Tools connect people. But with what ?

January 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

summary :tomorrow’s enterprise will be connected. And employees too. If they don’t they’ll become obsolete and useless : success, performance and competitiveness relies on connectivity. That’s why businesses have been trying to connect their employees for years. But connect them to what ? To their colleagues ? To information ? Of course. But the most important point has been overlooked : reconnect them to their work. By forgetting people’s challenges, the very reason they were part of the organization and neglecting execution for communities and conversations, businesses lead their social business and enterprise 2.0 projects in dead ends they have to get out of now !

In a very near future, connectivity will be a key factor of competitiveness. That’s obvious because it was ties businesses to a complex environment to feel its changes, its moves to react relevantly. Another point is that, since no one can know everything, everyone need to be able to get in touch with someone who knows to do a better work, solve problems, make decisions.

So the future of the connected organization is discussed a lot but that hides another reality : the connected employee. Of course, there won’t be connected organizations without connected employees. That’s obvious but help us to consider what’s been undertaken by lots of organizations with new eyes. Some tried to be highly connected with their external environment while disconnecting their employees. Others tried to improve their internal connectivityfirst. That was the starting point of many enterprise 2.0 or social business projects : employees need to be connected.

Yes but…connected to what ? If you’re trying to understand why many projects of this kind are still struggling at delivering tangible results, a part of the answers lies there.

- connecting employees with information : yes. It’s been done at two levels : social bookmarking (what is still a minor usage of internal social platforms) and exchanges within communities that is main objective of many projects.

- connecting employees with employees : that’s the role of social networks. But, to work, it needs that people can be identified through their contributions and up to date rich profiles.

That’s working but, in most cases, not very well. Of course there are exceptions but not enough to think that a new era has strated. After the novelty and euphoria phase that can make 80% of employees or more register on the social platforms that hosts these new usages, numbers can quickly decrease and, in the end, only a few percent will be active users and contributors. Not that high regarding to the investment. One of the reasons is obvious : considering the social platform as a bubble disconnected from the rest of the intranet is a first step to failure. The second reason is that even if people are socially addicted (what is not proven at all), even if they are willing to exchange and connect with their peers, employees are not internauts nor the ones they are at home.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Software & Tools Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two months left before the enterprise 2.0 Summit

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Every year, at this period, I usually write a debrief of the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Frankfurt. No such thing this year since the Summit did not take place in Frankfurt in november but will in Paris on the 8th and 9th of february.There are many reasons why I highly suggest you to attend this conference.

1°) Because it’s an european event

Cases and experiences are often shared nationwide. French ones in France, German ones in Germany etc… This event is a unique occasion to compare and benchmark things from all over Europe with, for example AXA, BASF, Lufthansa, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, Danone, IBM, Alcatel-Lucent, Lyonnaise des Eaux, Allianz, Saint-Gobain, Bayer, JC Decaux…and many others.

 

2°) Because of top level speakers

A look at the speakers list will be enough. Many VPS, directors…that will speak about the strategic dimension of projects that are deeper than giving their information system a facelift. As for experts that will also be speaking, I think their names are very familiar to you. The focus will be on strategic projects, value creation…what leads to the next point.

 

3°) Because the nature of the discussion is dramatically shifting

As we can see, the point is not about knowing how to bring social media in the workplace anymore. At least, not for most speakers. The real question is about designing a new model for the enterprise to face today’s challenges, how to create value in a complex and unpredictable context, what do organizational experience means in 2012. The agenda perferfectly reflects this…

4°) Because of the Keynotes

In addition to talks and discussions on cases and best practices, a conference should also bring something more in term of vision and sense. Something that will shape the business for the next years. So you may like to see :

 

- Rawn Shah,  social business transformation expert at IBM (also author of  social networking for business) and Yves Caseau (Vice President Bouygues Telecom, author of  Processus et enteprise 2.0) discussing about social and community approaches and how it will impact processes and new excellence models.

- Richard Collin (Grenoble Business School- Nextmodernity) ans Jean-Christophe Kugler (Renault) discussing the new organizational models as well as the future of processes and workflows

- Dion Hinchcliffe will be talking about the evolution of business models and key success factors for organizational excellence.

 

5°) Because of the format

No one way speech here. Each session includes a discussion with other practionners, experts and the audience. So the audience has time to ask questions and challenge the speakers. The conference is organized so that speakers and audience have time to exchange and debate and the time allowed for discussions is quite the same as for speeches.

That’s all… for more information, please visit the ‘Enterprise 2.0 Summit here.

