E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

The Soft Skills of Collaboration and The Social Enterprise

Over at the BrainYard, my good friend, Rachel Happe, put together, just recently, a rather interesting and insightful blog post under the heading “Got Culture? Use It To Drive A Successful Social Business” where she comes to confirm what a whole bunch of us have been saying all along for a while now; that for an Enterprise to succeed in living social culture is going to play a key role at the same time that online communities will continue to be the major drivers of social software adoption, both inside and outside of the firewall. However, it won’t be easy. And it won’t take place overnight either. There will always be a good bunch of roadblocks, inhibitors and whatever other issues, like reluctance to change or fear to think and act differently, that would need to be addressed and all of those would be, pretty much, around augmenting your already existing corporate culture and values to address those concerns, as that social transformation continues to happen. The key question would be whether your business is well prepared to invest, heavily enough, in shaping up its own culture to re-adjust and become a truly Social Enterprise.

In that wonderful article Rachel offers some great help and very adequate suggestions on how to get the ball rolling. She eventually comes to talk about the stuff that most folks haven’t considered just yet in any open and transparent collaborative and knowledge sharing environment. The soft skills. Those skills that are hardly taught anymore when you are hired into a company and that, in most cases, are always treated, and considered, as a given. In short, once you joined the company collaboration is a natural task / activity and, by default, you are pretty good at it. Just like when they handed over your laptop, your mobile phone, your email address and that’s it! Off to work!

Well, it doesn’t work that way. Collaboration has always been a buzzword and a tough challenge to meet up by competing knowledge workers who have been brought up all along with mantra’s like “Knowledge is power” (So why should you share it, right? Sharing your knowledge will relinquish your power, don’t you think?). Nothing to do with social computing tools alone, really. It’s how most of us have been brought up in the corporate world for decades and why, despite all of that time, we still have to come to terms with a truly collaborative and an open knowledge sharing culture where Knowledge SHARED *is* power. That’s when things do really get interesting!

There is no doubt that effective collaboration that is happening amongst individuals, teams, networks and communities, as part of that social transformation of culture, process and people, is a key success factor to become a Social Enterprise. It’s also true that most knowledge workers out there “aren’t all naturally good at collaboration“, as Dan Keldsen would say, even though you may have enough elements to facilitate and enable that collaboration; in fact, most knowledge workers have never been trained, nor educated, on becoming powerful collaborators, specially, when being confronted with a good number of different collaboration personas and contexts . They have just been told that collaboration, specially in today’s virtual, distributed corporate world, is just the norm. It’s how we work, how we get stuff done; in short, how we become smarter at what we do. But is it really?

I am not sure what you folks would think about this, but, for a good few years, I have been missing, all along, plenty of helpful and relevant education resources, driven by HR, that would help knowledge workers understand collaboration for what it is and help facilitate their on boarding of collaborative and knowledge sharing tools in order to make the most out of it. Specially, since not all of us are true, natural collaborators. And, once again, here we have got social networking tools coming to the rescue and we still haven’t got that critical component of educating your own knowledge workforce about how, when, with whom, for what purpose and why collaboration needs to happen, and what would be the options available out there.

So Rachel offers three different approaches that would probably give you a good start to begin thinking about how you can make your own corporate culture much more open, transparent, engaged and nimble to embrace collaboration and social technologies and funny enough without making use of any of that! Again, touching base on the soft skills. Here you have got them listed, so that you can get an idea:

1. “Use evocative images to spur a detailed discussion of cultural norms and expectations
2. Use specific examples of online behaviours and statements to discover what’s culturally unacceptable, uncomfortable, neutral, and positive
3. Express the same context in different ways, using different tones and wording to determine tone vs. content comfort”

Corporate culture has always influenced collaboration. For better or for worse. And the same would pretty much apply to social software tools as well. I am sure that, by now, you folks would know about businesses whose cultures are not very keen on collaboration and knowledge sharing, and other companies where they thrive on collaboration, even with or without making use of social computing tools. The interesting thing is that, once again, social tools will provide us with a unique opportunity to decide whether we would want to influence culture to lead in the right direction, or keep making the very same mistake over and over again. The good thing is that it’s our choice. We get to decide how influential corporate culture is going to be for every business out there that wants to become a social enterprise. We get to decide how critical and paramount collaboration and sharing amongst groups is going to be from now onwards, because originally, and that was to be expected, social networking tools do facilitate, or even make it easier, for collaboration to take place.

