Adopt – Not Adapt

Just been catching up on the wave of promotional emails sent during the festive break, from Microsoft right through to small start-ups, all advertising their new enhancements to AI technologies that enable deal with everything during my full day or back-to-back meetings, full email box or endless Team chats.

It seems to me that much of the technology that has been introduced over the years has led to this situation where little or no time is spent actually thinking and doing. My mind paints a picture of being thrown a lifebelt from the ship that caused my vessel to capsize in the first place.

I’ll be interested to see when and how AI starts to deal with guiding me on behaviours to actually stop being in back-to-back meetings and having endless Team chats and emails. I guess I already know the answer. It’s a ‘cultural’ or behavioural trait that causes the problem. The technology is only trying to help lighten a heavy load.

What we need to move away from is continually adapting to the situations are own behaviours create and start adopting new mindsets on the way we work.

I’ll ‘Co-Pilot that’

Yesterday I witnessed the first behavioural example of the power of how AI is transforming new ways of working.

In a conversation to fact check some information a colleague told me they would “co-pilot that” rather than physical browse or use the corporate search.

I have been involved in various virtual agent projects where users are directed to engage with chatbots and similar functionality but here was an example of someone’s natural behaviour now using Co-Pilot (other chatbots are available) rather than, what was traditional methods.

It got me thinking that an internal communications or people director’s new best friend needs to be those that are beginning to write the internal code and programming for these language models.

I’ve always been amazed at the lack of interest senior leaders show in the entire process of searching for and sourcing information. The old hierarchy seemed to suffice for trickling down information, but I wonder if this will hold true in the future.

With so much information and data available it’s getting harder to nail down the truth. Our defence against misinformation is steadily weakening. A generation of social media we have emerged with less resilience against deceit and untrustworthy information.

Way back in the early days of Yammer (and other internal social media platforms) organisations were caught on the hop by the power and influence of social media, both internally and externally. Big technology leaps have a massive effect on the information supply and the development of AI within organisations is no different. Those responsible for determining the algorithm for the organisation holds great power.

Who decides to write and validate this. Who holds the pen controls the access to information to an organisation’s corporate voice and memory.

For me it is fascinating not only how we deal with this from a technology perspective, from strategy, governance and implementation, but also how we deal with the new behaviours this develops.

By its nature the programming behind these features will try to understand your goals, needs, beliefs etc (dependent upon various regulations). All the current Chatbots mainly use the language of the calm oracle, being patient and understanding. Cast forward to the future are we going to see these virtual agents develop personalities based on your temperament! Will they understand your resilience or trusting nature. And how do our behaviours then change to deal with the personality types of the chatbots we are developing. It presents a fundamental difference to the ways we approach behaviours in an organisation.

AI and the Future of Work: What Experts Expect

Experts predict the future of work

https://hbr.org/2024/09/what-570-experts-predict-the-future-of-work-will-look-like

Catching up on some articles missed during an autumn break. This is an interesting look into the future.

HBR published a synthesis of what 570 experts think will happen with work and AI.

2026 – Job tasks are partially automated
2029 – New technologies are creating new jobs/industries
2035 – Economic inequality increases dramatically
2037 – Humans work alongside robot colleagues
2042 – Third World War breaks out. No mention of whether Belgium are involved
2046 – Automation leads to shorter work weeks. Yes you’re merely 22 years from a four-day week
2051 – Governments around the world introduce universal basic income
2053 – Breakthroughs in longevity drastically extend the lifespan of the technocratic elite. (I think this means Zuckerberg and Musk are living forever)
2065 – Computers surpass humans on everything
2074 – Human civilisation changed irreversibly by uncontrollable superintelligence beyond our comprehension

The first item that stands out for me is the 2035 prediction if economic inequality. I sense we are there already in many roles and communities.

The power of 3

Over the last few years it’s been pleasing to see how some of the collaboration software vendors have been changing their tune over how to successfully adopt their technologies.

If you compare the early adoption collateral for Jive, Yammer (O365), Chatter (insert numerous names here) and look at the adoption approaches they now recommend – built around behavioural change, habit formal and other techniques from neuroscience and related disciplines – those of us from the ‘people’ side of technology feel more comfortable than ever in championing the mantra that good adoption of collaborative technologies is more about psychology than technology.

