By Thierry de Baillon
Version française ici.
I find quite ironic that, while emphasizing the transformations needed / involved on the road to Enterprise 2.0, most case studies and literature on the subject, specifically when it comes to ‘adoption’, focus on the steps, and so rarely on the whole journey. Although collaboration is claimed to (hopefully) become our global way of working, much accent is put on technologies, practices, pilots, behaviors, management,… introducing tools and recipes without considering the constraints and mutations stressing the whole system: Enterprise itself. This sometimes makes me think of physicians talking about organs, topical cures and diseases without ever mentioning, or taking into account, the whole human body.
The vocabulary used is itself indicative of this state of mind. ‘Enterprise 2.0 adoption’ sounds like a technology-inclined, more process- that people-centric, one at a time methodology. Don’t misunderstand me; I am not saying that we should skip pilots, onboard anyone with a gentle smile and shout “we got the tools, we are 2.0 now”. Very few have tried, and even fewer are succeeding. Number of connections on a social platform doesn’t mean anything beyond brainless propaganda and top-down socialwashing. We will need to keep on coaching, evangelizing and scouting emergent practices for quite a long time. Seeding, then nurturing, is the correct attitude. Taking a broader view on Enterprise 2.0 diffusion dynamics in organizations might help leading the transformation at systemic scale.
Corporate culture, individual empowerment and management model are the three main assets any organizational change has to deal with. Let us see how a collaborative paradigm could fit an organization, given different corporate backgrounds and agents of change, and consider three main different approaches.
Holistic diffusion
Convergence between corporate culture and a leader’s vision offers, indeed, an ideal loam, not only to nurture a collaborative environment, but to leverage a whole social business ecosystem around the customer. Transforming such a business is only a matter of time and good communication, as the right practices get weaved into each company’s department. This might sound like an ideal world, but we all know the examples of Zappos and Cisco…
Empathic diffusion
Most companies aren’t designed for collaboration. Fostering its diffusion throughout the organization requires undertaking the usual steps we, practitioners, all know about: finding the right champions, targeting business departments already prone to work in a collaborative way, communicate about successes, and iteratively extend the experience. Enthusiasts will become ambassadors, and initiatives will spread to other parts of the business. Michael Idinopulos described this approach pretty well on his blog. Chances are good that this may help compensating for an unfavorable internal culture, with good support from the management. No wonder that most present case studies are following a similar approach: empathy, which Michael calls enthusiasm, is the glue of human relationships.
Fractal diffusion
One of the most discussed aspects of Enterprise 2.0 diffusion strategies is the necessity and the difficulty to involve the middle management. Our businesses hierarchical structure put a heavy pressure on managers, and their role is key to most business processes. Asking them to change to embrace collaboration and its inherent complexity is often perceived like asking them to dig their own grave. In this case, empathy won’t work, and even best evangelizers will fail along the way.
Modern businesses are inherently fractal, composed of nested routines, structures and know-how which deeply influence the behavior of the whole company, even without explicitly noticing it. The real backbone, the DNA of a company is sometimes hidden, buried behind processes or Excel dashboards. Identifying the core competencies of a business, whether it be in teams, departments or divisions, and leveraging collaboration in those places, will produce patterns which are reproducible throughout the whole organization. New practices, new managing routines will emerge, which can then be injected into other teams, departments and divisions. This, of course, will challenge managers. Some will adapt, some won’t. But new leaders will emerge, paving the road for a more empathic or holistic approach.
By Thierry de Baillon
English version here.
Je trouve plutôt ironique que, tout en mettant l’accent sur la transformation nécessaire / mise en œuvre sur le chemin menant à l’Enterprise 2.0, la plupart des études de cas et d’écrits sur le sujet, notamment lorsqu’il s’agit de parler d’”adoption”, en décrivent les diverses étapes, et très rarement le voyage lui-même. Bien que la collaboration soit amenée (espérons-le) à devenir notre manière globale de travailler, l’accent est mis sur les technologies, les pratiques, les pilots, les comportements, le mangement,… sur l’introduction d’outils et de recettes, sans tenir compte des contraintes et des mutations qui pèsent sur le système dans son ensemble: l’Entreprise elle-même. Cela me fait parfois penser aux médecins parlant d’organes, de traitements et de maladies locaux sans jamais mentionner, ou prendre en considération, le corps humain dans son ensemble.
