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Schumpeter: The French way of work
« In fact studies suggest that the problem with French employees is less that they are work-shy, than that they are poorly managed. According to a report on national competitiveness by the World Economic Forum, the French rank and file has a much stronger work ethic than American, British or Dutch employees. They find great satisfaction in their work, but register profound discontent with the way their firms are run. »
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Two-fifths of employees, according to a 2010 study by BVA, a polling firm, actively dislike their firm’s top managers.
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Whereas two-thirds of American, British and German employees say they have friendly relations with their line manager, fewer than a third of French workers say the same. Many employees, in short, agree with Ms Maier, who recommends that chief executives be guillotined to the tune of “La Carmagnole”, a revolutionary song.
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If French work attitudes are out of the ordinary, French management methods are also unusual. The vast majority of chief executives of big firms hail from one of a handful of grandes écoles, such
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Although the grandes écoles are superbly meritocratic€”candidates compete against each other in a series of gruelling exams€”their dominance of corporate hierarchies makes workplaces much less so.
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A study of seven leading economies by TNS Sofres in 2007 showed that France is unique in that middle management as well as the lower-level workforce is largely disengaged from their companies.
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For those farther down the ladder, French companies are hierarchical, holding no truck with Anglo-Saxon notions of “empowerment”. And bosses are more distant than ever.
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There are important exceptions. Danone, a food-products firm, is one. It has made a big effort to promote people solely on competence,
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The 2006 merger of Alcatel, a French telecoms-equipment firm, and Lucent, an American one, created a less hierarchical group. Alcatel-Lucent even encourages teleworking, uncommon in France because it means trusting workers not to goof off.
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French bosses badly need to follow in the footsteps of Danone and other modernisers. If they try and fail, then at least they can blame the workers.
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John Hagel on Social Technology Adoption | Collaborative Planning & Social Business
« John Hagel III co-author of the book “The Power of Pull” was invited on stage for a discussion with Dr. Pehong Chen, CEO of BroadVision about how companies are (or are not) adopting of social technologies at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Santa Clara yesterday. I am a big fan of him and his latest book, so I took notes on how he sees companies resolving these difficulties. »
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JH: Most companies are still trying to figure enterprise 2.0 / social business technology out. They don’t know what it is about, nor how to adopt it.
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JH: Companies are most successful when they realize that tech by itself will not achieve anything. Instead, companies have to change the way that they work.
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Surveys of executives show that 2/3 of executives are resistant to the use of social technology. More than 70% of employees as well. Part of this is just the tendency to stick with the familiar. Others resist because think it is added work.
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Change management process is not a rational process. Instead, it is a political process. It is important to understand that it is about strengthening the allies, and neutralizing the enemies
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We came up with the notion of “metrics that matter”. Different metrics matter at different levels of the organization.
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It is better to focus on operating metrics.
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Ask an executive “where do people spend their time?” 60-70% of time is spent on exceptions, and this generally not very visible. These are cases that have been thrown out of the automated system €” and you have to resolve
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What is social good for? Finding the right people, finding the right information, and getting them to work together
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The other advantage, often underestimated, is making the invisible visible. Think about exceptions: because they are manually handled, there are no records. Executives can not tell you precisely how many exceptions they have.
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The big issue in knowledge management is that the knowledge that is most valuable is in people’s heads. This means that the real job is about connecting people.
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If the work style by nature is sharing, then everything is connected, and no additional work. But how do you change your behavior?
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Passionate people are more connected. They instinctively reach out. A passionate employee is twice as connected. These passionate employees are more likely to connect with social software.
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In any business process that is automated, there are always exceptions that fall out of the normal processing. As I mentioned before, social software is perfect for picking up those exceptions.
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àŠtre un prof numérique « Techniques innovantes pour l’enseignement supérieur
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Mercredi, j’aurai la joie de participer à un séminaire à l’ENVSN, des e-formateurs du ministère des sports. Le titre officiel de mon intervention est «Concevoir et animer un environnement numérique d’apprentissage et/ou de formation», ce qui peut se résumer à « être un prof numérique ».
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Does SharePoint Have Future As A Social Platform? – The BrainYard – InformationWeek
« Analysts speaking at Enterprise 2.0 say Microsoft’s collaboration platform is more than a portal, but less than a social network. »
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When Wylie asked Koplowitz whether SharePoint was « just a portal, » his answer was an emphatic « no » because, although SharePoint includes a portal, it provides many other capabilities. Yet when asked if SharePoint was a social network, Koplowitz shook his head and said, « it’s a lot better portal than it is a social platform. »
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SharePoint 2010 provides basic building blocks, including user profiles and activity stream updates, but transforming it into a satisfying corporate social network requires either a healthy dose of configuration and customization, or the addition of third-party software such as NewsGator Social Sites.