Using the ‘power of 3’ psychological approach here is my take on the ‘do’s and don’ts of adoption broken down into 3

DON’T

Don’t focus on technology / product names and keep use of traditional corporate channels to a minimum
Hierarchy won’t be effective – no ‘trickle-down’ effect in most organisations. Leadership support is important but it must be active (role modelling not just telling)
Don’t tell people the whole story, show then everything at once, or provide just one approach / route for success

Focus on behaviours and scenarios with short bite size coaching and messaging (power of 3)
Create a bottom up / ‘word of mouth’ approach, developing social learning, role models (doing rather than telling) and nudge rather than command
Work on volume (light lots of little fires – develop use cases, nurture advocates, present at meetings) and then focus energy on those that catch fire and show potential to grow)

Something got me started

Like this article which shows the important of building momentum in driving the adoption programme.

People love to be associated with something when they garner a sense that things are happening (remember the Dancing Man) – link below.

So if you’ve deployed the technology and got little response from your colleagues then it’s time to build momentum.

In practical language that means working with some potentially interested colleagues to develop use cases – not abstracts but real ones that are helping to solve their problems and getting work done.

It’s part of a ‘social / word of mouth’ approach that begins adoption through networks and communities rather than larger formal approaches.

http://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/how-momentum-drives-social-collaboration/?utm_source=cmswire.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cm&utm_content=nl-daily-160707&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWTJWaFpqSTFOVE0zTjJJMSIsInQiOiJMOHJFMEpPams1dHZ1aUpPQU5hazNLcHk0VW1uQ2xEN2JBMmJKejg3ZVk3SDUyblNjMzZSM3lxcWNOWldJSWZ2dVd6ZDIwd1N4Y2d5RDlHb1RMVHFNdDllWVZpMlZpcEE1NzhaZUFuRFhtRT0ifQ%3D%3D

People love to be associated with something when they garner a sense that things are happening (remember the Dancing Man) – link below.

So if you’ve deployed the technology and got little response from your colleagues then it’s time to build momentum.

It’s part of a ‘social / word of mouth’ approach that begins adoption through networks and communities rather than larger formal approaches.

http://ed.ted.com/on/IgslePtt#review

Changing the conversation

One of the key challenges many companies have to face when deploying social collaboration and KM platforms is facing the new realism of becoming ‘stewards’ rather than ‘moderators’ of the environment. Rather than monitoring behaviours, those responsible for stewardship of the platform (whether Enterprise or local community managers) need to understand how to influence rather than control behaviours (comments).

Removing and banning members is the last straw and will also certainly lose any goodwill in changing behaviours in an organisations that have attempted to spread a collaborative culture whilst dealing with legacies of failed online forums or procedures that conflict with a desire to get people collaborating.

You can influence what people say (more possible than most realise) and there are several methods to achieve this. The most common is to showcase the behaviour you want. People broadly do what they see others doing. If they see petty fights, personal attacks, and more they’re going to engage in them. If they see thoughtful, constructive, debates they’re more likely to participate in them.

You can indoctrinate members by recruiting advocates that understand and embrace the philosophy and ‘culture’ of the community and are willing to influence others as they join. Third, easiest, is to prime behaviour immediately prior to posting comments through stage management. This works well in the conceptual and embryonic stages but you need the advocates to eventually perform this as part of their ‘community duties’.

One good piece of collateral its worth producing is a guide for ‘managers’ to ‘deal with conversations’. These are some good community guidelines on how to deal with certain behaviours and how to respond. At one of my clients we developed a 7 step guide to dealing with ‘risky’ conversations that was sent to many of the ‘manager’ grades and developed a group for managers to seek guidance and support in dealing with issues. Coaching internal communicators is also key as they begin to see the possibilities and the dangers of very reactive platforms.

I’ll be eager to garner any insights from members what collateral has been produced to help companies deal with the changing conversational behaviours within companies that have deployed platforms such as Yammer?

Movement of the People

Is it me but do all the major issues over the summer appear to deal with ‘movement’ (or maybe transportation)? The news agenda is full of items around the movement of:

People (across borders, cities and the basic A-B of getting from work to home – or maybe the issues of why many people still do this as networks, drones and live video streaming becomes more common).
Identities – easily replaced, replicated or stolen
Data – see above
Finance – across borders and laws
Goods – whether physical or how they will be replaced by 3D printing

Maybe how we fuse the physical and digital worlds will be the key to dealing with the issue of movement over the next 5 years?