Take IBM (My current employer), for instance. Traditionally, collaboration is a core part of our values. It’s in our genes, our DNA. It’s an integral part of who we are. Of course, we do have silos, as well. Who hasn’t? Some of them are actually valuable altogether, although probably the vast majority shouldn’t be there in the first place. Still it’s hard to imagine an IBM that doesn’t breathe collaboration and knowledge sharing over the course of decades (You may have heard about how the IBM Forums just recently marked their 40th year anniversary in the company). Well, our social transformation over the last few years has enabled us to take collaboration into a new level, one where we are breaking down those silos, at a rampant pace, although sometimes you still have the perception it doesn’t happen fast enough, when it is!, by encouraging fellow colleagues to continue to make use of social tools, both internal and external, to foster a much more open and collaborative work environment where there are hardly any hierarchies, structures, top-down mandates, etc. etc. Just a peer to peer collaborative effort where we are all learning day in day out how to make the best out of it.

And it is with that learning experience mentality put in place that I thought I would go ahead and close off this blog post sharing a short list of the commonest traits I have been exposed to from other fellow colleagues that could surely help any corporate culture become more collaborative and therefore address the needs to augment those soft skills. Starting with yours truly, by the way!, since you are constantly exposed to them as one faces the reality that in today’s business world we can no longer do our jobs alone. We always depend on other people, on their skills, their experiences, their know-how, their willingness to help out when you need it and so forth.

Mind you, we are talking about powerful characteristics here that have kicked in a rather complex multicultural environment across the board. But I am sure those would apply as well to other companies. IBM has got a presence in over 170 countries, with 400k employees, distributed in over 2000 offices, with 50% of its population with less than 5 years at IBM, with 73% of managers with remote employees reporting to them, and with over 40% of the entire workforce working mobile. Probably as complex as you can get, don’t you think?, and perhaps the perfect ground for virtual collaboration to flourish all over the place. So what are those common traits that powerful collaborators have been permeating across throughout the organisation, when using collaborative, knowledge sharing and social networking tools? Let’s see:

• Be a good listener: Indeed, most of the potential conflicts that can happen in a multicultural collaborative environment are happening because knowledge workers just simply don’t listen well enough. Sometimes it’s much better to listen, focus and pay attention to what’s been said than to utter words to just get your voice heard.
• Be innovative: Always be looking on the bright side of injecting innovation into everything you do. It’s those new, unexpected ways of doing things different that are so refreshing and empowering when collaborating with fellow colleagues.
• Be creative: Creative work is critical for every powerful collaborator out there. Creativity is a craft we all have, some folks develop it more than others, but it’s still an integral part of who we are, as human beings, so if we exercise our own creativity every day there is a great chance it will leave a mark over time difficult to forget. It will help spark more innovative ways for smart work to take place eventually.
• Be curious: This is one of my favourite characteristics in powerful collaborators when working in a complex, multicultural environment. Being healthily curious about those around you who you are collaborating with would make you much more focused, and keen on working together effectively. It’ll also help you understand how some things do work in some cultures and why they may not work in others. By you having an understanding of how others think you would be in a better position to collaborate more effectively. And vice versa, of course.
• Be confident: Absolutely! Every knowledge worker out there has been hired by their company in the first place, because they have got both the skills and experience to carry out their jobs and, secondly, because they are all hard working professionals. So, without hesitation, show that confidence. They need it, just as much as you do.
• Be polite: This is perhaps one of the most underestimated, yet most powerful and empowering, characteristics that keeps getting neglected, time and time again, in a corporate environment, and perhaps elsewhere, too! There is nothing out there that beats a heartfelt Thanks! for helping out those in need, for finding the right experts, for achieving together a common goal, etc. etc. Being polite can take you very far, whether when asking for help or even when giving it out. Try it!
• Be helpful: If I were to pick up what I think is the most significant and mind-blowing characteristic from the ones shared over here today for any collaborator out there, being helpful is probably as good as it gets. Always being willing to help others, even if you yourself are busy, too!, can help you build social trust amazingly fast and with very profound marks that everyone will remember when wanting to collaborate with you. You do it for them today, they do it for you tomorrow. In the open and transparent world of social networks, that’s how it works.
• Be authentic: Not much to say about this one, right? Don’t you think? When collaborating with others and using social tools, why pretend to be who you are not? Why bother playing a role that you, yourself, don’t even feel comfortable with in the first place? Authenticity is a key trait from the open Social Web, pretending to be someone or something else, would only harm your online reputation over time. Just be you. It’s enough.
• Be passionate: Of course, I couldn’t close this list off with another one of my favourites. If you have managed to take some time to observe and watch those powerful collaborators around you, you would see how, for most of them, passion, or being passionate about a particular topic, runs through their veins. It’s what drives them to work; it’s what gets them motivated to share their knowledge, collaborate, learn and inspire others. It’s that passion that drives them in the long run to want to build long lasting personal business relationships with those folks who they share a common affinity with. Don’t neglect your passion; don’t let it go unnoticed; don’t feel bad, or embarrassed, for showing it, even if others make fun of it. You know what? They just wish they all were as passionate for what you do as you are… Seriously. Let it shine! Let it carry you into becoming a powerful collaborator yourself.

