Social media is good for you (when done well!)

Today as I set out to share some highlights from my past two days at the Melcrum Social Media conference in Sydney, I notice that I've still got a nice buzz...not from the networking cocktail session but from the interaction, both face-to-face and on twitter during the day. Read on to find out why social media is good for you, some ideas on how to do it well - and don't miss your TOP TIP at the end!


Social Media conference highlights

During the conference there was a particularly active tweetstream and there have already been a few great blog posts about the conference; I particularly like the insights of Emma McCleary:

Social media is about long-term engagement; creating things that people want to use and growing spaces online that encourage people to work communally.

We’re all a copy and paste away from inside to outside so there’s no reason to categorise social media as a risk to your organisation or check every post, status update or tweet happening if   you’re not also checking emails or USB sticks that carry files in and out of your workplace.

and Alison Pignon:

...if you don’t trust your workforce, then you have a management issue, not a communication issue. Meanwhile, encouraging free and open discussion (based on a good social media policy and user guidelines) can only help to demonstrate the trust you do have in them. 

Rather than feeling that it’s absolutely necessary to first build a social media strategy and get buy-in from the whole senior team before launching a new tool, sometimes it’s just best to go out there and try it.

Here are a few of the thought-provoking gems provided by Euan Semple's report of the state of social media (for now...):

• Social Media is about "Globally distributed, near instant, person to person conversations" from Cluetrain Manifesto
• Online the Customer really is King/Queen: “If you don't want me to criticize your product, don't have a shit product."~Dave Weinberger
• "In a knowledge economy there are no conscripts, only volunteers (but we train managers to manage conscripts!)"~Peter Drucker

CORPORATE CULTURES

• Paradox of corporate cultures: going to useless, time-wasting, pointless meetings = good, but having useful conversations with people via social media = bad(?!?)
• What's it say about corp culture that staff are unwilling to enter things about themselves on company databases/intranets that they will freely put on web via FB, etc? Dramatically low levels of trust...

HOW-TO

• "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ~Sinclair Lewis
• How to run social media at your organization: Just do it! "Keep moving, stay in touch, head for the high ground" (from US Marines)
• When confronted by resistance (see "fear of losing control" below) and asked to "prove" the "ROI of social media?" Simply reply "what's ROI of not doing it?" Or, better still, "what's the COI?" (cost of inaction) of continuing to do nothing to engage with our own people?
• Beware of trying to "manage" online communities - they will grow organically, or not at all
• If you build it, they might or might not come... "It's easier to build a tool for the community than a community for the tool."
• And always remember: "No matter what you are trying to achieve social media adoption happens one person at a time and for their reasons not yours."

FEAR OF LOSING CONTROL (Hint: you never had it)

• People worry about "losing control". You don't have control anyway! What you DO have w. social media tools is the chance to influence
• "How do I control the msg?" - Try instead "management by being interested": seed existing conversations w. good questions (influence-not-control)
  
• These technologies surface what's going on in your organization (culture, behaviour, etc.) -->Agreed!:
• "Social media in organizations is great for surfacing morons"(!) - yes people will initially have a whinge, but they didn't start whingeing just because social media appeared; it's already happening around the watercoolers. Providing a forum surfaces problems that want fixing and (for those people who never stop whingeing) identify mis-matches in the organization that need addressing for everyone's benefit

BEING REAL

• Good tweets (that build trust & relationships), including those by staff on a corporate twitter account, need to be human and not corporate drone-speak; even inane tweets have a place if they are authentic and create connections
• Sadly, "Watching big corporations trying to get into 'this social media stuff' is a bit like watching your dad dancing at a disco" (LOL!)  
• The most tragic example lately: "BP's biggest failure wasn't only mechanical or engineering, it was in not actively building trusted social networks and not giving straight answers when given the chance

ONLINE EXPRESSION & LIVE INTERACTION

• "Even if no one read my blog, I'd still write it...makes me more thoughtful, more aware, notice more things" 
• Online media won't replace face-to-face interaction; a great use of online collaboration is to improve the quality of the face-to-face you DO have (e.g. by brainstorming ideas in an online forum before meeting face-to-face to arrive at a final decision, or getting a sense of someone's interests and areas of potential collaboration from their LinkedIn profile before meeting for a cafe-chat)

WHAT'S THE POINT OF SOCIAL MEDIA...?

