This blog is about the relationship between organizations and the people who work for them. And, it’s dedicated to the millions of people around the world who go to work every day wanting to do a great job.
Collaboration
Our preoccupation with innovation. Is it just “lipstick on a pig”?
I was walking through the McGill University campus the other day and noticed a poster that described the invention of the Kellogg cornflake. It reminded me again of how chance has led to some of the most innovative creations of the past century: vulcanized rubber [think tires], Post-it notes, Teflon, mauve [yes, and a must read on this], the x-ray, superglue, stainless steel, and microwave ovens [for more]. But, there’s more than happenstance and chance or even serendipity, to these breakthrough events. There was the ‘accident’ and then there was insight.
Virtually every organization I know is trying to find ways to encourage and capitalize on innovation. Big and small, customer or operationally-focused innovation is the new ‘silver bullet’; a “key growth lever”.
What are they doing organizationally to increase the potential for ‘chance’ and insight?
Well, they’re benchmarking. They’re designing new workspaces to support innovation – atriums and agoras, open offices, whiteboard walls and basketball hoops. Mimicking the Google and Apple campuses in the hope that they will inspire new ways of thinking. They’re giving employees access to more and more collaborative tools and creating opportunities through internal innovation challenges.
But most of these same organizations – whether they are white collar knowledge workers or blue collar labourers – are designed to produce widgets. It’s the nature of the work and the day-to-day deliverables. The design of the overall business operation is more like a production line in a sausage factory than a research and development team in a laboratory.
Are we just “putting lipstick on a pig”? Or are these changes – especially in older traditional businesses – really delivering the promise?
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Google Glass at work!?
There’s a lot of interest, OK hype, around Google Glass. Let’s face it, the futuristic glasses are pretty cool looking just as a fashion accessory, but add in all the power of a smart phone and well it’s a pretty compelling offer.
Here are some of the features in the current prototypes:
- Responds to voice commands
- Answers questions [since it syncs through the net it means you can search the net - it's a Google product after all]
- Translates
- Has GPS
- Takes and shares photographs and live video
- Sends and receives text messages and emails
- Provides digital voice assistance that is customized to your personal habits [e.g. weather, traffic]
All this in a range of fashion colours!
At least one of my luckier, dare I say it geekier, friends [Mitch Joel] has already had a chance to try the Glass. His take: ”I think this will blow people away.” I’m pretty sure we can expect that by the end of 2013 we’ll start seeing the Glass on others if we’re not lucky enough to have one ourselves.
So, here’s my question: What impact will Google Glass have on the workplace? You know it will, so it’s definitely not too soon to start thinking about the potential and planning for the future!
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A workplace with soul
I first heard about Building 20 at MIT when I read Jonah Lehrer’s article “Groupthink. The brainstorm myth” in the New Yorker just over a year ago. According to Lehrer this huge ["two hundred and fifty thousand square feet, on three floors"] and un-designed, temporary WWII building was “by the time it was finally demolished, in 1998, … a legend of innovation, widely regarded as one of the most creative spaces in the world. In the postwar decades, scientists working there pioneered a stunning list of breakthroughs, from advances in high-speed photography to the development of the physics behind microwaves. Building 20 served as an incubator for the Bose Corporation. It gave rise to the first video game and to Chomskyan linguistics.” Wow, that’s an incredible list of innovation!
In a commemorative publication, to mark the demolition, one of the headlines: A building with soul, caught my eye.
If we’re going to ask employees to stop telecommuting and come back into the office, then what kinds of places are we inviting them back to. Are they workplaces with soul? If not, is there anything we learn from Building 20?
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Telecommuting. The promise and the reality.
“We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.”
What? With that short message to all employees last week Yahoo opened the door to some pretty strong feedback from the blogosphere. Immediate reaction from outside has been pretty negative. And, one can imagine even stronger negative reaction from affected employees.
I think we can safely assume Yahoo has strong business reasons – beyond what was stated in the employee memo – for making what is a very bold announcement. From the business side of things, we know we’re never going back to 40 hour work weeks so one might wonder how Yahoo is going to pull this off. And in the coming days and weeks the implications of the decision on the business will be clearer.
In the meanwhile, let’s take this opportunity to think about telecommuting – the promise and the reality of telecommuting from an employee point of view.
Social technologies have made it easier and easier to work where, when and how we want. And that can be a very good thing.
But, is the choice of where, when and how to work really our choice? When you’re accessible 24/7/52, are you expected to be available 24/7/52? I certainly know of organizations where that is the expectation no matter what any handbooks say.
Are your human relationships – work, family and friends – enriched or diminished by the technology?
Is it easier or harder to get/be part of teams working to create meaningful outcomes for yourself, your organization, your community?
The Yahoo! policy, opens up the opportunity to think about the kind of places, choices and ways of working employees really want.
It’s just not as black and white as the initial reaction would have it. What do you think?
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The fall of the cubicle wall
First it was the Berlin wall. Now it’s the cubicle wall. Workspaces even in the most traditional environments – banks, insurance companies and law offices are changing. And they are changing in pretty radical ways. Shared work stations, open space and windows, tables, couches and banquettes instead of cubicles and enclosed offices. Even though the initial motivation of these organizations is cost cutting, according to an article in today’s Globe and Mail employees report an overwhelmingly positive experience and increased productivity.
Perhaps even more interesting, given the focus of this blog, is the implication for communication and change management. One would hope that there would be something equally inventive, but when faced with some issues “10% of negative comments are about noise and work behaviours that become distractions, the bank is doing training and distributing tip sheets about having consideration for others.” Good grief! I think the walls just went back up.
