Motivation | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

Enterprise social networks are not fun if not used to work

March 24, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

A few feeks ago I was interviewed about enterprise social networks, especially abou the new dynamics they bring within organizations. The point was the “festive” feeling they can bring in people’s day to day jobs. The article the journalist started from was this note from British Telecom : “Social Networking : Time to ‘Party On’“.

Even if I agree with the substance, and I think everyone who has the least experience in this field would do the same, I think we have to be careful about a possible first degree understanding that may cause many misunderstandings and don’t help things to improve anything.

New dynamics and new ways to engage people

The fact people use social networks as a daily business tool (I really mean business, gettig things done…) dramatically change their everyday worklife (I can testify). At least they will use them to fluidify their daily tasks with increased resultst for those who’ll go deeper in the approach and take benefit of that to open themselves more to what is not is their traditional human perimeter.

No doubt that having the relevant informations and people at their disposal brings a true added value in their work and makes it possible to do or get involved more easily in many things. Even things they never would have thinked about before.

No doubt that these dynamics that makes it possible to integrate in a whole, develop connections and make feel being a part of something and not being a number in a directory anymore have positive impacts on work, engagement and motivation. These levers have always been effective but their importance increases with the new generation that is now coming in the workplace.

Be careful of the “party side effect” and the way it may be understood.

I heard it many times in many companies : the “party on” effect is very confusing if not disturbing for common managers.

First, and evenu if the image is relevant, it may be shocking for many people. Don’t forge we’re going to work to suffer and the concept of pleasure is irrelevant at work : if you have pleasure, if you enjoy doing your work, it means you’re actually not working. You can call this being narrow minded or complaint about the cult of appearance (I’m austere so I’m a good professional), fact are there. One day, I’ll have to be taught how to create engagement through suffering without considering masochism as a criteria for recruitment.

But facts remain : it’s hard to make decision maker suscribe to this point of view, even if there are many other arguments. Most of all in a period when communicating about what’s going well seems to be politically uncorrect and idecent.

Second because things don’t happen exactly this way. This big qualitative improvement is the consequence of an approach, not its primary goal. if you think that the party will start only because the tools are there you’ll be disappointed. Your party will be a real flop.

Employees have neither the will nor the time to chatter and create links among them for pleasure. Companies must not fear such kind of behaviors except if they themselves do everything to take away people’s longing for work. In the other hand, if social tools are useful and used for people’s day to day job, employees will realize that the so-called tools bring something more than their utilitarian purpose and they will start to free themselves and create social link.

The human, social and playful side only appears when it’s carried by something that makes sense in a work context : work himself. So it’s essential to give your 2.0 tools a kind of business sense, make them a part of the daily work and workflows in order to make them have any impact on motivation and engagement.

Enterprise social networks don’t have the same calling as general public social networks. But we already knew that.

That said, let’s enjoy this good slideshow, still from BT.

engagement, Entreprise 2.0, Management, motivation, réseaux sociaux professionnels, réseaux-sociaux, Ressources Humaines

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: engagement, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise social networks, Human resources, management, motivation, social networks

Story of a professional disconnection

March 14, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

This little story I’m going to tell you is purely imaginary. It’s neither mine nor anybody’s in particular. But it may become ours, one day.

January 2009 :Back to the office after a few days off. I take five minutes to send my greetings to all my friends. Nothing’s like Facebook to do that. I realize that the access is blocked. It doesn’t matter, I can live without facebook at work. Finally I decide to use email but I take care not to use my corporate email but my personal one, through the webmail.

February 2009 : bad news, linkedIn is blocked too. I have to hire two new people this month…awkward. I think that my colleague Rob, who is a salesperson, will be very angry. There’s no one like him to take the most of a network to pass the more insuperable barriers to get in touch with the right people and close incredible deals. He doesn’t have the best results in the company just by luck. I’m sure he must be in a very bad mood.

March 2009 : I’ve heard that the sparks really flew during the individual evaluation meetings. Robert was accused of dilettantism. That’s true that he had to do all his network things in the evening at home since linkedIn is blocked…so he spent hours waiting for the workday to end. I can understand how frustrated he is. The context is difficult and he feels like his employer is playing against him.
April 2009 : Impossible to find a meeting room on my floor and it’s really starting to get me out of my nerves. I can’t undersand why it started a weeks ago. We are not more that before, the activity is rather decreasing… I have to investigate.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Management & HR, Misc. Tagged With: generation y, internet, intranet, motivation, productivity, security, social networks, web

Wasting time is not a matter of tools

October 2, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

On of the main issues about social software introduction within companies is that it would make people waste time. In order to answer this question, we have to understand the underlying concerns.

Because the suggested way of working doesn’t need many discussions : in the current context, people are more efficient in a network rather than in a silo. But why so many anxieties ? In fact there’s no doubt about tool’s efficiency but about the way people may use them, possible deviant attitudes that would transform a productivity tool in an unproductivity tool.

