Flash Mobs Infiltrate Business (Schools)

Not long after I wrote about why businesses should use flash mobs internally, I received an e-newsletter from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (my alma mater) with a link to this video: Flash Mob Marks Opening of Knight Management Center 

A flash mob at a venerable business school!  And a posted comment that read:


"These guys are business students?  Really?  I would never have guessed...."

Exactly the point.

Businesses need to change because future employees and customers are changing how they act and how they interact.  Business cultures need to change to reflect the changing behaviors and perspectives of employees.  Those organizations that embrace being a social business will out-compete the others.  They will relate to employees and customers by paying attention to everyone, by being one among many in the ecosystem.  They will attract and retain better employees; they will open up, worry less about appearances, and actively engage.  You can’t participate in a flash mob and worry too much about perfection.  Make a mistake?  Catch on and catch up.

The Stanford students celebrated their new building through a demonstration of community.   Their flash mob exemplified why companies need to break the rules and evolve their cultures.  Remember the changes?

• Don't reward results - reward new behavior
• Don't optimize current operating processes and procedures - revolutionize!
• Don't hire for cultural fit - hire the future, not the status quo

These students ARE the future of business.  They are already making clear the social business values they embrace.

Related posts:
Flash Mobs! Corporate Culture Change?   http://bit.ly/rcJtf0
Mature Companies Need to Break the Rules:  http://bit.ly/KGxlxz   

 

Flash Mobs! Corporate Culture Change?

Big brands are behind many flash mob events.  They are good for image; they create a personality for the brand; they drive engagement.  They have become a marketing tool, but don't companies need those things internally too?

As I work with organizations to develop social media strategies, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the internal culture.  If you are not open and transparent and, well, social, inside, you can't fake it long on the outside.  A couple of months ago, I talked about how breaking the rules helps organizations to evolve their cultures.  The 3 big takeaways:

• Don't reward results - reward new behavior
• Don't optimize current operating processes and procedures - revolutionize! 
• Don't hire for cultural fit - hire the future, not the status quo

 (for more, see the post at http://bit.ly/kGxlxz)

I think we also need to add something more.  We need to shake things up; we need to wake up!  And that is what a flash mob does.  It makes us sit up and take notice.  It says we're not tweaking or tip-toeing around the edges; we're moving and shaking and having fun doing it!  And we're doing it together, as a team.  Isn't that what a social culture is all about?

Flash mobs seem to offer opportunity in two ways inside corporate walls.

1. Stage a flash mob in the lobby; get employees out of their cubicles; get them talking to one another
2. Use the creation of a flash mob as a team building exercise

Confident that others have had this idea as well, I searched on-line for examples of organizations staging flash mobs internally to help change culture.  I found only one, from TedxSamsung.  

Flash mobs as a team building exercise incorporate many of the aspects of successful social cultures.

• Each person's contribution is important
• The overall dynamic exceeds what anyone can do alone
• Trusting that everyone will participate honestly is key to the interaction
• It's about skill and enthusiasm, not hierarchy
• There are a lot of small steps.  If you make a mistake, it's not critical; fix it; catch up, and keep going 

...and it's much more fun than hoping the person behind you will catch you when you fall backward, and less dependent on your athletic ability than a ropes course.

Have any of you experienced flash mobs inside an organization?    

Integrating Social Media into Everyone's Job - Even in Clinical Health Care

I recently watched the COO of a health care organization get excited when she suddenly "got it."  We were talking about how the company could use social media to help achieve its objectives.  We discussed market positioning, and brand awareness, and information sharing, and friends and family support groups.  The column titled "Clinical" on my brainstorming sheet, however, got little attention.  Until the COO took a second look at my preliminary ideas and suddenly saw how some social media channels and concepts could be used to improve direct patient care.

In that moment, the discussion shifted.  We were no longer talking about how to USE social media.  We were talking about how social media could change the core business model and operations.  Social media was being made part of everyone's job, even the clinicians'.

Health care organizations generally play only tentatively with social media.  They are concerned about privacy; many are big and bureaucratic; openness and transparency are rarely cultural identifiers (apologies and kudos to those small, agile, and culturally open health care groups).  But when social media is recognized as an enabler to improved outcomes and performance, the opportunities multiply.

Health care organizations can expand the engagement with patients, whether in a one-to-one  or one-to-many environment.  They can engage with the patient communities that already exist, help create new networks, and even enhance some therapies.  They can improve internal communication among staff, which ultimately aids patient outcome and operating performance.  The opportunities only exist, however, if all staff members - clinical and not - are responsible for integrating social media thinking and lifestyle into their jobs.

The COO of this health care organization was using the clover architecture approach to implementation (see http://bit.ly/r9oppb):

• She was leading by sharing her insights and asking everyone to think differently, and by identifying how she would use social media in her own job.
• A distributed governance structure was being implemented, with each staff person assuming responsibility; there would be a social media guru, but no central social media department.
• The cultural change that was beginning was enormous.  Each person, including clinicians, was being challenged to figure out how social media could help to drive better results.  Multi-directional and multi-stakeholder collaboration became key.
• The technology was kept user-friendly and simple.

By recognizing that the objective of social media is a lifestyle not initiatives (see http://bit.ly/rb0P2i), this health care organization is improving patient care and satisfaction.  Every department and person is invited to participate.

Build It and They Might NOT Come: Internal Social Networks, Employee Engagement and Culture Change

Not everyone agrees that an open, transparent culture -- the type we identify with social media -- is best.  Not everyone wants to add "marketing" or "customer service" to his or her responsibilities.  "I want to work with technology, not people" is a not-uncommon, although usually unspoken, thought.  Other people simply prefer structure and limited responsibility.  And those traits can add to the efficiency and productivity of many companies.