The registration page is here...and people who register before december 17th will get a 800€ discount.

See you there !

 

Filed Under: Customer Relationship & Marketing, Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Social Business should become structural

November 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

Summary : there is no change without people and social business or 2.0 projects are not exceptions. WIthout a good sponsor and passionate advocates, failure is often at the end of the road. But people change, come and go, and old systems often come back to life once the bright leaders are assigned to another mission. At a certain moment, projects must be able to survive the people who initiated and lead them to become perennial. It needs to implement the social model in the deepest layers of the organizational model, what prevents from having two models fighting together in the same organization. As long as social is not more than a surface phenomenon tacked on a structure that is not, there will be few chances to demonstrate wide-scale benefits and secure the future of the project. There is not one “normal” enterprise and a social or 2.0 one working on the edge. There’s a one and only enterprise that needs clear and strong leading principles as well as common foundations for all employees.

I recently wrote on the risk of not turning the social potential released by enterprise 2.0 and social business into structural capital, the danger of projects stacked on top on the official organization or playing against it and, most generally, on the unproductive and even counter-productive nature of changining without changing. This post follows the same logic and speaks in favor of making social business or enterprise 2.0 projects structural ones.

First, I’d like to make clear what I need by “structural”. It’s about implementing social and 2.0 ways or doing things and behaviors in the deepest layers of the organizational models, creating common foundations shared by all on how to manage people, behave, process information and live with others. Foundations that should be mandatory and non negotiable. A kink of “here we work this way and not in any other”.

Of course, that’s a middle/long term goal. At the beginning, hesitating, proceeding by trial and error is logical. But having this goal in mind from the very beginning is essential and, as Roma was not built in one day, it will take a long time to get there. The risk of not doing ? Either not making the most out of social projects or see them decline over time.

Why ?

First, it’s just a matter a logic. If something is good and beneficial it should be applied to the whole organization. If it has a negative or even neutral impact, it’s better to do nothing and save resources for more worthy things. Second because no one need to be a genius to understand that an organization where some people work in one way and some in another have many chances to loose on both sides.

Let’s make a simple analogy. Let’s consider a sport…basketball for example. There are rules that makes that it’s impossible for some players to play with their feet while other are playing with their hands, that makes that some things are allowed and other prohibited. Then inside a team, there are strategies and systems that apply to all players to make the collective effort productive (the whole having to respect the above mentioned rules). If half of the players don’t respect the rules and/or does not apply the team systems it’s easy to understand how messy things may get. That’s the same in business.

These rules apply to all and, when people move, rules and systems are still applied (with more or less talent…but the basics stay and are shared by everyone). That’s also a lesson that lots of 2.0 project teaches us.

[Read more...]

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New White Paper on Enterprise 2.0

October 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’m happy to announce the release of a new white paper on enterprise 2.0. In fact irt’s not that new. Last year, my fellow member Anthony Poncier gathered most of the more relevant french enterprise 2.0 practitioners to write a white paper, each one being in charge of a chapter on his favorite topic. The paper had a lot of success here and we decided to work on an english version…that took time to be released but is now available.

Some of you will find names and people they already know. For the others it will be the occasion to discover the “French touch” of enterprise 2.0.

Enjoy !

Enterprise 2.0, french touch : the white paper
View more documents from Anthony Poncier
I’d really like to thank Anthony for his involvement and the coordination work. Nothing would have been possible without him.
Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , ,

From services management to enterprise 2.0

October 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Summary : the shift from the old manufacturing model to a service one is key to the future competitiveness of lots of industries. Rather than adding a layer of service at the point of contact with customers, it’s about reinventing businesses, value propositions and the way it’s executed. It’s easy to understand that the paradigm shift needed for this revolution is very similar to the one needed for enterprise 2.0. And is surely more understandable for lots of organizations.

 

A couple of weeks ago I discovered and read with a lot of interest Du management au marketing des services : Améliorer la relation client – Développer une véritable culture de services (in english from services management to services marketing – Improving customer relationship – Developing a culture of services) by Benoit Meyronin and Charles Ditandy. You may wonder what is the link with the topics I usually discuss on this blog. In fact it’s quite about the same thing but seen from a different point of view. It’s even possible to consider that the ignorance or misunderstanding of some issues related to services management is a real barrier to enterprise transformation, to the paradigm shift that is needed to rethink old manufacturing models and turn them into a services model and prevents from drawing all the organizational consequences.