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« They’ve built a decent platform for lightweight file-oriented collaboration, »
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« But SharePoint only provides two of the 10 or 11 key applications enterprises are looking for » in a social platform, he said.
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the pace of change in enterprise social networking might slow down, given that enterprises are already having trouble digesting the features that are available today. In that case, even « a slow-moving platform like SharePoint » might be able to catch up, Koplowitz said.
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On the other hand, he would not recommend an organization with no previous SharePoint investment adopt the platform as the foundation for enterprise social networking–certainly not unless you want to take advantage of SharePoint’s other features.
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Paroles d’experts vs attentes clients : une étude exclusive
« L’idée de cette étude est simplissime : les 5 attentes majeures exprimées systématiquement par les consommateurs (Facilitation, Transparence, Confiance, Humilité et l’émergente Prévenance) sont-elles parfaitement, partiellement ou faiblement intégrées par les experts de la relation client ? »
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les 5 attentes majeures exprimées systématiquement par les consommateurs (Facilitation, Transparence, Confiance, Humilité et l’émergente Prévenance) sont-elles parfaitement, partiellement ou faiblement intégrées par les experts de la relation client ?
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- 33% des experts y font référence, et cela donne lieu à un discours bien alimenté autour des thématiques suivantes:
- La capacité de l’entreprise à s’affranchir des procédures, à se rendre flexible.
- La nécessité de personnaliser au maximum la relation.
- La prise de conscience du besoin d’hyper réactivité du consommateur, et la façon d’y répondre.
- La capacité à se démener, à se €˜plier en quatre’ pour satisfaire la demande client.
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La référence au besoin de transparence des clients (attente consommateur d’une information objective, non-commerciale, non biaisée pour pouvoir faire ses choix de consommation en toute connaissance de cause, besoin grandissant de confirmations écrites des accords verbaux, transparence tarifaire, etc€¦) apparait de façon plus marginale (exprimée par moins de 10% des experts).
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L’attente de confiance (consommateurs qui attendent des marques qu’elles leur fassent €˜a priori’ confiance, en évitant de remettre en cause leurs dires) est ,elle, quasiment absente du discours€¦.
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Enfin, quatre experts (sur 100 !) seulement font référence au besoin de prévenance des consommateur
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Plus fondamentalement, les Entreprises ont un mal fou à s’ouvrir vers l’extérieur car elles ont souvent le sentiment de s’exposer.
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La faible intégration de l’attente de confiance relève aussi d’un phénomène culturel aussi. Les Entreprises françaises restent très suspicieuses à l’endroit de leurs clients.
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Les notions mises en avant jusqu’à 2008 (« communauté », « proximité »€¦) se sont quasiment effacées des réponses€¦
€¦pour laisser place à d’autres champs d’exploration : la « conversation », ou le « multi canal ». De même, le souci de « faire émerger la voix du client », de « penser client » se substitue peu à peu à la nécessité de répondre aux €˜attentes, aux besoins des clients’, plus prégnante lors des interviews les plus anciennes.
Keynote Slides: Social Readiness: Architecting a Connected Enterprise
« I’m speaking to 1000 attendees here at KMWorld in Washington DC, on building your social business in the right way. I’m here to share Altimeter’s recent research on Social Business Readiness (read full report) which researched how advanced companies are preparing internally, you can read the whole report, and see slides below. «
How social technologies are extending the organization – McKinsey Quarterly – High Tech – Strategy & Analysis
« Our fifth annual survey on the way organizations use social tools and technologies finds that they continue to seep into many organizations, transforming business processes and raising performance. »
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When adopted at scale across an emerging type of networked enterprise and integrated into the work processes of employees, social technologies can boost a company’s financial performance and market share, respondents say, confirming last year’s survey results.
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But this is a very dynamic environment, where the gains from using social technologies sometimes do not persist, perhaps because it takes so much effort to achieve them at scale.
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Many believe that if organizational barriers to the use of social technologies diminish, they could form the core of entirely new business processes that may radically improve performance.
Why Teams Fail — and What to Do About It
« To unleash the creative potential of teams, HR leaders must help set a solid foundation, provide insights so team members can successfully cope with differences and coach team leaders on positive ways to approach the collaboration so the team will be high-performing, «
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Human resource executives can help their organizations use teams more effectively by providing resources for team leaders to deal with friction, dissension and dissatisfaction head on. When this happens, teams not only produce outstanding results but also unleash the creativity of team members and build commitment to the organization and its goals.