And, finally, the last one of those traits that surely adds further up to those soft skills that help knowledge workers becoming much more efficient and effective at what they do and how they collaborate with others, and also one of my favourites: be yourself. Allow others to trust you for who you are and for what you are good at. Honesty, flexibility, understanding, openness and transparency, amongst several others, can pay big dividends over time. Being yourself, showing that hard working professional you are will only reflect back into others always wanting to work with you together. Because, after all, who doesn’t want to mix and mingle with passionate top performers, right?

Now, I am sure you may have yourself a good bunch of additional traits, characteristics, etc. etc. you may have experienced or learned about from other powerful collaborators out there, or even yourself. Care to share and add further up into the conversation with an additional comment or two and let us know what would make open collaboration stick within your organisation to become a Social Enterprise?

Ira Glass on Storytelling and Creative Work

One of the reasons why I really, really, like the Social Web is because, every so often, you get to bump into those little gems that most folks don’t notice, but that when going through them you pretty much feel they are so special that you just can’t help but re-sharing it again, hoping that others would bump into those precious little things and feel just as inspired are you are after watching them. Well, last week I had another one of those moments and now that I have managed to get some time to blog about it, I thought I would go ahead and point you to two minutes of pure gold: Ira Glass on Storytelling.

You gotta love creative work. It’s probably one of those human traits that we couldn’t possibly live without. It’s part of our genes, our DNA; perhaps one of the several other things that make us unique. But the truth is that, in most cases, it doesn’t just happen. It requires lot of effort, energy and hard work, and perhaps feeling totally inspired altogether as well. Well, if you are very much into creative work then, in whatever form or shape, this is probably one of those blog entries that I think you would enjoy reading further …

Last week, over in Google Plus, I shared a post to a rather short video clip titled “Ira Glass on Storytelling“, where you can certainly witness some of that creativity I mentioned above already. It’s just a short video clip of a little bit under two minutes where Ira Glass himself gets to talk about the process of putting together stories, what it takes, what it involves, both from a process perspective, to how it actually works out, about doing some creative work, and how in some cases, perhaps most cases, things don’t tend to work out all right, at least, in the way we expected it to be and for a rather long period of time. The rest is just an absolutely delightful account that pretty much describes why the whole process, even while you are still learning, or why you are failing to some degree, is very much worth while. And why we just need to keep pushing further along…

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

The wonderful thing though, for me, from sharing this post amongst my Plus networks, was that one of my good friends, Rachel Happe, left a great comment where she eventually pointed out to the entire video clip, which is actually an interview with Ira himself, divided in four parts (Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV), where he gets to talk about Storytelling, the power of the anecdote, what are those moments of reflection while telling stories, how we can go out there look for great stories, why some times we may not be as creative as we thought we were (And lots of practical tips on how to overcome those roadblocks), how we have got that special ability for good taste and for getting rid of cr*p, and how we should use it as often as we possibly could. To then finally finish it all off sharing a couple of pitfalls that people seem to make when putting together stories, using whatever media, and which he advises on avoiding time and time again… But I will let you go and find out more about those two for yourself by watching Part IV of the interview. Here is Part I to get you started:

Some pretty amazingly inspiring stuff on that short interview for sure, that, all in all, lasts for about 17 minutes. The truly fascinating stuff though was that while going through it, and thinking about the various different phases of my own creative work, I couldn’t help agreeing big time with plenty of the advice and great tips that Ira offers in order to not just find some really good stories, but putting them together nicely with that top-notch piece of creativity we all seem to have and which definitely needs further development. Even at that stage where we may not be sure anymore whether it is worth it or not, which Ira establishes at around the 2 year mark of having started it.

