A Converted Skeptic is a Powerful Thing

Pre-S: I am at training this week for my firm.  I hope to post daily, but I unfortunately can’t make any promises.

I would think that most people who have actively fought the social-software-in-the-enterprise battle will tell you that we are really in the business of evangelizing.  It’s sad to say, but really what we are doing is akin to building a religion, winning over one convert at a time.

So last might, I heard a motivational speaker-type and he said something that caught my ear: A converted skeptic is a powerful thing.  And I don’t think that this applies to anything in business more than it does for social software in the enterprise.  As a trainer/blogger, I like to think that part of my job is to win converts; and yes, I often get people in my trainings that are just there because they are told to show up, not because they want to learn or perhaps change the way they work.  However, and I think many will agree, if you can manage to convince just 1 in 10 or so of these folks that social software is worth a shot, I believe that I’ve had a successful session.

So, I suppose Lipkin did his job.  I’m now motivated to take these people on in a conscious way.  Bring on the skeptics and I’ll try to send you away an enthusiastic believer.  Nobody tells a better story than the guy who can start, “Now I’m a major convert and I thought this stuff was all crap”.  Because in the end, I’m not going to be able to talk to everybody about social software (and since probably only about 10 people read this blog, none of which are in my organization), so I need to train an army of social software believers to do the evangelizing for me.

For the good of the organization!

A colleague here at the conference I’m currently attending said a wonderful little phrase that he uses those who use the “openness will lead to destruction” argument against social software in the enterprise.  Since he works in the US Intelligence Community as opposed to private industry, he called them “Patriotic Death claims”, essentially implying that if we share information, people (spies and sources, specifically) will die because openness will blow their cover.

First off, I don’t want any readers to get the idea that I don’t take these claims seriously.  I do recognize that there are risks to sharing information, and in the Intelligence Community, those risks are especially high.  However, people too often hide behind this excuse rather than working to mitigate risk or offering constructive solutions.

And this isn’t unique to the Intelligence Community.  Opening up information inside of organizations is of course uncomfortable and I have heard variations of this argument when working to introduce social software into my own organization.  “If we share all this information, our company will suffer”.

Now, it took me just a few minutes to type that part of this entry; what I’m struggling with is what exactly this tells me.  I guess the most obvious is that people tend to use the same excuses in government and commercial organizations.  Maybe the question I should think about is how to get through this excuse: how do you respond when you hear it?  Or do you: might this person just be one of those that you write off as someone who’s just not going to contribute, no matter how much effort you devote to winning them over.

I tend to think that most of the people who claim that universal information sharing = organizational suicide can be converted: most probably are just uncertain, unsure, and uncomfortable with the radical change required to adapt to Web 2.0.  This can be overcome with effective communication/engagement, as well as clear demonstration of value.  As for those other people who are insincere in their arguments and are indeed just hiding behind excuses, I tend to think that there’s no easy path to conversion.  Rather, these folks can only be converted with time, demonstrated success and value, wider adoption (forcing them to join the crowd or be lost in the shuffle), and management direction.

After thinking through this problem, I guess my conclusion, at least for now, is that they may not be a huge significance to be found on this topic.  Perhaps this is a significant thought in itself.