Le vocabulaire lui-même dénote cet état d’esprit: «adoption de l’Entreprise 2.0» sonne comme une méthodologie « du petit bout de la lorgnette » orientée technologie, davantage centrée sur les processus que sur l’être humain. Ne me méprenez pas ; je ne suis pas en train de dire que nous devrions laisser tomber les pilotes, enrôler tout le monde avec un joli sourire et crier à tout va «nous avons les outils, nous sommes 2.0». Très peu ont essayé, bien moins encore ont réussi. Le nombre de connexions sur une plateforme sociale ne signifie rien au-delà de la propagande absurde et du socialwahing. Nous allons devoir continuer notre travail de coaching, d’évangélisation et de mise en évidence de pratiques émergentes pendant longtemps encore. Semer, puis élever, voila l’attitude correcte. Une vue plus large sur les dynamiques de diffusion de l’Entreprise 2.0 peut nous aider à mener la transformation à l’échelle systémique.
Culture d’entreprise, autonomisation individuelle et modèle de management sont les trois données principales à prendre en compte dans tout changement organisationnel. Regardons de quelle manière un paradigme collaboratif pourrait se mettre en place dans une organisation, en tenant compte d’environnements corporate et d’agents du changement différents, et considérons trois approches principales différentes.
Diffusion holistique
La convergence entre une culture d’entreprise et la vision d’un leader est, évidemment, un terreau idéal, non seulement pour y faire croître un environnement collaboratif, mais pour mettre en place un écosystème complet de «social business» construit autour du client. La transformation d’une telle entreprise n’est qu’une question de temps et de communication adéquate, les pratiques adéquates faisant déjà partie intégrante de chaque service de l’entreprise. Cela ressemble à une vision idéale des choses, mais nous connaissons tous les exemples de Zappos et de Cisco…
Diffusion empathique
La plupart des entreprises ne sont pas conçues pour la collaboration. Favorisation sa diffusion à travers toute l’organisation requiert la mise en œuvre de tout ce que nous, praticiens, connaissons bien : trouver les bons champions, se concentrer sur les services de l’entreprise les plus ouverts au travail collaboratif, communiquer sur les succès, et étendre l’expérience de manière itérative. Les enthousiastes deviendront des ambassadeurs, et les initiatives se diffuseront à d’autres services de l’entreprise. Michael Idinopoulos a parfaitement bien décrit cette approche sur son blog. Il y a de bonnes chances pour que ces méthodes puissent compenser une culture d’entreprise défavorable, si le management y apporte son soutien actif. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que la plupart des cas d’études dont on parle suivent une approche similaire: l’empathie, que Michael appelle enthousiasme, est le ciment des relations humaines.
Diffusion fractale
Un des aspects les plus discutés de toutes les stratégies de diffusion de l’Entreprise 2.0 est la nécessité, et la difficulté, d’impliquer le management intermédiaire. Les structures hiérarchiques de nos entreprises exercent une forte pression sur les managers, et ils ont un rôle clef dans la plupart des processus business. Leur demander de changer pour jouer le jeu de la collaboration et de la complexité qu’elle sous-entend est souvent perçu comme leur demander de scier la branche sur laquelle ils sont assis. Dans ce cas, l’empathie sera inopérante, et les évangélistes les plus talentueux y laisseront en vain leur énergie.
Les entreprises modernes sont éminemment fractales, composées de routines, de structures et de savoir-faire imbriqués qui influencent fortement le comportement de l’entreprise entière, même de façon invisible. Le pivot, l’ADN d’une entreprise, sont parfois profondément enfouis derrière de nombreux processus et tableaux de bord Excel. Identifier les compétences fondamentales d’une entreprise, que celles-ci soient déployées au niveau d’équipes, de services ou de divisions, et aider à la mise en place de pratiques collaboratives en leur sein, créera des motifs comportementaux qui seront transposables à l’ensemble de l’entreprise. De nouvelles pratiques, de nouvelles routines managériales émergeront, qui pourront être ensuite injectées dans d’autres équipes, d’autres services et d’autres divisions. Bien sûr, cela représente pour les mangers un réel challenge. Certains s’adapteront, d’autres non. Mais de nouveaux leaders émergeront, ouvrant la voie à un approche plus empathique, voire holistique.
By Thierry de Baillon
This is a guest post written by my online friend Ralph-Christian Ohr.
Version française ici.
About one year ago, I started engaging in discussions on ‘innovation’ via Twitter. As a physicist, used to work in product/innovation management for technology-based companies, my understanding of innovation was: creating value for the customer by leveraging technology development. As innovation is accomplished by people for people – companies are eventually run by people- I had a suspicion, though, that human nature is likely to play an important role in the innovation process. Through valuable exchange and discussions, I have come to the conclusion, that there is another dimension on the rise for innovation: MEANING.
Some time ago, I came across an interesting article named “A new era of meaning” by Tim Leberecht. It outlines that “Consumption-driven wealth and status are being replaced by identity, belonging, and a strong desire to contribute and do something “meaningful” rather than just acquire things.” A couple of related articles, from authors, such as Umair Haque and Roberto Verganti, are listed to support this trend. Verganti suggests to consider technology and meaning as two independent dimensions for innovation. Innovation of meaning can be achieved through a design-driven approach. He writes:
“The second finding is that people do not buy products but meanings. People use things for profound emotional, psychological, and socio-cultural reasons as well as utilitarian ones. Analysts have shown that every product and service in consumer as well as industrial markets has a meaning. Firms should therefore look beyond features, functions, and performance and understand the real meanings users give to things.”