• A few answers: it helps unlock the knowledge the exists in many people's heads throughout the organization/network, so people can find answers and information faster and easier - and get stuff done; it helps break down silos by encouraging interaction; it gives a place to have the conversations (they're already having) in a way that can be entered and influenced by managers and leaders - as equals and colleagues...

Finally, the thing I liked most about the conference was the sense that no one really has all the answers now. Like speaker Helene Bradley-Ritt put it, "implementing [social media] is a change journey" and on that journey we're all fellow travellers, so it was great to be a part of an event designed to help each other along the way to do great things!

Warm, twuzzy feelings...

What explains the need of our BlackBerry-bearing, Twitter-tweeting Facebook friends for constant connectivity? Are we biologically hardwired to do it? Do our brains react to tweeting just as they do to our physical engagement with people we trust and enjoy?

So how come I'm still buzzing today...? The answer to that question and the ones just above is found in this Fast Company article about research by Neuroeconomist Paul Zak (aka "Dr Love"), showing that social media can help spike oxytocin levels in the brain and reduce stress hormones cortisol and ACTH.

"Social networking might reduce cardiovascular risks, like heart attack and stroke, associated with lack of social support" because our brains interpret activities like tweeting as if we were directly interacting with people we have empathy for and care about: "E-connection is processed in the brain like an in-person connection."

Perhaps this is why so many Gen-Y's, whose lives are increasingly shaped by social media, expect to be able to maintain those important connections in the workplace - so much so that one source indicates "for 20 percent of Millennials, or Generation Y-ers (those born from 1980 onwards) a ban on social media in the workplace is often a deal breaker" when deciding whether or not to take a job. 

So here's your TOP TIP: don't just sit there - apply all these great ideas and get connected like your life depended on it...it just might! And please, allow me do my small part to promote your health: in just 10 seconds you can connect yourself with upcoming blog posts - enter your email address in the "Get blog updates sent to your email" box in the top-right side of this page or click on the "Get blog updates by RSS feed" button. (Wondering how RSS works? Watch this video.)

How to celebrate International Social Media day

Here are three things you can to celebrate International Social Media Day wherever you are. 

Since social media is, after all, "social" I've offered a few ideas to make you feel welcome and help you to get your bearings in the brave new world of social media.

Get on twitter - sign up for an account, follow @tmconsultancy and send me a tweet - I'll follow you back and put you in touch with some great free resources I've found that'll help you get the most out of twitter.

Create your LinkedIn profile (which is like Facebook for professionals) - then check out my profile and if it looks like we've got interests in common, send me an invitation to connect. (Another popular option is XING, same deal applies: here's my profile).

Start a blog - A more ambitious venture but if you're bursting with things to say you'd be surprised how many people want to hear about it, just tweet me (you are on twitter now, aren't you?) and I'll come check it out!

Until then, Happy International Social Media Day! Now go have some cake.

Technology as a loudspeaker - what are you broadcasting?

Technology is a terrific enabler and accelerator of organizational processes, but it's not a cure-all. Read on to explore the nexus where technology overlaps human behaviour and interaction; learn why it's important to know what message your technology is broadcasting - both to your employees and to your clients!


In April I was invited to a seminar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the uses of technology in higher education and corporate training.

Among other tech companies and educational institutions, Microsoft was on hand to showcase Surface, its "social way of computing," as envisioned for university campuses and business meetings of the future.

In this idealized future, businesspeople easily find and exchange information with world-wide colleagues and their road-warrior lives are made easier with access to timely information on hand-held devices that speeds them along to fruitful and interactive meetings.

It was pretty slick stuff: technology enabling a whole new way of doing business and, as you'd expect given the theme of the conference, there was a lot of enthusiasm and buzz in the room.

As human behaviour specialist, I was left wondering how these admittedly snazzy tech-tools would help you to deal more effectively with colleague who's just off a red-eye flight filled with screaming kids and has spilled coffee on herself in the taxi ride from the airport.