As am matter of fact, as the book says, the key question est about implementing a culture of service within organizations. Let’s start with a quick aside. There are many ways to define a culture of service. A first one applies to people in their day to day actions and behaviors, most of all when facing customers. The second one is more global. It’s about execution but, also, the way things are seen, thought and designed. The first can come without the seconde but is only to dazzle customers. It makes employees embody a system, a policy that as no structural and operational reality in organization that don’t question themselves. It prevents value creation through services. Pratically speaking, when organization add a service layer on an old industrial/manufacturing model without trying to reinvent the whole, it’s like putting some polish on the customer interface. It has no impact no the delivered value and even less on the perceived value. In such a context, services are a cost that is easy to cut instead of being a value lever.

In short, adding a service layer to a system designed with an industrial/manufacturing approch costs money while rethinking the model as a service one makes organizations make more money. Examples are numeros in our day to day lives. I’ll spare you my usual and favorite digression on the airline industry (which really need to understand this !) but the book is full of examples from many industries (hotel, transportation, car parking…).

Take a minute to think of what “selling mobility” vs “selling cars” means for a car manufacturer. If the old car selling model survives, the “mobility” option costs a lot because it’s layer added on the system. If mobility becomes core, it’s differentiating and helps to create more value. That’s the path that’s followed by lots of car manufacturers. In B2B industries, tire manufacturers have stopped selling tires to airlines for years : they now sell a number of landings and take-offs.

In the end, here are a couple of examples of what a service culture means, taken from the book. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books I read, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Process, enterprise 2.0, lean and agility

October 4, 2011 By 1 Comment

Summary: enterprise 2.0 has often been shown as the opposite of formal organizations and processes that have been the rule until then. What raised a keen interest from and fear for others who know that enterprises, organizations with a production purpose, can’t live without processes. In “Enterprise 2.0 and processes”, Yves Caseau shows that putting the one against the other in a Manichean way is wrong and to what extent each one improves and completes the other.

I usually don’t write about french books on this blog, for obvious reasons. By definition, most of the audience I have here can’t read french and even for those who do, prices are too expensive on amazon.com for imported books. But I decided to make an exception for this one because I think it brings a new way of considering things that is worth knowing about for anyone.

This book is Processus et Entreprise 2.0 (Processes and enterprise 2.0 in english), and is about innovation and collaboration through lean management. It’s by Yves Caseau, Senior VP at Bouygues Telecom (large Telco, part of the Bouygues Group). This book is interesting because it makes us look at enterprise 2.0 with a new point of view in this kind of literacy and gives it, in my opinion, a new relevance that lots of CxOs many have not seen until then. As a matter of fact, the common vision focused on social media/communities/passion/engagement often turns its back on value measurement and relies on the only fact one is a believer or not. What I often call “Enterprise Denial” made the message hard to get in “our” european cultural context relying on rational scepticism. Caseau’s approach is different : it starts with processes and shows that enterprise 2.0 is the only possible way to keep them efficient in the future.

Let’s start with some words as an aside. Even if this movement may look odd, I did not came to enterprise 2.0 by the web but by short cuts that were more about operations efficiency.Many parts of  the management side of enterprise 2.0 (or, rather, all the things one should wonder to avoid staying in a world of angelic illusion), have things in common with Theory Of Constraints (anyone should have read The Goal at least once in his life). It’s also impossible to deny that new forms of management we are promoting can be found in Deming’s 14 points, Deming who had also a clear understanding of what what wrong in our economy….30 years ago. The list is very long… It’s interesting, even surprising, to see how the manufacturing industry has solved agility, quality, improvement issues while the world of services and knowledge relying on intangible flows is still struggling. Maybe because the intangible nature of flows makes visual management impossible or makes it easy not to see things one don’t want to see ? Maybe. We’ll discuss this in a future post.

So let’s come back to Caseau’s book. Rather than starting with the assumption that 2.0 (or social) is the answer to anything and try to make the enterprise fit in, he starts with the opposite approach. He starts with problems and ends with a solution that appears to be enterprise 2.0. Like it or not but enterprises are organized on processes that are essential and vital and this won’t change. I’m to talking about the caricature of processes we’re being inflicted to make it too easy to hold them up to public ridicule. but what they should be. Caseau makes it clear that processes should be as light as possible to be manageable, as agile as possible to be improvable. Hence the importance of lean management. Things become really interesting when enterprise 2.0, rather than being seen as a danger for steadiness and processes appears than being a lever that serves agility and innovation. In this context, conversational systems support ongoing learning, innovation and ongoing improvement.

He ends with the necessary cultural of human sided of this necessary change.

