Meaning Conference Highlights – A Collaborative Future #lawwe

4 thoughts on “Meaning Conference Highlights – A Collaborative Future #lawwe”

  1. Hi Luis, I would like to point out two aspects from your speech:
    1. E-mail has become a barrier and it is abused e.g. “cover my …” tool
    2. We have to use open collaboration methods and tools in order to convince our network to take our message/opinion/proposal through the hierarchy and correct the situation

    The way I “imagine” the point 2 in a big corporate environment is: try the bottom-up approach with the people that are “doing” the job and know what’s wrong. This means work with them to find together how to correct the situation and make an “army” on your side which will hinter any hierachy… Please, comment in case I misinterpreted your message.

    However, in many big corporations the “Pyramid” structure is missing… The majority of the basis of the Pyramid is outsourced elsewhere. This creates corporations with a “rhombus” with an enormous middle management “head of… VP of… blah blah” without having any employee (or very few) that knows “how” to do the things they decide.

    My question is: How do you get on-board on social business this middle managment on a bottom-up when you do not really have an “army”?
    You should understand that in most cases the middle management between the e-mails of point 1…

    What is your view? Any ideas?
    Aristeidis

    PS: I will add to my list this event in case there is a second version in 2013.

    1. Hi Aristeidis, thanks much for dropping by and for the wonderful commentary. Greatly appreciated! You are spot on with your first conclusion on bottom up with an “army”. It’s been all along a movement about not only just stopping the use of a particular tool to collaborate more effectively in favour of other social networking tools, but it’s been also a transformation process of work habits, of mindsets, of mentalities, where people would open up, become more transparent, trustworthy, share what they know in an open manner for everyone else to enjoy and benefit from. It’s about showing empathy, caring for one another vs. fighting one another, like we would typically do through email when we engage on those silly political and bullying games. We just don’t need that, I am afraid. We have got work to do, and helping each other become more effective at what we do is what’s at the heart of what I started with #lawwe 5 years ago.

      With regards to your comment about getting Middle Management on board there are two options in there: 1. They remain being the bottleneck and do nothing (Easy way out for them) or 2. They become the change and part of the army at the same time. If you look into it their role is critical, but that role is one of being what I call Social Bridges. They can be the big connectors of the organisation putting in touch that “army” with the rest of the executive chain. They can help host, promote, facilitate conversations where decision making is shared, where collaborating on specific goals happens in equal terms and where they transform themselves from managers with a command and control mentality into true leaders facilitating the change.

      There are plenty of middle managers who are already living the change, they walk the talk, they lead by example. There are some others who don’t. For the latter the “army” will continue to do one single thing: move on, with or without them. That’s the whole mantra behind Open Business that I will be shifting to from here onwards. Much more interesting and exciting altogether to help re-define the workplace of the future.

      PS. Yes, it will be a worth while event to attend, for sure! Perhaps we can meet up there F2F, if not sooner! 🙂

      1. Hi Luis, thank you very much for the very good reply! Social Bridges… is a nice to create concept. I will keep trying to create them 😉

        After some second thoughts I also find very important the real values of the company and how much they are actually respected. Company values = who gets promoted, rewarded or let go… In others words are those who follow the values, the ones who get promoted and respected???
        Looking around I came accross the presentation of Netfix in this article and I wanted to share with you:
        http://gigaom.com/2013/01/29/netflix-company-culture/

        It focuses in the culture and how it can be sustained…
        What do you think?

        1. H Aristeidis, thanks a lot for reaching out and for the follow-up! Apologies that it took me a little while to go through your feedback, including that wonderful link to quite an interesting, refreshing and relevant presentation on corporate values where Open Business seems to be fitting rather nicely as part of those core values around openness, transparency, trust, engagement and so forth. I think this quote “In others words are those who follow the values, the ones who get promoted and respected???” is just right at the heart of the matter and why every corporate culture would need to do a rather brutal exercise of introspection to figure out where they stand in the world of Open Business, because certain models of doing business that we have been having in the past I don’t think they would be surviving for much longer anymore, at least, if we judge from what’s been happening in the last 5 to 8 years…

          Companies like Netflix (Thanks much for sharing that link, by the way!), and a few others are surely raising the bar of how companies should operate and live their values. It’s a matter of whether all of the other ones would want to follow suit … or not 🙂

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