Or how those gizmos would help to effectively manage interpersonal conflict that might arise in one of these tech-enabled meetings...quite possibly with the frazzled and overtired colleague just described!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

The more (and faster) technology changes, the more human behaviour remains stubbournly the same - complex, unpredictable and non-linear.

Now don't get me wrong: I love my gadgets as much as the next guy and technology is a great aid to our working lives. It's in the nexus where technology overlaps human behaviour and interaction, however, where we can clearly see that technology's role as an enabler and accelerator of what's already happening in the organization (you can even say it's also an amplifier) is not as straightforward as some tech-enthusiasts may believe.

For example, if you've been in meetings that look a bit like this unfortunate group - where people aren't engaged, there's an atmosphere of negative interaction and conflict, and a people manager who fundamentally can't manage people - then it's probably clear to you that no amount of technology is going to improve the situation.

Putting touch-screen computers into this meeting will not magically transform it into a smoothly-functioning team. Quite the opposite, in fact: in dysfunctional organizational cultures, technology is more likely to give people more tools to extend unhelpful behaviours and disengagement to a much wider audience, even faster (email flame wars, anyone...? or text messages that read: "PLEASE get me outta here! :-( MeetingFAIL!!!").

Technology as enable/accelerator/amplifier (or, behavioural loudspeaker) 

If you remember the classic technology equation (Garbage In = Garbage Out) and then factor in technology's role as enabler/accelerator/amplifier, it's clear that technology most often functions as a loudspeaker to surface dodgy behaviours in an organization. Technology therefore cannot be the quick-fix panacea to address unhelpful behaviours, because they aren't technology problems - they're management problems, and they need management solutions.

This fact about technology helps explain why some leaders are so resistant to introducing social media tools - because amplifying the kind of talk that happens in a toxic corporate culture will most likely serve to  increase dissastisfaction (and staff turnover), to undermine the command-and-control structure typical of such organizations...or quite possibly a combination of both.

So I would argue that our awareness of the kinds of behaviour being enabled/accelerated/amplified with technology (social media or otherwise) needs to at least keep up with the pace of technological change. And in many organizations that's going to be a pretty steep learning curve.

When it comes to awareness of human behaviour dynamics and taking practical action to create Positive Change, we can't release a new patch or upgrade each year, it's an ongoing effort. Thankfully it's the same complexity and unpredictability of people that also makes us hugely creative and adaptable - and that's very good news indeed for those looking to create Positive Change.

Some questions remain - what do you think?

My next post will tell you more about what Positive CHANGE looks like and how it can help shape behaviour and interactions in your organization. The end result is certainly worth the effort: effective teams that can take adversity in stride and maintain a positive focus on contribution and results.

Other interesting questions remain: in what ways could technology actually expand and deepen our perspectives on human behaviour so we interact and engage with each other more effectively? Beyond being simply an enabler and accelerator, can technology serve to positively shape human behaviour and interactions...?

I look forward to discussing these questions and more at next week's instance of another technology-in-business conference: Melcrum's Social Media conference in North Sydney. See you there!

Social Media in Sydney - see you next week!

Still need convincing about the reach and relevance of social media? 

Check out this short video and then come along to Melcrum Australia's Social Media conference next week in North Sydney. The format is one day of workshops on the 29th followed by a day of speakers  on the 30th (for which I'll be acting as Chair). 

You'll hear lots of ways to integrate social media within your internal communication strategy from speakers representing Deloitte, Unilever, NAB, Suncorp, Ericsson, as well as Melcrum's own Robin Crumby. In addition, UK-based Social Media Consultant Euan Semple will offer a 1/2 day workshop on day one followed by a keynote on Day Two entitled Social Media: The communication revolution.

There's just a couple of spots left - so grab the conference brochure today and I'll see you there!

Social Media conference in Sydney 29-30 June

Still getting your brain around social media?

Join me as Melcrum Australia holds its 2-day Social Media Conference at the Vibe Hotel in North Sydney on 29-30 June.