Two situations have to be distinguished : the case of internet use from the office and the one of using the same kind of tools in an intranet context.

Will everybody become chief HR officer tomorrow ?

June 5, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

“Everybody’s a Chief HR Officer” : it’s the english translation of a french book that is supposed to be the holy bible for every student who cares about this kind of issues. Well, that was supposed to be when I was sutying in business school. To be totally honest, I found the message more intersting that the content…at the moment.

Once that’s said, the topic is more and more popular. Many surveys show the beneficial impact on HR of social software supported ways of working : more links, more blinder, more implication, more sense of belonging etc…

But, as we noticed in many occasions, they are collateral effects that don’t depend on the availability of tools but of their use. And use is determined by how these tools are useful in people’s day to day job. The way people work being highly impacted by managers (and especially “local” managers), it’s because the latter will decide to work slightly differently and use the appropriate tools that the will of CHRO to impact the above mentioned issues will be empowered.

Then, will everybody become a CHRO ? The short cut is too easy, I’d rather say HR agent. But, for the first time, middle-managers have the opportunity to take control of the vehicle that can bring those beneficial effects, a field were they were asked a lot without having really the levers to change things. Once used as real work oriented tools, those tools may become more than tools. Working as communities for example.

Retain, motivate, involving people, making the best possible use of talents can’t be done with only hot air, it’s made possible through the way people work. Good news ! The tools that can support the adequate way of working are now here.

Have also a look here.

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: belonging, chro, Communities, human ressoureces, implication, motivation, social-software

Web 2.0 at work : get passionate employees

May 20, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

Via Moovement.

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: Enterprise 2.0, generation y, Human resources, implication, motivation, web-2.0

Trilogy of needs in enterprise 2.0

March 12, 2008 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 1 Comment

When we want a project to be sucessful we can, basically, define some key success factors. They are not the only ones but, if they’re missing n they are many chances the project fails. I’ll mainly speak about projects aiming at making people more efficient.

First, such a project has to ensue from enterprise’s needs. It may seem trivial but forgetting that may cause many disappointments. But it has also to be identified as such. If things comes from the very enterprise’s interest, change may make sense (may…not will…). It don’t say that’s enough but it’s easier to legitimate when the message comes from above rather than a manager tries to embody it while top management (who decided it) seem not to care at all. To avoid this so common situation, communication is key. It already allow to avoid the “boss’ fad syndrom”. It’s a phenomenon you can experience in companies where the boss tries many ideas because of a good reactivity to novelty but never leads a project to its end. So people don’t get involved anymore because they think it’s useless, that what’s the big thing today will be forgotten tomorrow. It’s also a proof that the, sometimes adventurous, nature of digital natives must also be funneled in order not to make flexibility and agility turn into chaos. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: Enterprise 2.0, involvement, management, maslow, motivation, social computing

Self managed communities at Schlumberger

November 14, 2006 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, about communities of practices at Schlumberger (52.000 employees over 80 countries). The institution of such communities is a success and the company now counts more than 20 ones (and 140 subgroups) involving more thant 10 000 people.

What’s interesting is that Schlumberger is going very far in this reasoning since each community is self managed and elects its leader once a year.

A management issue

According to Schlumberger, the deal wasn’t about creating one more website or KM tool but bringing people to collaborate and share information. People were very easy with individual projects but it was hard to make them get involved in anything collective. As it was strategic to improve involvement and motivation, management considered that if they couldn’t manage these people (mainly experts and knowledgeworkers), they’ll have to let them manage themselves.

Another purpose was to increase the influence of those experts on top management priorities and forge links between communities.

It seems they’ve reached their goal.

The approach

Because they was no similar project they could refer to, Schlumberger’s management asked people who wanted to sign in one community, without any control or criteria on competencies. Then, since they considered CVs were locked away by HR and nobody didnt’ know anything about anybody, they offered people to make online CVs. Thats was a great success for one reason: it was the first time people could say “that’what I am”.

After six month people were asked to elect their communities leaders. Although internal election used have a 20% participation, this rate raised to 60%!

According to Schlumberger’s CEO, self management and regulation is key when you have to deal with people who care mainly about their peer esteem. And as a conclusion “The best guys to decide who leads them are the guys who really work together.”

What to think?

I think Schlumberger is going very far in this approach. Aknowledging experts must be managed by esteem and by themselves in communities, that they are the best to decide who’s best to lead them and that no other solution works is very surprising when it comes from top management.

While a lot of organization still have a management model based on the authority given by the position, here comes the authority given by your peers according to leadership and expertise.

I still have two questions:

- how did they make the management understand their new role. Weren’t they affraid of being bypassed?

- they surely had to set up tools to make communities live online. Which tools? Did they focus on extracting competencies or dit they also stimulate online exchanges?