Too funny that, when I started with my own blogging, both internal and external, I went through that very same phase, twice!, and around the very same timeframe. Those two years he mentions! Pretty soon though, in October and December this year, it will be my 6th and 8th year anniversary of blogging and somehow I feel I may have gone pass that initial roadblock, although from time to time it keeps coming back. I guess that’s why you may have seen how some times there are some quiet periods where I don’t blog just as often.

I know as well that my blog posts feel pretty much like stories, at least, that’s what plenty of you folks keep telling me, and lengthy ones, too, for sure! (By the way, trying to work a lot on that one at the moment to tame the beast !), but somehow, somewhere in there, and every now and then, I sense that I need to go ahead and enter a moment of reflection and figure out whether that creative work needs shaping up, rework, further enhancements or just pretty much carry on with it. It is in those moments that I realise that, while watching Ira’s interview and thinking about my own blogging style, every now and then, I still enjoy, very much so!, going through this wonderful presentation on “The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging … And When To Use Each One” to try to figure out whether I may have shifted focus into something else, i.e. another blogging style, and figure out the reasons why.

It’s over 4 years old, but still as relevant today, as it was back then. That’s why I wanted to finish off this blog post on The Inspiring Video of the Week with that additional helpful tip on finding and figuring out your own blogging style and voice, because “[...] your taste is still killer!” After all, who doesn’t want their own blogging to “[...] have the special thing that we wanted it to have“, right?

The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging … And When To Use Each One

(I was hoping to be able to post this blog entry yesterday evening, but, instead, I think those of us who were lucky enough to watch it, AND live it! (Even on TV), we have probably witnessed one of the most insanely electrifying Finals in tennis that you can ever imagine! Over 4 hours of intense, relentless, never-ending, brilliant, talented and highly spirited fighting, that eventually had to have a winner. Another clash of the titans, for sure! One thing confirmed though, once a nadalista, always a nadalista! Vamos Rafa!!!)

Welcome to the Social Enterprise Awakening!

There is no doubt that this week will probably be remembered for a long while, in the Social Enterprise space, at least, as one that served as the tipping point of embracing a new dynamic within the corporate world that is slightly different than what we have been witnessing all along with Social Business in the last couple of years. As we are wrapping it up, I am more and more convinced now that there are a good number of subtle differences between Social Business and Social Enterprise and somehow the main key differentiator between one and the other has got to do with a simple idea, yet with a tremendous powerful meaning: Social Revolution.

If you have been reading a couple of the blog entries I wrote this week, and, most importantly, a good bunch of the links I shared in those articles, I think we are witnessing that Awakening 2.0 phase I mentioned back then that is helping us all, knowledge workers, realise how this is our moment. Our true moment. Our opportunity to re-find and re-define our purpose in our workplaces, our wanting-to-make-a-difference moments; in short, experience that self-discovery journey of what we really want to do with our work lives, because, whether we like it or not, that’s also going to reflect on our own personal lives altogether. We now, finally, feel a whole lot more engaged, empowered, trustworthy, appreciated and … respected. And all of that thanks to the revolution social computing within the enterprise has, at long last, provoked within the business world, as well as in our society, as we know it. Something that my good friend, the always inspiring and very thought-provoking, Deb Lavoy, put together, beautifully, with this golden nugget in a recent blog post:

“If the industrial revolution’s idea of a great business was one in which every role, process and activity was well defined and controlled by management, social business is one in which every employee and customer are aligned around a common purpose“

To then follow it up with this other one that I, too, feel rather identified with:

“Social Business is one that recognizes that their mission is engaging hearts and minds to achieve excellence. Social Business is about respecting people”

