Last week, Scott Allen turned me on to the concept of Socialutions. At the heart of this idea is that no new business solution can take root inside an organization until the correlating out-dated ideas, mindsets, and operating methods are weeded out.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, “But Chris, this is nothing new…this is just common sense.” To which I would reply, “Yes, but when do most organizations use this common sense?” If fact, most organizations will simply try to lay the latest business fad on top of their current operations and culture. Regardless of whether they implement this innovation with the best of intentions or not, they’ll soon discover that this course of action will lead to failure with a high probability rate.
Let’s take social media as a fresh example. Loads of businesses and non-profits are adding social media tools to their everyday work as a way to keep up with progress (or worse, to demonstrate they’re “hip” and “edgy”). They’re creating corporate blogs, podcasts, and vblogs; engaging in communication channels like Twitter; building collaborative pages via wikis and Facebook. I’m not suggesting that there’s anything inherently wrong with any of these activities, but I do argue that simply adding them to your business operations without understanding…
- the true ethos of social media and its focus on authenticity and diffusion of control
- how to integrate these tools with your overall strategy and disperse throughout your entire organization
- AND MOST IMPORTANTLY what old behaviors and actions need to be cast aside in order to make these initiatives work
…will expose your organization as a hipster wannabe and leave you thinking that this social media stuff doesn’t work after all.
It’s not that social media doesn’t work, it’s that without making the necessary changes to your culture to accommodate it you’ll just be pretending. From the Socialutions blog, here’s an excerpt from a recent post called How Long Can They Pretend?:
The quality of social interaction is driven by the organizations entire “system” of interactions led by management. The current craze by brands wanting to ride the “social wave” is akin to corporations trying to ride the “quality movement” of the 80’s and 90’s. Those that used quality as a differential started by changing the thinking that managed the “system” and it permeated from the top down. Those that faked it hired a Quality Guru and made quality their responsibility. The later failed.
If you truly want social media (or any other initiative) to work for your business, don’t assign one person or one team to make it happen and then step out of the process. That’s really just pretending to give a damn and setting those folks up for impending failure. If you’re a senior manager, take some time to learn about your organization’s systems and culture (and if you don’t know how, hire someone to help you…yes, that’s a shameless plug). If you’re serious about changing how your business operates in the 21st century and how your people can be an important part of that growth, do them and yourself a service and don’t pretend to be something you’re not.