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Lack of support for a team culture. This shows up in various ways, all of which are damaging. For example, management « empowers » the team, but still demands that everything be cleared through senior leadership, or management refuses to decrease other responsibilities for people participating on the team.
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Lack of effective or shared leadership. A high-performing team is one in which leadership is shared, and each and every member is responsible for team functioning. The goal of the team is to be self-managing.
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* Poor use of teams. Not all organizational challenges require a team; some are better handled by individuals. A team is appropriate when multiple skills and perspectives are needed to accomplish the goal.
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Purpose. This is the most central piece. What is the work of the team? Why is it important and whom does it serve? This provides a guide for assigning goals, roles and strategies. It’s the glue that holds the team together and makes the team members mutually accountable. The purpose should be an overarching, motivating goal focused on meeting the customer’s needs.
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Values and Norms. Values are the enduring beliefs that guide team actions. Values define what is fundamentally right and important.
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Team Initiatives are broad areas of focus derived from the team’s purpose. They include specific goals (measurable outcomes) with timelines and roles that define individual responsibilities.
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Another way that HR leaders can help a team perform better is to provide training and guidance for effectively dealing with differences. This includes reminding the team that differences are inevitable when passionate people work together. It’s important that teams view friction and disagreement as a healthy stage of team development instead of something to avoid.
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As an HR professional, the main goal at this stage is to remind team leaders that people want to be heard and to build an environment that allows that.
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Mistrust or uneven communication. If some people on the team are dominating the conversation while others sit silent or appear to have dropped out, a leader might stop the process and ask each person what he or she needs from others to feel effective in the group.
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Approaching team leadership from a servant leader mind-set. In the same way that a human resource executive serves as a resource to teams within the organization, they also need to help team leaders see themselves in that same light.
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Lorsque l’on évoque Médias Sociaux et de Ressources Humaines, on pense encore trop souvent au seul recrutement. Or, les médias sociaux, parce qu’ils modifient en profondeur les méthodes de travail et les relations professionnelles entre collaborateurs, sont (ou devraient) être au coeur des problématiques de nombreux acteurs RH, et pas uniquement ceux en relation avec les candidats. »
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bien que concernés depuis longtemps, les recruteurs ont encore un usage hétérogène des réseaux sociaux comme outil de communication de recrutement ou comme vivier de candidats.
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Les relations écoles : ces relations directes avec les étudiants font des campus managers des candidats idéaux pour les médias sociaux. E
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Rien n’est plus facile que d’associer présence physique et à distance en fonction d’une définition d’écoles prioritaires et d’autres de moindre priorité. Et ici aussi les interlocuteurs sont déjà présents : la plupart des écoles ont intégré un community manager.
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Les gestionnaires des hauts potentiels : combien de ces équipes RH ont intégré dans les parcours de leurs collaborateurs cibles le sujet des médias sociaux ? Ces hauts potentiels ont pourtant une responsabilité centrale dans la préparation de l’avenir de l’entreprise.
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Mais cela ne doit pas empêcher de s’y préparer : il est aisé d’imaginer les opportunités que pourront représenter les réseaux d’entreprise pour identifier, faire grandir les compétences et matcher les stratégies globales des entreprises avec les aspirations individuelles des collaborateurs.
Separate Social Media From Marketing
« Indeed: the marketing organization has put social media technologies to work with very visible effect.
But we need to break out social media and talk about more than marketing and technology. Instead, we need to talk about what social media enables: the ability to collaborate in new ways €” which is particularly important for business leaders interested in creating more collaborative, innovative, and engaging organizations. «
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An executive may boast, « We have Twitter and SharePoint, and we’re on Facebook. » But if you were to ask the executive how social media is positively impacting business results, you may raise a significant issue
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To achieve those ends €” we’ve described these as attributes of a « social organization » €” it takes more than setting loose the technology and praying that something good will happen.
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Mass collaboration gives an organization the ability to amplify its capabilities by raising the engagement, innovation, and involvement of people, internally and externally.
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Social media requires more than new technology, and its application can breathe new life into business processes, practices, and challenges.
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If we don’t break out social media from marketing, it will likely join other technologies that remain popular buzzwords but have fallen short of their potential value
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So as a business leader, talk about social media technology, celebrate the marketing results it achieves, but recognize that this is just a start. Break out social media from its marketing beachhead. Think about how you can create mass collaboration and become a social organization.
