossible for me to do mine properly. I’m absolutely dependent on the team”. The simple reason for this difference is that the work areas in the advertising industry are so diverse that no one team member is able to properly do all tasks. In other words, they have to work together.

The strategies I found to be employed by the advertising teams I’ve Facilitating Ideas, and Killing Your Darlings. The first relates to the process of getting all the ideas on the table to make sure the best ones would be up for discussion. As one person said “everything has to get out, right. If you think of something that might be too stupid, at least you get it out of your head and it no longer blocks other ideas”. Another very important reason for this facilitating of ideas is that one thought, good or Also, in the advertising teams the ability to let go of your own ideas, even if you’d gotten attached to them, was a clear strategy. You have to be able to kill your darlings. With the amount of ideas coming up during brainstorming sessions, the majority are bound to go nowhere. This mindset in the advertising teams seemed to help them achieve what
constructive conflicts, even though this term was unknown to most of the people I talked to. It’s simply their way of working.

The Danger of Allergies And Safe-Teaming

Earlier I mentioned how many of the team members I talked stated that they really didn’t encounter conflicts. For the most part this came from the consulting teams. Based on this study, I found two reasons that might explain this. I call these allergies and safe-teaming. The latter refers the process of always teaming up with the same “safe” people, or having a team coordinator that always puts the the same people on a team. Sort of like a winning team. As explained by one person “You always know what you’re going get, but then again, you never get any surprises”. The chance that a conflict, productive or not, will occur, is minimal.

Allergies refers to what happens when team members are in conflict, and don’t know how to deal with the situation. What I found was that these situations often lead to an “instant allergy” toward the other person. The result is that the two are rarely put on a team together again. I was told that in many instances people will go the their managers and ask specifically to not be put on a team with a person they have developed an allergy against.

Conflict Management Or Conflict Mastery?

Looking back at the results of my thesis, I believe there’s a difference between conflict management and conflict mastery. I see conflict management as the process of creating the best possible environment for conflicts to occur, as well as solving conflict situations that have become destructive. Conflict mastery, on the other hand, I see as the ability to take any conflict situation and either keep it constructive, or take it from a destructive to a constructive path. I also believe that conflict mastery is achieved through proper conflict management, though this means there needs to be a focus on training and willingness to take the time needed to get there. Not taking the time for this seems to easily lead to “allergic” situations where organizations lose flexibility unnecessarily, as well as the need edge to find new solutions be safe-teaming, rather than exploring new “team territory”.

Got some thoughts on the matter? Share them with me.

Related Posts

• Productive Conflict At Work – Constructive Conflicts, Part 1
• Productive Conflict At Work, Part 2 – LinkedIn Responses
• 7 Strategies For Facilitating Conflict Mastery

Since last weeks post on productive conflict at work, the linkedin answers to whether conflict at work can be productive have gone up from 118 to 121. With the quick overview of some of the theoretical positions on conflict presented in part 1, this post will focus on the point of view from the many linkedin professionals that have provided answers based on their own experiences and knowledgde. I thought the quote above from one of the responses captured their point of view well.

On The Definitions Of Conflict

How conflict is defined from a theoretical point of view is one thing, how people actually define it may be another. When is it appropriate to call a conflict productive? was one question that was raised. Since conflict is considered a negatively charged word for many people, keeping this in mind can be a smart tactic when dealing with conflicts. Other people may not share your point of view.

Another two interesting approaches are to distinguish between conflict and criticism, and, as one respondent said, there is no such thing as productive conflict.

Conflict as Beneficial

From the responses it is very clear that the majority finds that conflict can be productive at work. A large amount of the respondents even feel that it is essential to have conflicts for the organization to stay ahead of, or on par, with its competitors.

 The main benefits of conflicts mentioned are:

• Increased creativity and innovation
• Better openness at work, and better ability to listen without prejudice
• Increasing maturity as a result of every conflict that is solved constructively

Conflicts are seen as learning processes that are necessary for organizational growth and development. In line with research in the field, this compares to the idea of constructive (C-type, positive or task) conflict found when disagreement stays on target (i.e. the work tasks)

Conflict Management Strategies

Seeing that the majority see conflicts as assets, how do you manage to create and keep them constructive? I found the following interesting:

• Take time-outs in order to regain composure
• Keep the emotions out of the discussion
• Cultivate the conflicts. Make people better at handling them.