Stick to the recipe for Enterprise Social Software success

When I look at reasons given by organisations for the failure of their Enterprise Social Software project to deliver any success or value (whether this is adoption or return on investment or engagement) I still hear the same issues around poor adoption, cultural issues specific to the organisation, change management, alignment to business needs etc. You could date stamp this as ‘2010’ and the issues haven’t changed.

It still amazes me that in 2015 organisations are struggling to get value from social software despite a reliable ‘recipe’ now being known.

All consultancies both large and small have a framework which is pitched to potential clients that will deliver various degrees of success – but success nevertheless.

Every software vendor has similar material that it will tell clients prior to any adoption programme how to get success (actually an interesting exercise would be to look at how the vendors have changed their ‘tune’ from 2008 onwards by looking at how their client adoption material has changed from ‘just plug it in’ to more strategic thinking).

I would also suggest that the vast majority of organisations that deploy Enterprise Social Software have an understanding or at least an awareness of what needs to be done – and I speak from a perspective or having sat on both sides of the table (industry and consultancy) and I would estimate that 90% plus of people I have dealt understand this.

But despite all this material a large majority of organisations appear to ignore the recipe.

I’m trying to find a simple analogy to compare this with so let’s try cooking.

If I were a chef (the ‘sponsor’ of the deployment) and I wanted to make a paella (deploying the tool) and I have a known recipe on how to make paella (the vendors material, consultants material, freely available material online etc.); then why do I think my paella will turn out fine if I refuse to use some key ingredients like the correct rice, saffron, paprika, wine etc. (change management, governance, use cases etc.)?

Some may be down to cost; some may be lack of knowledge – but wouldn’t you look at the recipe before you start!; some may be down to stubbornness (you deployed other tools before and your way has always worked) but I believe in many cases it’s down to the simple fact that most sponsors are purely concerned with plugging it and making sure it works from a technical perspective – and not appraised on the engagement or value it brings. No different to a chef not being appraised on how good the paella is but the fact they have served up a plate of rice that is dressed up as paella but has none of the taste.

Unless the success criteria is driven by engagement and value – which often happens a number of months into the adoption phase then organisations will continue to cite the same issues with their Enterprise Social Software.

The vendors realised their business model needs to change – not so much about selling licences every 5 years but seeing their software being adopted, adapted to working ways and providing value.

Few areas of an organisation focus on how engaged their workforce is with the ‘service’ provided but this will change. It will eventually filter down to project teams that are built to deploy social software.

In my ideal future world deployments will focus on behavioural change rather than just technology change in order for social software to be a success.

A project team for future deployments will have a very different line-up. The focus won’t be around IT Project Managers or business analysts but instead recruit business psychologists, community developers and social network analysts to ensure social software success.

The sound of social

Summer is upon us and I’ve been spending time reading through some of my notes of the various interviews I have conducted over the last 12 months in relation to collaboration tools and enterprise social networks.

I have interviewed over 250 ‘non-IT’ business users / advocates / leaders / stakeholders that have been introduced to new or upgraded collaboration platforms (O365, Jive, Chatter, Fuse, Yammer – the platform doesn’t really matter in relation to this article) and have found many of the comments follow a familiar pattern on the main issues which I believe companies still face in making a success of collaborative tools.

I should stress the issues may not be with the technology but a company’s ability to provide the appropriate implementation and change management support to assist participants in the adoption and utilisation of these tools.

I loved the work of Studs Terkel (just let the interviewee tell the story and don’t try to over complicate the message) so in the style of his oral histories here is the current story of 2015 directly from the mouth of a few participants faced with new technologies:

Making users feel safe

“People wouldn’t have felt safe putting certain information on the site. Few understood the privacy settings and people are generally worried who can see what within the company. Leadership need to support and validate it before it gets used.”

“There is a hierarchy within the company and people generally would not follow or respond to comments by someone who is senior. It may be shyness or maybe culturally the way we have done things but we have to face this fact.”