If you're looking for ways to integrate social media within your internal communication strategy and align it with your key objectives, check it out.

The format is one day of workshops on the 29th followed by a day of speakers (for which I'll be acting as Chair).

On the 30th you'll hear a keynote entitled Social Media: The communication revolution by UK-based Social Media Consultant Euan Semple. Now I know, I know, everybody and his dog is claiming to be a "social media guru" these days - but I've heard Euan speak and he's been at it a lot longer than most. Personally I'm looking forward to hearing his latest thoughts on the following:

There has been a fundamental shift in the way we do business. How we communicate with stakeholders and how we organise ourselves to produce those messages has changed forever. Euan Semple examines:

• What these changes mean for communicators
• How they represent a new wave of exciting opportunities for 21st century businesses and their employees
• What lies in store for communicators and what role they will play in the future of business

You'll also hear speakers from Deloitte, Unilever, NAB, Suncorp, Ericsson and also Melcrum's own Robin Crumby.

Download the conference brochure here and I'll see you in Sydney!
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Highlights of EE conf in Sydney

"Culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have a good strategy but if you don't have the culture and enabling systems to implement that strategy you will fail." 

~Dick Clark, CEO Merck USA

The second in the series of Australian "National HR Solutions & Strategies Summits" on Employee Engagement takes us to Sydney and a surprise change of venue to the Grace Hotel with its neo-Gothic exterior and Art Deco interior. 

Like the previous week in Melbourne, this conference delivered the goods with a series of insightful case studies and useful lessons on the people side of business. My favourite quote of the day is listed above; in what follows are some further highlights.

The engagement journey continues…
 

Reporter: "What do you think of Western civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
 

Sophie Crawford-Jones of PwC gave us an informative overview of how the concept of engagement has developed over the past four decades as well as her thoughts on where it’s going over the next few years. While I like with the theoretical construct Sophie offered, I also think it’s fair to say that, whatever the next big thing in engagement is likely to be in 2010 and beyond, organizations still have a great deal of work to do in the here-and-now. 

Or to paraphrase Gandhi: while many more people nowadays are familiar with the concept of people engagement, effective engagement practice is often still in its early days.
 

Who’s telling your story?
 

The good news is that, as organizations seek to create a culture that invites greater engagement with their people, there are some practices that have proven helpful. Several examples were given of how leaders and managers used compelling stories to link people’s proven resilience in the past in ways that help to get them through hard times today with a clear vision of the future. 

This narrative approach acknowledges the reality that every moment is an engagement opportunity. It's not just an "HR responsibility" but needs to involve senior leadership and happen at all levels of the organization. And it’s not one-off events or even CEO roadshows that do it - effective engagement lives and breathes in your culture and must be related to every single thing that people do in the business.
 

It’s great to have a CEO who "gets it" and even better to have one who can tell engaging stories. It’s also true that stories can only gain currency and influence people’s daily behaviour when they are told and retold. That requires leaders and managers throughout your organization who also "get it", who can spread the influence of those stories with equally motivating effect. In other words, it falls to your people managers to engage your people.
 

In this quest to develop people managers into effective engagement allies, I was heartened to hear how one organization is getting some good results. Josie Gosling gave NineMSN’s answer to making this happen, with what they call communication champions. The idea is as genius as it is simple: there are already a handful of people in your organization that everybody else asks to explain and clarify what’s going on. These people are "naturals" - they have a talent for communication and/or the status and influence within the organization’s social networks that make their voices stand out. 

Let me quickly note two useful principles at work here: 1) a use what works (or solution-focused) approach helps you get fast results by working with people’s strengths, in this case communication "naturals", and 2) the realization that these communication/influencing talents can be found anywhere in your organization and don’t necessarily have anything to do with role or positional power.
 

Once you’ve identified these people…make them your new best friends! Do everything you can to develop their natural abilities (through mentoring, coaching and skills-building) and have the courage to "give it to ‘em straight" by making them part of the inner circle of communication practice. Giving them the big-picture perspective behind the messages will help them communicate better and, in turn, model the kind of engaging communication behaviour you want happening in your organization.
 

