Saw this on tembosocial which again poses the question why people within organisations don’t share.
http://blog.tembosocial.com/blog/bid/275915/Social-Business-Why-Aren-t-People-Sharing?goback=%2Egde_2225440_member_222774240
Sharing is a fundamental mechanism in any kind of enterprise. From the development of the canteen discussions, water cooler moments, information management systems, knowledge management processes and now enterprise social networking platforms, sharing can bring immense value in the form of new innovations, improved decision-making, shorter time to market for new products, faster introduction of new hires, and so forth.
KM and social technologies make sharing of information, expertise and connections across the enterprise and beyond easier than ever before, but whether or not information is shared in a certain environment or situation always comes down to such things as people’s attitudes and behaviors (dare I use the word “culture”) in a group of people.
Despite the influx of KM and social tools into companies it does mean that people will automatically start to share what they know or information they possess with other people who might need it. The introduction of tools and processes are treated like many other IT projects, such as CRM and ERP systems, with fact finding, project management and configuration. But very few projects ever look to understand the psychology of sharing. We also need to understand the context in which we want people to start sharing with each other. When we have that understanding, we should have some idea of what buttons to push to make it happen, such as what technologies to use and how to design, implement and introduce them to the intended users.
One of the often neglected is to train people how to network. This doesn’t involve teaching people to hold regular coffee meetings or hand out business cards but show them the benefits of having a connected life within an organisation and the benefits this can achieve (or the cost if this is not achieved). In essence we are looking at building communities and the principles and benefits really haven’t changed since the Etienne Wenger days. In enterprises there is still little importance or regard paid to the development of communities, both physical and virtual. In communities individuals can build reputation, which is one of the key motivating factors for people to begin sharing.
Peer recognition is another key important factor that encourages sharing within an enterprise. Recognition means the most to us when it comes from those who really know the subject – who know what they’re talking about. It’s great to have your boss think you’re a top performer, but chances are your boss doesn’t know enough about the technical part of your work to know how good you really are – but your peers do.
Relationships are another key element to encourage knowledge sharing. An organisation can foster relationships many ways, but nearly all of them involve people being in conversation with each other. It is through conversation that we learn enough about the other to know the depth of their knowledge, where their strengths lay, what interests they have, and what they are passionate about.
By nature we generally want to share. But in most organisations we are faced with an environment that is not conducive to sharing. I have seen countless policies introduced by companies that appear hell bent on defeating the human tendency to share knowledge. One sure way is to create a situation where in order for one person to succeed the other has to lose. Too many organizations create those conditions with performance management systems that rank order or pit one person against another.
And fundamentally companies ask the wrong question. Rather than look to introducing tools and incentive schemes to share they should be looking at how do they develop relationships, communities, reputations and recognition that will set the wheels in motion for greater knowledge sharing?
PS – it you want to begin developing a knowledge sharing strategy in your organization start with watching ‘Pay it Forward’
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/movie/pay-it-forward/
Category: Governance
Making the same mistake
Every day I see a greater digital divide within companies. I recently worked on a collaboration project that involved both groups of apprentices / graduates and those that are more used to faxes than Facebook. It made me realise we are making the same mistakes with collaboration tools (open, social, transparent working etc.) as we did with email and Knowledge Management tools of the 1990s.
Apprentices and graduates ‘just get it’ in terms of understanding how to use technology to connect them to people and content, regardless of interface. Forget about corporate emails – they just don’t want to bother about desktops or email clients. But reach out to them on mobile day or night and they will respond. They see the value of making connections online and how to use the open and social tools to network within organisations. They expect good technology and connectivity and if the company can’t provide it they will use their own. If they can’t be provided with spaces to connect and network they will develop their own.
Other groups within the company needed far greater training, floor walking and hand holding to understand the potential and possibilities of the value of connecting and collaborating. With good content strategies, knowledge and people management, stewardship and governance many of these issues are overcome but what struck me was the change in approach needed by those responsible for implementation and success of collaborative working.
I’m old enough to remember the only ‘IT’ training you received was how to use the fax machine, the photocopy and the phone handset. When email arrived it was similar with one approach to training and ‘after school’ extra training for those that were slow on the uptake. The training provided showed us how to use the new tool. When you asked the trainer what to use it for that was a very different matter.
As we move towards more open, transparent and social ways of working within organisations I do fear we are making the same mistakes we made with email and Knowledge Management. We can introduce the tools and technology, show them how to use it but not guide people on what to share.
Too many times I have seen organisations deploy the technology, train people how to use it but give them no further guidance on how to work more transparently, open and socially. Hence we get the situation that the tools are not used, or maybe worst they are used to create additional noise but no value. If we thing email and various KM document coffins are bad enough imagine a screen full of irrelevant activity streams, notifications, thousands of 2 people communities (if you can have a community of 2) and invites to connect and follow with thousands of people you have never heard of and frankly don’t need to connect to every within your organisation.
To bridge this digital divide within organisations we need to ensure that these collaborative, open, social tools have sufficient strategy, governance and stewardship around them, aligned with a good content or knowledge strategy for the user groups so they have an understanding of what will provide value to themselves, their communities and their company. Once this is in place we can then worry about the floor walking and handholding from a technology level.
stopping the stream from flooding
With all the wet weather around in the UK it was timely to revisit these articles regarding managing the stream from social business tools.
In all my work within organisations I have yet to see a solution to the management of the activity stream. It’s one of the reasons that email will be with us for a long time. People can organise their own stream of content through their inbox. With current social tools it’s similar to packing up the sandbags in a flood zone as the torrent of content, updates and communications is impossible to keep up with after being in meetings, telephone calls and catch-ups for much of the day. Yes it is a case of filter failure but the filter needs to come from a gatekeeper otherwise the stream will burst its banks and drown us with content.
The digital must support the physical
Love this piece from RSA.
It shows how we can isolate ourselves within digital networks and increase the silo mentality rather than try to increase the transparency. The same dangers may prevent themselves when implementing social technologies and without strong ‘human engagement’ to support the digital engagement many deployments will fail.
I strongly believe the digital world is here to support the physical world that we occupy. We must resist the temptation just to confine ourselves away in the digital social networks but use them to support our real physical world and the relationships and beliefs we develop. In many areas of life digital interaction would not succeed without some physical, real-life human contact.
The 2012 Obama For America (OFA) campaign was the culmination of the president’s belief in the power of neighbourhood action that he acquired as a community organiser in poor areas of Chicago in the 1980s. That faith in bottom-up organising was combined with a massive digital database to produce a campaign that was simultaneously hyper localised and rigorously centralised.
He created a matrix of field officers that were concentrated in the swing states. The Obama camp believed a strong missionary fervour that friendship, contact and the personal touch are how you win elections.
The deployment of adoption of social tools is not about technology. It is about building the right conditions; champions, advocates, support networks and contact points that ensure the purpose of the deployment (generally breaking down silos or barriers, increasingly transparency and knowledge sharing) are successful.
Mark Tilbury - digital workplace specialist 