After giving this some thoughts, it rang completely true to me: The approach to consider both technology and meaning as subjects of innovation basically reflects the human (psychological) structure. We aren’t just rational, determined by functional/utilitarian needs or jobs to be done, usually addressed by technological solutions and product features. It’s emotions that build our intense experiences, representing entrenched and subconscious needs/beliefs that drive our behaviour and significantly rule our decision making process. If that, what we do, is in accordance with these needs and beliefs, our experience is meaningful – it makes sense for us. We cannot exclude emotions from business because they are inherently human. But they can be used as a point of difference in products and services with emotional relevance.
But what exactly is meaning? I found a valuable definition in an older Business Week article “Understanding why people buy” by Darrel Rhea:
“Meaning is what humans create to construct a sense of reality. We are meaning-making machines. We constantly try to make sense of our life by forming a picture or story about reality. The stories we create internally provide the background or context for our lives and are often not articulated externally. Yes, that’s right, reality is something that we actively construct, and each of us generates a slightly different version.
This individual sense of reality is what we base our values, goals, and aspirations on, and, in turn, those drive our preferences. In short, our own sense of meaning defines who we are as people and the things we value.”
…
“In a developed, affluent world, a large percentage of purchase decisions are made to reinforce or express a sense of meaning. Put another way, we seek experiences that give our lives meaning or coherence.”
I think that’s what Simon Sinek intends to share with his message “Starting with Why” – you should definitely watch his talk in case you haven’t done yet. He mentions that particularly innovators and early adopters in the innovation diffusion cycle are attracted when novel offers meet their understanding of meaning. These early buying groups in turn determine whether an innovation can spread to the mass market and thus be finally successful. By stressing how “Nike turned $2.50 of raw materials into something that stands for efficacy and power and liberation”, Guy Kawasaki claims: “Make meaning, not money” – money may very well follow if the offering means something beyond the sum of its components.
All this indicates that business and companies are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of acting “social”. What’s the consumer’s role in this game then? I think we all should start trying to live meaningfully – according to our individual values and beliefs – and pay attention to our emotions as best as we can. “The Betterness Manifesto” by Umair Haque may serve as a great suggestion how to approach this. If awareness for emotions and meaning on the part of companies coincides with consumers’ authenticity, empathy can flow and pull processes, e.g. for innovation may occur. In this sense, every single consumer may contribute to more economical and social prosperity in the future by showing a self-aware behaviour – to a more meaningful prosperity.
All of us can contribute to a more meaningful prosperity
What do you think?
Ralph-Christian Ohr, PhD in physics, extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. Personal credo: “Innovation is key to keep up with time – for companies and individuals.”
Follow Ralph-Christian on Twitter
By Thierry de Baillon
Version française ici.
The Web, the engine of our hyper-connected world, is now real time, whether on our personal part or in Enterprise, and, wish it or not, there is no way back. Jeremiah Owyang recently stated that the trend toward immediacy will go even further, leaving place for the Intention Web, allowing “Businesses [to] provide a more contextualized experience for customers or prospects using Social CRM”.
But as convincing the examples he gives are, I don’t believe that time acceleration will give birth to a new predictive marketing. As Albert Einstein said, “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” Why should brands bother to bid on customers’ intent, when a huge untapped world of opportunities already exists? Welcome to the frightening Emotion Web.
There is no need to go as far as French philosopher Paul Virillio did a few months ago, stating that “immediacy is the opposite of information”, but it becomes obvious that immediacy (as induced by real time tools) doesn’t leave room for critical or deep thinking, and instead favors affective reactions. Examples of empathy-driven manifestations are numerous (the Iranian elections movement, mass reactions to accidents or striking events, notably on Twitter, where a lot of charities have already taken the Real Time Web into (positive) action.
Empathy marketing is just a step away, allowing brands to raise sentiment through contextualized messages. A few years ago, Patrick Le Lay, former CEO of French TV channel TF1, said “he was selling minutes of available brain” when interviewed about TV advertising. I don’t think it will take long before businesses start to consider the Real Time Web as a real opportunity and find here a way to regain control about their brands.
It might be even more frightening than you think. Driving empathy through carefully chosen channels is a thing, but just consider what would happen if, instead of empathy, one would choose to raise hate… From Motrin to United, uses of social media to bash brands aren’t uncommon already… I don’t believe in the Intention Web, but am really concerned about the Emotion Web, and the way it might influence our lives, for better or for worse.