“The most obvious element that is missing is the ability to make people feel safe. Networking with people in this company means putting your head above the water margin. It’s not something we do and we need a heavy support programme to show us how it’s done.”

Integrate into how people work

“The problem is that this isn’t “how we work” currently, it isn’t natural for people to use the tool and so the potential couldn’t be realized in this short time period. I think that if everyone was signed into the tool and they were encouraged to use it, it would be incredibly valuable.”

“I found the tool somewhat complicated if I’m being totally honest. Not being immediately able to find what I wanted or know how to do something made me slightly reluctant to use the tool regularly and left me frustrated.”

“It does feel a little bit like you are bombarded with reminders that someone has posted.”

“I did feel that some of the posts from individuals were not entirely appropriate for a company website and were more suited to Facebook. For example when someone is having a bad day and venting via their updates. I personally feel this is not something that you necessarily should be sharing with work colleagues and is best saved for a private social media page.”

“This tool will be useful only if it replaces other tools. We get too much information and there’s not enough time in the day to process it all.”

“Just more clutter which distracts me from my busy day.”

“During busy periods when colleagues are required to pull together and resolve issues against a deadline, I do not appreciate updates and activity streams bombarding my screen – which does not directly help with the matter in hand. Filter failure or not it is distracting.”

“The mobile app is just a tool for viewing the chit chat or direct messages so its functions are useless for me.”

“Unfortunately for me personally this is just another tool in an already overcrowded environment.”

Governance and linkage with other channels

“If corporate messages were put on the collaboration platform it may devalue the message. People see the intranet as the official source of information.”

“Go where the people want to go. Don’t force people to choose between one and another. Intranet and ‘social’ need to be integrated.”

“I believe a ‘technology first’ approach has been taken by the tool. There has been poor implementation and communication planning. I just don’t know what to do with it.”

” The intranet is the backbone of the organisation structure. The social channel is the living parts of the organisation. Like skeleton and flesh. We need integration but not replacement. We also have other communication channels. I need easy to follow and seamless integration of content across the platforms.”

“It lacks the credibility of an official channel like the intranet.”

“We need to build trust on the channel. Some people trust it, others don’t.”

“On the platform everyone is an amateur. The intranet site is professional. If the social channel had more professional news and articles it may add more value.”

“There is concern over governance – my department on the social site has a page with outdated documents and people are discussing content within the document. I spoke to the intranet team and they didn’t have time to deal with content on the social platform as its run by a different team.”

“If management make an announcement and it is not on the intranet people may have issues. The expectation is it should be on there and not a social platform. It just doesn’t have that credibility.”

“I’ve not been on the social tool much. I wasted time looking at groups and communities of no relevance. It needs more governance. Too many groups now have details out of date – it’s getting worse than the intranet.”

“I’m frustrated by governance, or a lack of it. Imagery doesn’t look like the official brand. Too many sites are being setup and it’s becoming a mess.”

“I’m now seeing duplication with the intranet.”

“It’s not an official channel and it’s painful to find information.”

Lessons learnt

There are simply lessons that companies still fail to understand. To make these platforms a success you need to:

Have a strategy (business, content and knowledge)
Understand how the platform needs to integrate with intranet, document management, metadata, enterprise search and other channels
You need to do the ground work of business analysis, use cases and understand how people work. Ensure you understand what success is – and it can’t just be adoption.
Start small with good use cases that provide quick wins and have a supported phased approach to implementation. Volume brings value.
Provide the physical support – community management, advocacy, coaching and leadership support.

In essence enable the organisation, enable the technology and most importantly enable the people.

What goes where?

Employees are faced with a range of tools to communicate, collaboration, share and network. Simply deploying new tools just confuses an already overworked organisation.

To expect many to understand what tool should be used in which context is foolish. One of the most important documents you can produce in the early days of a collaboration tool deployment is guidance to participants about what goes where.

This could be dressed up as a content strategy document, outlining where implicit and explicit knowledge / content should be stored or a straightforward guide on which tool to use when. Just map out some business scenarios and give people ‘guidance’ on which tool can be used to accomplish the task most efficiently.

Get this document into the environment early and it will save you lots of time answering questions from confused new adopters of the collaboration platform.

Mark Tilbury – digital workplace specialist

Working smarter in the digital workplace

Tag: behaviour