Setting the Stage for Success
 

Once the story of your organization is captured and consciously promoted, it will start to become clear which actors may not have a part to play in future performance. In both Sydney and Melbourne, conference speakers repeatedly made the point that low turnover can actually be a bad thing. As much as you need to actively retain your best people, you also need a standard practice to move out poor contributors.
 

Doing so in a grown-up and dignified way not only shows your commitment to do right by the people who ultimately leave - it can have a powerfully positive effect on those who stay. What's more, when a difficult situation is finally addressed the relief is palpable ("Well thank god…we've been talking about this for ages, now it’s finally behind us!"). 

As Chris Disley of Mars Food Australia pointed out, managers who can effectively manage low performers and disengaged people out of the organization actually get higher engagement scores as a result.
 

Chris also shared a crucial conversations exercise in which team members are asked, "If you left the company today to start your own business, who would you take with you…?" Naturally you need to contextualize the conversation and make clear this is a though-exercise, not an invitation to jump ship! While potentially confronting, such a process of rank-ordering people’s contribution from greatest to least can be a vital step toward having the kind of open and honest conversations that need to happen in effective teams.
 

Skills + behaviours = great performance
 

Finally, besides offering the quote that heads this post, Jason Flanagan of BT Financial Group gave some ideas on how to engage with your talented up-and-comers. He described how "high-potential" staff are matched with internal projects that tackle real business problems (e.g. bureaucracy-busting, new product development, etc.). Here I’d like to introduce a distinction that helps make sense of why this is a great example of people development that’s engaging too.
 

A skill is defined as "the ability to do something well" and is essentially the knowledge gained when for example you learn a tool, process or concept on a course. A behaviour, however, is "the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others" and manifests in the actual application of skills and knowledge - in real business contexts, on an ongoing basis.
 

So giving your top talent projects in the business is a great idea because it ticks many boxes:

• they get the recognition they deserve (often worth as much or more than money) and a chance to strut their stuff
• as they work on the project there’s a chance to identify skills gaps that may emerge and target them for further development (so you can send them on courses, e.g. effective communication skills, project management and the like)
• perhaps most importantly, projects offer a practical way to apply their skills in real-world business contexts; combined with an effective mentoring/coaching program this means they learn a skill, give it a go through "live" application, talk through the results, then make needed adjustments (a double-loop learning process crucial to embedding a skill as an ongoing behaviour)
• and all this development is not extra-curricular and in addition to their day-job, but sits within the organization and produces useful outcomes for the organization.

In sum, these were a couple of informative and useful conferences, filled with "war-stories" and good ideas from HR and Comms professionals. Their stories clearly made the point that your engagement strategy will stand or fall based on the ability of your people managers to make it real as they engage with people. The stories that are alive in your organization will grow and thrive to the degree that you’ve got talented managers breathing life into them - so it makes sense to set them up for success. 

And for those who don’t have a part to play in your story’s future, you need to actively do what’s right for them and your organization by applying the other basic use what works principle: if something’s not working, stop doing it!
 

Hope you found these ideas useful and they take you a few steps closer to good people engagement, increased contribution and better business results.

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Thoughts and themes from an EE conf in Melbourne

Just wrapped up the Melbourne Employee Engagement conference and a couple of clear themes emerged:

• There's great value to be gained in giving your people access to the senior leaders in your organization - if that's not possible, remember that it's your people managers who will need to carry your engagement efforts.
  
• High salaries and a great safety record only get you so far in engaging your people. If they have to "park their brain at the gate" and get their intrinsic satisfaction (i.e. happiness and real engagement, a.k.a. "flow" experiences) from activities outside work, you've still got your work cut out for you as an organization.
  
• Acquisitions and mergers are a fast way to grow a company and gain needed technology and market share. M&A's attract lots of "bean counters" looking to realize efficiencies...equally important (and too-often forgotten) is the need for people-positive engagement practices. No company ever cut its way to greatness and in the final analysis it's people who make the competitive difference. Great to hear about practical ways to demonstrate the value of the intangible people dimension.
  
