Technical Solutions to Management Problems

Another of the most common issues I hear as a collaboration consultant is that managers are worried about people wasting their time with social software, effectively implying that their workers will be less productive because they will be gardening, blogging, or messing around with social networking sites. However, to me, this issue is closely related to the issues highlighted by Chris Rasmussen over at Brian Drake’s blog:

If someone posts an inappropriate poster on the wall, you don’t ban the wall. You discipline the person.”

To me (as I commented on Brian’s blog when it was reposted), I think that the issues of inappropriate content and “time wasting” are unfairly associated with social software, as if they are new problems. Instead, people are just hiding behind these issues instead of engaging in actual conversation about the costs and benefits of social software.

Not a New Problem

Here comes a shocker: people wasting time at work is  not a new problem.  People have been reading the paper, playing office sports, making personal calls, etc for a very long time.  The Internet has long been the target of all sorts of campaigns as a time waster… but there’s really no conclusive studies on the internet and productivity.  But lots of stuff like this …

Not only are these problems not new, they are actually better handled in social software environments, because of the transparency. So while someone might spend all their time doing crossword puzzles or reading sports news or sending personal emails, it can be hard to detect that activity. However, social software makes it easier: if someone’s playing on Facebook all day, you can take a look at their profile and activity and see that they wrote on 24 different people’s wall this afternoon. Likewise, if productivity is falling and you notice they are working in the wiki a lot, you can look at the contributions to see that he/she isn’t just gardening or creating frivolous content.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, managers should not fear social software applications; they should learn about them and work to understand how they can help their employees qualitatively improve their work using these new tools. After all, I advocate social software as a better way to do something, not as a cure all (so if it’s not gonna help you, don’t force it…) . It’s important that leaders understand benefits (not just the risks!) of social software and how it can improve productivity and quality of work.

Business Process and Knowledge Work

Pre-S: I found this tweet from a few weeks back that I had wanted to write about. I had this thought about two weeks ago, and for the life of me, I can’t remember if it was my own thought or if it was somebody else’s thought. If it is straight lifted from someone else, then I apologize.

Often in my job as a management consultant, I hear the about the need for a defined business process. As I sat around thinking, why do we care so much about business processes? A working hypothesis is something like this: Business process is a manufacturing-era, factory line idea and today’s knowledge work has little need for such defined processes.

Yes I understand the need for standard processes in management and HR functions and the like, but too often I’m asked to come up with business processes for people doing deeply analytic work. And frankly, I’ve come to think that this is largely in vain. Who am I to tell someone how they should think and how they should do their work?

I like to blog in order to get my thoughts on paper. That’s my process. Of my colleagues in my own organization, I’m probably fairly unique. Someone else likes to stand in front of a white board and work it out by themselves? If it works, then who cares.

It goes both ways: I do advocate the use of social software, mainly for other benefits (thinking in public, collaboration, free knowledge management, social networking, etc), but I have run into plenty of people who think I am crazy for doing work in the wiki. But really, why does it bother them that my business process is different than theirs? (bother may be the wrong word…)

Bottom line: people are going to use tools that they find useful. My tool selection is social software. The best I can do is talk about how I use it, why I find it helpful, and what benefits it may have to them. Designing a business process probably isn’t likely to drive them into the open, but rather just cause them to keep doing business as usual and add a copy and paste step at the end of their old process.

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.

Training is Unimportant

A colleague of mine recently posed the question to the broader group at the social software conference I’m currently attending: “Why do we think training is so important?” His basic point was that, as a social software trainer, he’s lucky if 10% of users he trains actually touch the tool again.  Having trained a large number of users in social software as well, I am unfortunately and unhappily going to have to agree.

I’ll caveat this statement by saying that yes, it is totally possible that I am just not a good teacher.  I am not trained as an instructor, but I am one of the two foremost authorities on wikis in my company, so the role falls on me.  (That last sentence, especially the last half, scares me a bit).

ANYWAY, why are we in the enterprise convinced that training is so damn important when it comes to socializing and implementing Web 2.0?  There is no Wikipedia training class for new users to take before they start to contribute to articles.  Nobody ever taught Anil Dash or JP how to blog. So why is it that we have to teach Joe Consultant or Jill Manager how to do these things?

Well I think the answer is two fold.  One, I think it’s because we are stuck in the traditional integration mindset, where software training is a key component of unveiling a new capability to the enterprise.  Two, I think it’s because we actually do need training, but training of an entirely different kind.  It’s really about awareness: awareness of the tool, awareness of the benefits, and awareness of the change required to work in the new social software environment. Over the last few trainings that I’ve run, I’ve tried to adjust my training style/focus away from coding in the wiki towards talking about the benefits and such.

I tend to think that the benefits of social software are evident, when in actuality, they are not always clear.  Especially in the case of new implementations, where the content in these environments is really lacking and the value may be limited.  So where I see value in being able to connect what I’m thinking if I’m working in a wiki alone, others aren’t likely to do so without a clear demonstration of value.