Deb’s superb article under the suggestive heading of “Could E2.0 really mean Enlightenment 2.0?“, and which I strongly encourage you all to read through it as I am sure it would leave a wonderful taste just before the weekend kicks off for everyone, finishes off with a final remark that would be very suitable, in my opinion, for both Social Business (= Customer focus) and Social Enterprise (Workforce focus) and the kind of impact they both have, whether internal or external, with the emergence of social networking at the workplace:

“A Social Business is a business that respects and profits from the complexity and unlimited potential of people“

But it’s not the only article we have seen this week covering this very same topic of the “Social Revolution within the Enterprise“. Take a look, for instance, into this other brilliantly written blog post by another good friend, Bill Ives, under the title “The Gig Economy – Intrapreneurship – A New Style of Work“ which pretty sums up this shift in the way we work with this rather inspiring quote as well:

“[...] one of the ways that things have changed is now workers are much more transparent about their work and having more fun at the same time. We are out from under the hierarchical cloud imposed by the industrial revolution. It is easier to do this as an enterprise of one that is connected to many organizations as I have experienced“

Once again, both themes of Observable Work and Intrapreneurship coming along nicely to help us define the future of the workplace. Our workplace. One that it is for us to define and shape up over time, according to how empowered, and engaged, we feel in doing what we love doing: our jobs. But there is more…

Check out this other great piece, over at Forbes, put together by David Kirkpatrick, under the heading “Social Power and the Coming Corporate Revolution” to see how, once again, the business world is about to be hit, without remedy, by that thing called the tsunami of the Social Web and what it has meant for our society as we know it in helping transform how we live and fully embrace those 2.0 core values of openness, transparency, engagement, trust, respect, and, above all, sharing. Another worth while read, for sure, to have a good glimpse of what’s to come, specially, based on the good number of stories from companies who have already embraced such social transformation and those that are facilitating it and what’s meant for them all along, containing as well, perhaps, one of my all time favourite quotes by another good friend, John Hagel, on such a key important trait for every single business transaction amongst knowledge workers and business people: Trust!

“Trust is built by sharing vulnerability [...] The more you expose and share your problems, the more successful you become. It’s not about the top executive dictating what needs to be done and when, it’s about providing individuals with the power to connect”

Absolutely spot on comment on what I truly believe the social revolution for the Social Enterprise would be all about. And talking about John himself there is another really interesting article that I would want to point you folks to, so that you can have a look and find out plenty more about why I mentioned above that I feel we have reached that tipping point of that internal social transformation provoked by social computing. In “John Hagel on Empowerment, Management Fears, and Social Software in Business” Adam Ludwig conducts a rather insightful interview with John, where the latter gets to talk about how we have already started the transition from being managed to being lead; to have leaders, instead of managers, acting as servants helping facilitate and get the most, and the best, out of their knowledge workers; to move away from the traditional hierarchical structures where a few told the vast majority what to do and what to think, to an environment where work gets regulated and done by both networks and communities, helping facilitate that transition from knowledge stocks into knowledge flows.

His description of how empowering it is to lower the center of gravity in decision making and problem solving is absolutely fantastic! Just as well as how social software tools help lower down tremendously both transaction and friction costs allowing knowledge workers to become more productive by solving business exceptions much faster, without having to rely anymore on traditional tools, which, on their own, probably made handling exceptions even worse over time! (Hint: email!)

Finally, one of my all time favourite ideas, the one that keeps me coming back to work, day in day out, that John gets to share on that interview, and which I think is the main culprit of what we are witnessing with the social revolution within the enterprise, on empowering and engaging your employee workforce, is passion. Passion of your knowledge workforce about what they do, what they believe in and the connections and relationships they have been able to build over the course of time as a result of it. Connecting people with a common affinity / passion for a particular topic, specially, work related, is a very powerful thing, as John mentions: “Passionate people are deeply motivated to improve themselves and drive themselves to the next level of performance“.

Now, I am not too sure whether we are entering a new era of Enlightenment 2.0, as Deb suggests in her blog post, that I referenced above. Perhaps it may well be so. What I do know though is that this week we have just opened up the door towards a much more socially integrated, empowering, open, transparent, engaging and nimble enterprise and that has got to mean something.

There is no way back. Welcome to the Era of the Awakening 2.0!

Have a good one everyone!