The first two might easily come off as givens when working productively with conflicts. The third point, in my opinion, acknowledges the essence of conflict management strategies. By moving beyond the fear of conflicts, and seeing it as a learning experience rather than an obstacle, a solution oriented perspective on conflict is chosen.

I like the following quote, and I think it encapsulates the perspective on conflict as a productive asset well. “Conflict is beautiful at work. It means that the ideal has yet to be achieved”

Work With A Mutual Outcome In Mind

Having a mutual outcome was mentioned several times as necessary for work conflicts to have the chance at being productive. In the light of theory, this also makes sense. When conflicts turn destructive, focus is one of the first factors to fall. Rather than targeting the assignment with the aim of a solution, the guns are pointed towards your colleagues. Without a strong conviction from the other parties of the conflict, the road to the downward spiral is short. Remember, as one of the LinkedIn professionals said it, “It’s not personal, just business”.

On a related note, conflict (re)solution approaches mentioned were to
:

• Take the conflict off-site when a situation is sliding toward the destructive path
• Have a plan: Stick to the facts (do not make assumptions), state how something made you feel (stick to your own experiences and emotions)
• Listen (seek to understand). Realize what the purpose is (to reach an outstanding solution to a situation)

And as one respondent stated: “Treat people with dignity”.

The Knowledge Of A Professional Network

Along with a focus on the productive side of conflicts in work situations, I hope this post shows you how you can use the questions & answers feature on LinkedIn as a source of first hand knowledge from professionals. If you’re not already taking advantage of this side of LinkedIn, I suggest you take some time to check it out.

Related post

• Productive Conflict At Work – Constructive Conflicts, Part 1
• Productive Conflict At Work, Part 3 – Thesis Results & Reflection
• 7 Strategies For Facilitating Conflict Mastery

Definitions of Conflict

Before looking at the productive side of conflict, let’s see how conflict has been defined in reserach. Thomas has the following difinition:  A conflict is “the process that begins when one party perceives that the other has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something that he or she cares about” (Thomas, 1983, p.653). Though maybe a bit on the academic side, this definition is a starting point, at it dives straight into the notion that conflict is a negative state. This is also more or less the way conflict is viewed today.

Alternative Definitions Of Conflict

Research on conflict has been going on for many years, but around the mid nineties a focus on conflicts as constructive started to become a point of interest. A couple of the main players in this work are Karen Jehn and Allan C. Amason. Based on their, and other’s research, the following divisions of conflict can be made:

Constructive Conflict

• Also known as cognitive conflict (C-type conflict), positive conflict and task conflict.
• The conflict is centered on the idea or case at hand that you are working to solve.
• It stays constructive because whatever the conflicting parties feel toward each other, the focus stays on the task, not the people.
• Because the conflict is focused on tasks, people in conflict on one project have no problem working together on other projects.

Destructive Conflict

• Also known as affective conflict (A-type conflict), negative conflict, and relationship conflict.
• Conflict as it is thought of in most people’s minds is destructive conflict.
• Conflicting participants focus their “ammunition” against people and personality, not task.
• They see opponents rather than team players and colleagues.

Another form of conflict defined by Jehn & Mannix (2001) is process conflict which relates to “an awareness of controversies about aspects of how task accomplishment will proceed” (p. 239). In light of the difference between constructive and destructive conflict, process conflict is concerned with the understanding of where the conflict is going, and how certain areas in the work tasks may present a stronger “charge” of tension than others.

Benefits of Constructive Conflicts In Organizations

When constructive conflict is promoted it is because it is seen as having several important benefits such as:

• Improving the decisions made because multiple arguments are heard and taken into consideration.
• Fostering a more creative and innovative environment. Where two people disagree, a decision is often a result of both of their arguments, leading the process in a new and better direction.
• Having an environment where opposition is allowed, even encouraged, can facilitate a better communication and interaction, as well as a healthy working environment.