• A compelling presentation reminded us all of the power of stories to engage and motivate people. In the same vein, you'll find a tmc-related example of practical application of storytelling in an organizational setting (combined with the solution-focused technique The Affirm) here.
  
• One of my favourite quotes of the conference was from Michael Specht: It's not a social media problem, it's a management problem. If you don't trust your people, if they're already wasting time in other ways, and you give them social media tools - they're just going to go play. Highlights the role of technology as not only an enabler but an accelerator of what's already happening in the organization - hence also an amplifier. If you're disconnected from your people no amount of social media will reverse that trend.
  
• My equally favourite quote of the conference: Change programs [to improve people engagement] are not a sprint. They're a marathon. Enjoyed the insight offered that when leaders and manages fail to communicate using "formal channels," the result is not silence; instead the "informal" communication channels (i.e. the rumour mill) move in to fill the vacuum. For me the interesting question becomes: given that conversations in your organization are happening all the time - what can you do to get positive conversations working for you?

Those are my highlights from the Melbourne conference - tune in next week for an overview of both conferences.

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Networking at the speed of Twitter: social media

Thanks to Matt O'Neill and the London Communicators and Engagement Group for the invitation to this week's April meetup in London and the chance to hear Euan Semple discuss the latest trends in social media.

I like to think I've fair put myself out there in social media terms: besides this blog, you need only have a look at the left hand column next to this post to see that I've taking part in LinkedIn, Xing, ecademy, Naymz and various Ning communities (Applied Improv, Solutions Focus in Organizations Linkup, Sustainable Leadership and Open Source Integral).

But twitter...well until now I've until recently been of two minds, asking myself: How much social media is enough? Or too much...? I was still unconvinced of the twitter's value proposition for my business.


Downsides of twitter

You may already share some of the concerns I had and understand the causes of my hesitation: the short-message format of "tweets" encourages a trend I find sinister, namely the mangling of language and grammar that was begun by mobile text-messaging and has now found its large-scale cousin in twitter.

I've also had a concern about the utility and purpose of twitter - by and large there seems quite a lot of inane, vacuous and valueless noise about the mundane trivialities of people's everyday lives, posted (as put in the article Fear of Twitter) as part of the present day's "look-at-me adolescent neediness, constant-contact media addiction, birdlike attention-span compression and vapidity to the point of depravity."

And to add to the dramas, there has lately been research warning that Twitter and Facebook could harm moral values as the phenomenon of instant/always-on messaging tempts us to act speedily (and emotionally) rather than morally (and rationally). In brain terms, these instantaneous media seem to promote or at least foster and environment in which limbic reactions (and re-tweets) are the norm. People are prone to action without consideration.

In sum, I've been conflicted.


A personal twitter tipping point: channels, concision, choices, currency

Then I had a conversation with Kay Ross in Hong Kong and it tipped me over from the blogosphere into the twittersphere. What did it was when Kay mentioned at least two business opportunities that came about as a result of twitter - that is, with people that she would not have met any other way and that twitter made possible.

This nicely illustrates the first salient point that I took away from this week's discussion with Euan and the London communicators: more channels means more chances to connect with other people whom I might not otherwise meet.

The corollary: different channels serve different purposes. I use LinkedIn, xing and ecademy more or less as calling cards to present my online CV with credentials, background and experience. Ning groups are a way for me to keep up on the events and people associated with particular communities of practice and interest. And I use this blog to share insights and content with a broader community.

The question for me was: would twitter simply duplicate efforts or could it be a useful and complementary application?

The answer to this is the second aspect of twitter that I find useful: it requires concision. Tim Ferriss' outstanding piece on how to use twitter without twitter using you, including his insight that twitter's best use is as a micro-blogging platform - a quick and concise way to share info and ask questions of my network without writing an email or writing a blog post.

As the title of his post also suggests, and a point that was made clear in Euan's talk as well, the explosion of twitter and all preceding forms of social media makes it all the more important to make choices about how much content I post and consume. With social media the brakes are off and constant streams of content are more than ever the norm. Anyone who's ever emerged from endless surfing wondering what happened to the day can attest to the stream-of-consciousness quality of trolling about on the Net.