Contrary to what some like to promote, processes should not disappear but become people centric to make sense, be understandable, drivable, manageable, improvable. As a matter of fact, processes are here to serve both people and the enterprise while the reality is more about people serving processes. Caseau gives us an “understandable” explanation of the world of processes, quality, Lean, Lean Six Sigma and hits the nail on the head on things like KPIs, information flows management, meetings (that are the more elementary form of exchange…)…

This book will appeal to people who don’t see a clear link between the new paradigm and what the enterprise and its operations are about or see it rather like a danger. A technical book that those who love incantations, acts of faith and fairy tales may enjoy less but that reminds us that 2.0 and social are here to serve the organization. I endlessly repeat that enterprise 2.0 increases the human and knowledge capital that can be tapped to better process execution….that’s what all the book is about.

If I had to summarize the book in one sentence I’d say “looking at the future, feet on the ground”.

Processus et entreprise 2.0 is available on Amazon. It’s so expensive oversees that buying it on amazon.fr and having it shipped could be a better option. I think it’s also available on iTunes for iPad owners.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Books I read, Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Enterprise 2.0 needs reverse management

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Summary : there will be no enterprise 2.0 without managers 2.0 with new practices and a new way to contribute to collective success. But holding managers responsible for the whole change is a mistake. Managers will need employees 2.0. In return for their new autonomy, employees will have new responsibilities in the management relationship and will need to learn how to manage their manager. But do they really want to ? Not sure at all.

When we talk about management and enterprise 2.0 it’s often about the unavoidable but tough evolution of the role of middle-managers and with a top down approach, focusing on the relationship between managers and subordinates. A role that’s moving toward facilitation, being supportive, someone who says “how can I help you” rather than “that’s the objective, the methodology…now help yourself”, someone who leads by leadership rather than by objectives etc… The least we can say is that this change is not obvious at all for the people in question. First because it goes against everything they’ve been taught for decades, what’s they’ve been rewarded for. Then because the “you just need to….” is easy but, when it comes to actually doing it, they feel rather lonely.

Of course, such a such is hardly possible without a strong support and accompaniment program. But managers also need their staff. Organizations tend to holding managers responsible for the whole change while employees also have a large responsibility and, consequently, a work to do themselves.

It’s not realistic to thing that managers will let things go, rethink the concept of power and how they contribute to collective success while empowered and autonomous employees will live their own lives, do what they want and ring their managers in case of need.

Employees will have to carry  a part of the change for two reasons :

- to support managers that will need signs, evidences that they do their job well, that they are useful.

- because the evolution of management relationships, empowerment and autonomy come with new responsibilities. Employees will have stakes in driving work relationships because they’ll assume part of the leadership to drive things.

In short, employees 2.0 will need to learn how to manage their managers and wear part of the once despised suit that used to be their manager’s one. But are they ready for this change ? Do they want it ?

I remind of a survey I heard of 2 or 3 years ago on french workplaces. It said that even if more than half of the workforce did not like the way their managers were doing their job, less that a quarter would like to be at their place.

Long is the road…

 

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Getting rid of unproductive shadow organizations

August 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

Summary : enterprises will have to improve their organizational and management. Projects, pilots, initiatives are multiplying to experiment, learn, understand. But what is the right duration for sandbox ? The common answer is that it should take the time it needs but there’s a risk that’s growing with time. Many projects do nothing but creating shadow organizations inside enterprises, organizations that sometimes compete the one with the other and often with the official one. In the end, no one wins in such zero-sum games when they last too longs : enterprise see their immediate performance decreasing, projects fail at delivering their promise and employees lose their motivation. It’s essential that, at a given moment, enterprises align themselves with the projects they launched if they don’t want to loose everything.
If there’s a consensus on the fact today’s organization are far from being efficient and that things aren’t improving over time,  it does not go further. To some extent, we can say there’s a convergence on the future model but not on the way to get to it. Top-down, bottom-up, both, in an interventionist or optional way, evolution or revolution model… It would seem that all roads lead to Roma…let’s hope that’s true. But it seem logic : on people-centric project (people as a matter, a lever and a target) it’s impossible to overlook the past, culture etc..

To make it short, “push organizations” are dying, welcome to “pull” ones. Consequence : the largest part of what we call management is to make it difficult for people to work (these are not my words but Peter Drucker’s one…and I fully subscribe to that). This leads to the need of reversing the pyramids and to do it in an efficient and productive way. It reminds me of an anecdote taken from Vineet Nayar’s experience. At the beginning he set up the first elements of an organization designed to serve those who actually create value, then he realized the limits of his approach. Everything that was being implemented was applying and relying on the existing model, systems and processes, designed to be top-down. Hence a new approach aiming at building, step by step, a new coherent model aligned with its goals instead of a poultice on a wooden leg.