In illustrating the different outcomes of conflict behavior, Thomas’ model provides an easy to grasp overview of the different conflict behaviors and outcomes, ranging from win-win, win-lose, compromise, shying away from conflict, and collaboration. Collaboration is where we find constructive conflicts. The goal for all parties is to reach a solution that is as close as possible to a win for everyone, and it is achieved when people are both focused on working together for a solution (cooperative), while at the same time staying assertive to their thoughts on the task at hand (assertive). Below is an adaptation of Thomas’ model on conflict behavior

Why Constructive Conflicts Are Difficult To Master

The conflict process often starts out as a constructive process, but because organizations often lack routines for conflict management, they easily fall into the destructive path. Rather than focusing on the task and reaching as a good a result as possible, it becomes a blame game between the conflicting parties. It may even come to a point where the actual reason the conflict occurred in the first place is forgotten. What becomes the ultimate goal is for participants is to “win the conflict”.

 Sitting now with a destructive conflict on their hands, the chances are that much greater for bridges being burnt between colleagues, and that rumors start about one or more people because of “how difficult they are”. When management has to step in because the participants are not able to solve the situation themselves, they are forced to take sides. Though not the intention from management, one party is likely to feel stepped on either way.

In the following parts of this series on constructive conflict, I’ll take a deeper look into the points of view offered by people in the LinkedIn network and the results from my thesis on constructive conflict management in teams.

Feel free to add your own points of view and ideas for follow-up reading.

Related posts

• Productive Conflict At Work, Part 2 – LinkedIn Responses
• Productive Conflict At Work, Part 3 – Thesis Results & Reflection
• 7 Strategies For Facilitating Conflict Mastery

Running Into Someone You Know

I’m going to assume that like most people, at some point you’ve run into someone you know, say a former classmate, colleague, friend, or someone from a distant past. What’s the scenario when this happens? You quickly make plans for a phone call (or e-mail, facebook contact, sms and so on) to schedule a lunch or a coffee to catch up. Right? “Let’s how coffee one day” Sound familiar?

How often do you follow through?

My Success Story

A while back I had one of these encounters, but unlike what usually happens when plans like these are made, we actually stuck to them. Following our meet on the street we got in touch on facebook, followed up with a few text messages, and found ourselves at nice café in one the new bookstores in town. In the case of this get-together, my goal was to catch up with her, hear how she was doing, what she had been doing since (we worked together in AIESEC , one the world’s largest student-run organizations). However, when you experience this, it may also be a great business opportunity, a future job possibility, a new client, service provider, employee, etc. The possibilities are many, but you won’t find out unless you make the call.

The Challenge

Here it is: Preferably from this day on, and at least the next time, when you meet someone you know out of the blue, and make some kind of loose plan for getting in touch later, DO IT! Make that call, regardless of how weird it may feel. Schedule the call, e-mail, text message, whatever you prefer, and make sure you do not forget it or walk away from it.

If you don’t have these encounters that often, go for your facebook friend list. I know you have one or two (or most likely many more) in there that you’ve never had any contact with except for either inviting them as a friend, or accepting their friend request. Choose one, two or three, and MAKE CONTACT! I dare you

Let me know how it went if you like. I’m sure we could all get a surprise or two if we got better at maintaining contact with the people in our networks. And ask yourself: What is really the worst that can happen? Or how about: What is the best that can happen?

Introducing Organizational Culture Through The Social Web

We can define organizational culture as “The distinctive norms, beliefs, principles and ways of behaving that combine to give each organization its distinctive character:” (Arnold et al, 2005, p. 625), or in short, “How we do things here”. It entails both written and unwritten rules that govern how a company is run, and it is imperative to have an understanding of it to be able to be part of the organization. Organizational cultures can be further divided into subcultures that are specific for divisions, departments, teams, or informal groups in a company.

Because there can so many different cultures in a company it can be difficult to get a clear identity about what your workplace is about. Furthermore it creates a major challenge when making changes to the system if those changes are based on the culture of for example the leader group, and not that of the organization as a whole.
I believe that by integrating the social web in organizations we will create a massive opportunity for organizational cultural understanding and awareness.