At base, however, it's about priority-setting; if one lacks direction and purpose, procrastination can as easily happen online as in the kitchen rummaging for snacks. And if you're really not so into hearing about someone's updates on location and activities, you have the choice to turn it off or ignore it. So there is a case to be made for taking personal responsibility - just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use/see it.

As for keeping current with people, Joel Comm, makes the case that twitter "goes to the core of one of our most important needs...connecting with others of our species." But does the currency that "Twit Power" offers really stem from sharing inane details about favourite donut flavours and whether I've shaved today, or is there some onus on me as a micro-blogger to provide some value to the folks who follow my content?

The conclusion I've drawn is that if I am adding to the information stream I want to add things of value and potential interest to others, to be the signal that people seek out rather than the noise they filter.

So I've taken into account the potential downsides and, on the basis of the above four factors (channels, concision, choices, currency) I have now been twittering for a short while.

I should add: online social networking is different in character from the kind of face-to-face networking that's behind my current travels and enables much of my work. More about that in an upcoming post!
TM

Group Genius and the genesis of ideas

To continue the Book Review post below of Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, here are the 10 factors that Sawyer suggests enable Group Flow:

1) Group has a well-understood goal

2) They engage in close listening

3) People have complete concentration

4) Being in control – having a sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness

5) Blending egos – working collaboratively not competitively

6) Equal participation, informed by comparable skill levels

7) Familiarity with performance styles of other group members

8) Communication that’s spontaneous and ongoing (i.e. café/lunchroom talks)

9) Use “Yes, and…” thinking to accept offers and extend and build on them

10) The potential for failure and the value of rehearsals

And in answer to the question, “what is the best balance of planning and improvisation?” Sawyer devotes a chapter to “Organizing for Improvisation,” where he offers another top-ten list of the secrets of collaborative organizations:

1) Keep many irons in the fire – innovative companies experiment with lots of low-cost projects on the go, responding to what emerges

2) Create a Department of Surprise – look for ways to repurpose apparently failed experiments by finding them a home elsewhere in the organization

3) Build space for creative conversation – more on this below

4) Allow time for ideas to emerge – deadlines amp up stress and kill creativity; you can’t rush creativity because it needs incubation time

5) Manage the risks of improvisation – define the right amount of time taken away from other projects, the sheer number of ideas generated and balance with the need for structure and planning

6) Improvise at the edge of chaos – not too rigid to prevent creative emergence, not too loose as to results in complete chaos

7) Manage knowledge for innovation – capture the innovations that emerge improvisationally and make sure other parts of the organization can benefit from the creative sparks

8) Build dense networks – keep groups small enough to effectively interact, ca. 150-200 people (the size of the earliest human societies, and still the ideal size of group to effectively manage changes, including those required in creative processes)

9) Ditch the org chart – break down the silos and get people working across business units to cross-pollinate ideas and discover latent creative forces

10) Measure the right things – instead of spend on R&D or number of patents registered, measure the health of your social networks in the organization to find out just how well people are interacting and how well information is diffused.

I would flesh out a couple of these points in particular as follows. On point #3 (building space for creative conversation), it’s absolutely crucial if you expect people to be creative that you give them an environment that says to the brain: “it’s OK to be creative here”. As an example, Google got this right in their Zurich office design. As the waggish final slide suggests, creativity rarely emerges from cubicle farms.

One other idea that I think is worth highlighting from the list is a combination of points 2, 7, 8, 9 and 10 – the concept that innovative solutions created in one part of an organization can have unexpected and novel applications in other areas to solve problems that would otherwise go unsolved. To put it in a wider context: When I interviewed the Dutch cross-cultural business thinker Fons Trompenaars he pointed out that a surprisingly large number of innovations come from other countries and only appear new because no one ever thought to view things quite that way before. One of the best examples I've seen lately of this kind of innovation came from author Dan Pink, who's understood the lesson well with his latest book, Johnny Bunko published in the manga format popularized in Japan, a first in the English-speaking world and a product perfectly pitched for a the meaning-hungry Gen-Y market:

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.