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Crowdsourcing. The next big step in management?
The first thing that crossed my desk this morning really caught my eye. Empowering patients. Crowdsourcing as the next big step in medicine!
And, just a few hours later, a second piece. This time an article about empowering amateur astronomers and crowdsourcing as the next big step in science.
So, what do you think? Empowering employees. Crowdsourcing as the next big step in management?
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When Yammer spreads like wild fire
A month ago a small team somewhere in the hinterland of your organization started using Yammer [insert the name of virtually any other internal social media]. It’s spreading like wild fire.
Employees love it. They’re able to find what they need, when they need it, to do a better job for their customers. They’re able to connect with each other across the global system like they never have before. And as the Chief Communication Officer you see the potential for better, more timely communication, more transparent decision taking, increased collaboration and a strengthened internal brand experience.
Your colleagues in the C-suite are divided in their opinions. Some love it for the business potential. Some don’t understand it. And a couple of very influential executives are adamant; they want to close it down… NOW!
You and your colleagues need to move fast. You know the genie is out of the bottle. To stop the use of Yammer now would send a very strong message to employees. One that flies in the face of your stated organizational values – transparency, innovation, collaboration. But to keep the flood gates open if there is a real security threat is irresponsible.
But wait. Not all security risks are created equal. Is the perceived risk about:
- employees sharing confidential/privileged information across the internal system, and/or
- leaking confidential/privileged information out from the internal system, and/or
- being hacked from the outside?
Each of these will have different levels of risk and different potential mitigation strategies. As an executive team, together you need to decide:
- how real is the threat – now and in the future?
- what actions can the organization take to decrease or eliminate the risk – now and in the future [e.g. technical?, process design? employee awareness and education]?
- if the benefits [increased productivity, innovation, reduced development costs, etc] out way the potential/perceived security risk?
Time is ticking.
Lesson – If it isn’t about Yammer, it will be about another social media. If it isn’t today it will be tomorrow. How do you prepare yourself and your executive team for the inevitable.
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Internal social strategy is no strategy at all
Not so long ago if you talked social and internal communication you’d be talking Christmas and retirement parties. Sadly, I’m not sure things have really changed all that much.
Despite a recent report from McKinsey Global Institute and the FastCompany article that followed and claimed: ”… social technologies stand to unlock from $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value… Two-thirds of the value unlocked by social media rests in “improved communications and collaboration within and across enterprises,” according to the report. Far from a distraction, in other words, social media proves a surprising boon to productivity.”
This huge potential stands in stark contrast to the reality of the organizations I’ve been speaking with lately where it is clear that there is no social media strategy for internal communication. Instead, they are relying on either trying to close down employee access to all things social media or on employee guidelines like these:
Former bad. Latter potential helpful and something we’ve discussed here before.
But, beyond that it seems whatever social is going on is ad hoc and depends to a large extent on two situations:
- a single leader somewhere in the organization taking a stand and closing down all other means of communicating as a team [e.g. One exec who said no to endless product training and emails. He started a wiki where team members could answer each others product questions and where he played an active role in 'curating' content to make sure it was the most up to date and accurate. It's working beautifully from both the team and the customer point of view]
- grass roots initiatives that spread like wildfire [e.g. a small team started using Yammer to connect to each other on internal questions, issues, a basic logistics. Within weeks it had spread through the whole organization. The question now is how to keep the executive from pulling the plug]
Now, I’m not against these hacks. As you know, quite the opposite. But, given the potential productivity gains cited by McKinsey isn’t it time to do more than rely on hacking?
Isn’t it time to recognize the value of connecting internally ? Isn’t it time to create an internal social strategy that creates the context for an integrated system-wide view that encourages and supports an approach to how our organizations live social internally?
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Lessons from the Olympics 2012 opening ceremony
The opening ceremony at the London Olympics cost an estimated $42M [US]. The production took years of planning, 1000s of professionals and 10,000 volunteers and livestock, involved artists of all kinds, designers, managers and trades to install 1000 of tons of equipment and materials and animate the whole thing. Just thinking about the logistics of such an undertaking is breathtaking.
At Simply Communicate, they recently reflected on “What the Olympic Opening Ceremony can teach corporate comms” in an interview with Adrian Smith. The full article is definitely worth a look, but there are three main lessons and a central idea that Adrien drew from the Olympics 2012 opening ceremony that I want to share [my words]:
- Have one vision for the creation
- Recruit and engage a range of experts and create an environment where people from a wide range of specialist disciplines [verticals] are able to bring their expertise and ideas to bear on the creation of the whole
- The “best” idea “wins” no matter where it comes from.
Adrian then goes on to his central idea. He argues for the fundamental role of design in corporate storytelling: ”There is a whole new generation of corporate communicators who do not know what a live event can do. And production companies are losing out because there is a generation that don’t know what design can deliver in terms of story and theatre. As time goes on there is a danger that this lack of theatre in corporate events will become the norm. I hope that the success of the Opening Ceremony may be a catalyst for people thinking about taking emotion and engagement from a live performance as opposed to a video on a website.”
What do you think? Are we as leaders and communications professionals too focused on the facts? Is it time to bring back the ‘emotion‘ and ‘engagement’ of live performance? Does design [and design thinking] have a place in corporate storytelling? Is it time for us to expand our storytelling palette?
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Decisions based on compromise
Sometimes compromise is a good thing. And sometimes… you end up with decisions that just don’t make sense.
What do you think? Open/closed office space concept or closed/open space concept?
Do you have any examples of compromise decisions gone wrong?
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Recent posts
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