Tamar Weinberg quotes Tony Hsieh (founder of Zappos, now owned by Amazon) on the affect of social media on the company culture, stating that “…employees have more of an opportunity to learn about each other personally” and that twitter allowed them to “…expose our company culture to the world.” (Weinberg, 2009, p. 136).
With heightened awareness outward for a company, there will also be a heightened awareness inward, letting people have a greater appreciation for how the company works. By using social media for this purpose, people will learn about themselves, their role and the company, and be engaged by the task at the same time. It should go without saying that this implies that representatives from all of the organization take part of the endeavor.

Discovering The Diversity Of Organizational Culture

Imagine the suddenly being in touch with the organization in a new and improved way. With a few short twitter messages, a link or two on facebook, or an insightful blogpost regarding your company, and you’ve got a conversation going with the most important resource in your organization – Your employees. Ask them how they do things, what characterizes their departments or their teams, what they find valuable about your leadership skills, and what you can do better.

Easing Into Social Media

In the previous post I discussed how organizational decision makers are a hurdle on the road to social media use in organizations because they are prone to see the limitations and work involved where social media is concerned, rather than the resulting benefits. I see this especially related to losing control over the conversation in social media marketing. By implementing social media as a tool for improving organizational awareness, like a better overview of company culture, business leaders have the opportunity to get to know social media solutions.

After social media processes have become part of the daily functioning of your company, the step into social media marketing will be easier to take, in a large part because everyone involved will be familiar with how it works, not to mention that the company now has a clear image of what their organizational culture entails, making it that much easier to portray the solid image outward when in conversation with clients, consumers and users. Furthermore, when needs for implementing change occur, a stronger cultural understanding and identity is present, and creating a successful strategy will be easier.

What do you know about your company’s organizational culture as a result of social media use? If you don’t use it, what could you know if you did, and what would it mean for you and for the company?

Understanding Decision Makers

Nothing will change in an organization, be it people, structure, culture, leadership style… you name it, unless it means a stronger bottom line. This is where ROI comes into play.  Measuring the ROI on social media initiatives is difficult because it is new, and there is no given method for it. Using social media internally, then, has the benefit of fast ROI feedback in the sense that users will tell decision makers whether or not it is having a positive effect. People in general don’t want to do things more difficult or problematic than necessary.

Taking advantage of social media also entails giving up the controls. Instead of dictating the next moves, your role is to share in the conversation, and the only way to have someone else share your point of view is to listen, evaluate, present your own arguments (in a manner showing that you’ve taken the other side’s point of view into account), and ask for further feedback. This can be a tough one to bite for power hungry managers. If communication and growth is important, however, chances are people will embrace the opportunity for a better dialogue.

Get Off The Fence – Take Action

Whatever the situation facing you, making a decision is key. Sitting on the fence too long leads reaction, and you lose the choice of making the decision. Consider the reality of the situation. Changes are going to happen regardless. Rather than waiting to see, taking a chance will at least give you the option to do something, and in the worst case scenario there’ll be experiences to learn from at the end of the road.

In an article from McKinsey, based on a large global study they conducted on the use of social media and web 2.0, they share insights on how the CIO at Lockheed Martin used blogs as a way to create collaboration across company divisions. Also highlighted is P&G’s use of blogs in company workgroups, fostering collaboration between members across the hierarchy, creating a platform for key players in the P&G to connect.

Challenges When Adopting Web 2.0

Another reason McKinsey’s article is of interest is that it highlights some of the administrative challenges organizations might face when beginning to use social media. Specifically legal and HR policies are mentioned. Since these vary from company to company, and from country to country, making sure to research and incorporate solutions for these areas when presenting social media as an option to company management is an important step on the way, and may also take care of some of the initial objections right away.

I encourage you to take a closer look at the article “How companies are benefiting from web 2.0: McKinsey global result” as well if you want to get in deep on their research on social media / web 2.0. Registration is required, but it’s free.

Below: Results from McKinsey’s global web 2.0 survey

Share your thougts, ideas and disagreements, and take a look at the related posts if like.

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