Change management is about helping people to adopt new behaviors and ways of acting, and the basic tenets seem to hold up under a storm of different circumstances. John Kotter defined the 8 steps to change management back in the 1990s in his now classic book, Leading Change. Those strategic steps apply broadly to most change situations.
But how do you implement that change management strategy when you are trying to move your organization to become a social business? What do you have to keep in mind? What is critical that was only of interest before? Do you need to execute differently?
As social media moves from a collection of diverse and separate initiatives to more formalized, broader engagement, and ultimately to being fully integrated and aligned with the strategy (see The 3 Stages to Becoming a Social Media Organization, http://goo/gl/fb/6flCv), distinct social media enablers become increasingly important. Four factors in particular demand new execution practices:
v Social media is real-time and all-the-time
The immediacy of social media is exciting and vibrant and down-right scary. The change management plan needs to take those considerations into account. How?
§ Rapid risk mitigation and damage control plans
You cannot predict every possible negative situation that might arise. But you can define and teach guidelines for managing those situations. Ensure that a clear social media policy is in place and well understood. Create scenarios and practice! Practice should focus on guidelines, not scripts, so that employees can adhere to the advice of Lieutenant Colonel Greg Reeder of the U.S. Marines, “In the absence of guidance: do the right thing.” (Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Reeder was talking about social media! See http://goo.gl/fb/isThH)
§ Engage legal and IT on the core change management team
Social media is fluid and does not allow time for legal review of all communications. Have legal on the core team so that employees internalize their perspectives and so that the attorneys understand the range of possible issues. Involve IT so that the technology can be tweaked for simplicity. Technology supports; it does not lead.
§ Plan for 24/7
Not every social media implementation needs to be a 24/7 operation, but plan how you will handle comments or problems that might arise out-of-work hours. Will you use volunteers to cover some additional hours? Will you follow-the-sun for staffing? Will your site(s) specify the hours you monitor and respond? Do you need extra staff at either end of your day? Who is “on call” for emergencies?
v It’s personal
Social media draws in the employee on a personal basis with a name and face, a personality and a professional reputation at stake. It also humanizes the organization. So “personal” has two aspects that must be balanced.
§ Build the team slowly and practice together to create a common culture. As an organization, you want only one personality.
§ Let the employees with the strongest social media skills mentor others, and base mentoring relationships not on hierarchy but on social media savvy. Mentoring helps both to grow culture and to reward skill and performance.
§ Allow employees to use their own voices. They have a common corporate identity, but individuality should still shine through. Let them share a bit of themselves on-line.
§ Encourage and enable employees to become internal ambassadors for the social media activities.
v Social media smashes silos
Once your social media strategy expands beyond discrete, limited trials, the activities will have impact across functional and business units; they will seep into new projects unasked; they will rattle independent fiefdoms. Actively embrace integration.
§ Involve brand managers in the change management core team, even if the only implementation is for customer service. How the customer service is handled, the words used, the policies enacted, and the customer engagement created will all affect the brand.
§ Seed other projects with employees engaged in social media. Bring a social media perspective to non-social media specific projects. This type of engagement will help to create broader organizational change more quickly.
v Social media is both the change and the process for the change
§ Use social media to communicate
Use forums, videocasts, podcasts, microblogs, blogs to share widely the successes and learnings of the social media initiatives. And don’t limit the communication to statistics and status updates; demonstrate the value of social media by sharing stories and personal accounts.
§ Make social media indispensible
Embed the use of social media into the day-to-day processes and communication. Solicit ideas and launch initiatives on internal discussion forums; make significant announcements on a blog; provide real-time announcements (closing early due to weather!) on an internal Twitter or Yammer site. Make sure that all levels of management engage over the new tools.
The foundation of change management is constant. It’s about helping people to adopt new behaviors. The strategies that underlie change management are well established, tested and proven. But when an organization is evolving to a social culture, the tactical steps you use to make sure the changes stick need to change. I would love to hear what has worked for you!
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