Now, let’s have a quick look at many enterprise 2.0 or social business projects. In how many cases did they come with process re-engineering ? With a reflexion on how to trace how value is created ? On how things and people are measured, evaluated, assessed ? Of course, that’s still a young and emerging matter. But, as I recently heard from two people that can be considered as convinced people, advocates, project ambassadors : “it’s been young and emerging for such a long time that it’s getting old now !”, “Ok for chaotic experimentations but we’ve been trying so many things in so many ways in so many directions for 5 years and the people ‘above’ haven’t understand that it’s time to blow the end of game whistle and make things square”, “Honestly, I’m about to give up the fight…I’ve been knocked about too many times for no benefits…and they still don’t get the thing”.

What were they talking about ? They were saying that these projects were generating new structures and way of working that go against the official organization compete with it and, even experimentations that compete the one with the other. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Tomorrow’s enterprise as a galley ?

August 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I won’t teach anything to anyone by saying that, to make someone understand a concept that’s very new to him, an analogy with something known is often the best way to deliver the message. Note that this means is often an easy way for the “pupil” to help a too passionate teacher to keep his feet on the ground. Of course, we need an analogy that “talks” to the person either because he or she knows the subject well or because that’s about something that’s common to everybody.

The other day I happened to have a discussion with a couple of person and a new angle appeared in the discussion on “social” and things like that. It’s only worth what it’s worth but, after all, it’s summer, holidays so we can take the liberty of giving free reins to our imagination.

Let’s take the example of a galley. You know, a boat with people rowing, other shouting at them and one who rule. Let’s try to imagine what a galley 2.0 would look like.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Community management is like cholesterol

July 26, 2011 By 1 Comment

Summary :we’re still fare from being done with discussions on enterprise community management. More complex to implement that it seemed, this kind of system did not always keep its promises and results range from the best to the worse to such an extent that some start to wonder if it’s really worth. Among poorly managed plans and doubts on the very role of community managers, many organizations are still in a state of uncertainty. In the end it’s all about the project and operational alignment. There are two kind of community management systems : those that are the consequence of a project and integrate communities into the operating modes and those who are the result of the attention paid to the existence of communities without any will to leverage them to create value (or only with words). When community management has no other reason to exist that the existence of communities it becomes useless. When it’s the result of an ambition to turn the community potential into an asset that can be leveraged, it can lead to awesome results.

There are still a lot of discussions and questionings on internal community management. After the “everything is a community” era that caused the rise of armies of community managers and the “community manager : bullshit of the year” era that logically came after when the limits of the system were reached as well as those of its implementation by, at best, idealists or, at worse, sorcerer’s apprentices, organizations seem to be lost.

Community management logics are an undisputable potential for organizations when wisely used but are not the solution to every problem and, despite of their apparent simplicity, need a lot of specific skills. This explain that after the times of overexpectations came the time of disappointment.

First, we have to distinguish between discussions related to community management and community managers. If community management approaches are necessary, lots of questions remains about community managers, their role and profile. There’s no doubt community managers will stay for long to manage external communities, things are different when talking about internal communities.

As a matter of fact it’s logical to think that, in a couple of years, community management skills will be part of everyone’s toolbox and there will be no more need for specific people. I fully subscribe to this point of view. But, unlike some people, I won’t pretend that managers will become community managers or, at least, not in an exclusive way. If it’s an unavoidable evolution of managers skills, methods and way of doing their job, it’s far from being enough. Managers have to set objectives, have also have a right to give orders and have to be able take disciplinary actions, what is not a part of a community manager role. They’ll have to combine both dimensions, what won’t be easy at all.

Then we have to keep in mind that there is no consensus on the level at which community managers should operate. A wide range of situations exists, from the senior manager in charge of managing a global system to the recently graduated person in charge of having the field and making some noise. The consequence is that there were lots of attempts to formalize different responsibility levels, with community managers, social media directors etc… Another big mistake was made in France where “management” was often translated into animation what causes that, with the same job title, lots of different profiles can be found.

That said, let’s come back to the concern that worries many organizations because of the varying results that can be observed here and there : is community management worth, are benefits worth the effort, or should organizations let communities live, die (and even not come to life) by themselves ?

The answer can be summed up in one analogy : community management is the corporate cholesterol.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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