Not everyone want to focus on making the company successful either.  Many employees are trying to establish themselves and further their own reputations and careers; the organization is a short-term alliance.  Ideal?  Not at all.  But reality.

So if, as I believe (see for instance http://bit.ly/oYbtHT), success with social media first requires comfort and cultural support internally, are these organizations doomed in the new social world order?

A few years ago, I helped a mid-sized professional services company implement an internal social platform as the first step in executing a social media strategy.  Employees clamored to be among the first on the site.  We offered tips and training; a few people started posting; two executives participated actively, and within a couple of months - NOTHING.

Leadership faultered.  While many executives were lurkers on the site, only the original two enthusiasts had posted.

The professional value was not clear.  Performance reviews did not recognize those who shared.  In a business where knowledge and relationships are power, employees felt the new platform might enable others to snap up their information without giving credit.  The efficiency of the social platform for exchanging information, pointing out new ideas, and adding value to an initiative was overlooked.

The dominant culture of the company was one of controlled sharing on a need-to-know basis.  Not exactly social media nirvana.  We decided to embrace and respect the corporate DNA nonetheless.

We found success by using the social networking platform to enhance and evolve the existing culture, not change it.

We limited use of the platform to one team with 5 selected characteristics:

• Team members came from several different departments
• Team members were geographically dispersed
• Each person brought a different perspective and knowledge to the project that was important for a successful outcome
• The team leader was enthusiastic about the new way of working
• Benefits were clear   

Team members experienced real-time value from using the social networking platform.  Communication and collaboration were easier; the number of major revisions dropped; edits and modifications could be made, disseminated, and enacted more quickly; work hours and end-to-end project time declined.  

Sharing more openly paradoxically also made team members feel that they had more control of their work process and product.  At the completion of the project, team members were already using the internal social network for other work activities.

Work team by work team, node by node, the use of the internal social platform spread.  The objective was not to change the culture, but to help employees succeed more fully within the existing norms.  Two years later, the cultural changes are manifest.      

The Inside Story - Show and Tell

Once upon a time (about a year ago), a client declared that their new focus would be improving the consumer experience.  One executive wanted to know how to use social media to achieve this goal, although they sold through a global distributor network and did not deal directly with the consumer.

So we scoured discussion forums and blogs and other social media sites to learn what consumers liked, didn't like and wanted.  Then we asked the distributors what they thought.  How could the manufacturer better support them so that they could better support the consumer?  Consumers, we discovered, wanted shorter repair time; they wanted repairs done right the first time, and they wanted leading edge information about the newest features and upgrades.  Delivering those benefits correlated with higher consumer satisfaction and lower churn.  Dealers wanted help.

We created a social media strategy and a new operating model that promised to give the dealers the tools to fuel their passion and to provide the experience the consumer wanted.

But the systems in place weren't "broken."  Why "fix" them?  How could we convince the majority of the executive team that the best approach was using social media platforms rather than call centers or road shows?  We developed a business case.

We told stories.

With clip art and enthusiasm, we wrote and illustrated a series of vignettes.  Carey and Caroline Consumer went through each stage of the customer lifecycle -- from becoming interested in the product through to purchasing, warranty repair issues, and ultimately deciding whether to upgrade, stay with the status quo, or move to a competitor.  At each point in the customer lifecycle, we illustrated how the proposed social media would affect the process; how it helped to shape the consumer experience, and how it influenced measurable outcomes.

We presented the stories to the C-suite.  No power point decks with bulleted lists, we used one-act plays and dramatic readings.  We employed imagination plus some prototypes and mock-ups.  It was fun; it was often times funny, and it drove home the value of the proposed social media strategy.

We hear a good deal about telling stories in social media.  But the stories are usually about how other companies are succeeding, not visionary tales about the impact of social media inside our own organization.  

Be creative.  Show and tell.  The inside story can be powerful.

What stories have you told?    

Forget the 4 Ps of Marketing; Think the 3 Cs of Social Business

How can a traditional marketing culture cope in the new social world of business?  It can't.

Classical marketing, still taught at most business schools, misses the point.  The 4 Ps that have defined marketing activity for so long - Product, Price, Place, Promotion - work when companies and customers participate in binary communications: company to customers, customer to company.  But in a multi-channel world, inbound and outbound conversations exist for everyone, at any time, to anyone.

The 3 Cs of Social Business: Content, Customer, Channel

Social media is about engagement and relationships, two inherently unmanageable activities.  Product, price, place and promotion might drive short-term results, but long-term relationships evolve from communities of interest, from respectful discussions, and from connections that cross and take unexpected paths.  Those relationships create self-regenerating marketing engines, whether the core business is B2B, B2C or B2B2C.  The basic building blocks are no longer the 4 Ps of marketing, but the 3 Cs of social business.

Content - is both the message and the words, pictures, sounds and context that convey your message.  In a social relationship, content is the driver of engagement and often involves multiple messages, messages that get passed along (remember the old game of telephone?), and messages that are either much shorter or much longer than the traditional marketing message.  Your content imparts not only information, but also the culture of your organization.  As in any relationship, the customer needs to like you, or at least respect you, before engaging.  Consistency in messaging over time and across business units and corporate silos is critical and impossible to manage.  Content creation expands way beyond the old world Marketing Department. 

Customer - Who is your target customer???  The holy grail of marketing used to be to identify your target customer segments, then align the 4 Ps around them.  But customers have become peripatetic; they roam from one community of interest to another - both personal and professional; they surf blogs and tweets and Facebook posts and YouTube; they share what they find interesting with individuals outside your target segments.  And then one of these people you hadn't targeted is suddenly a fan and pushing you into segments even further afield from your "target."  In The Domino Project (see http://bit.ly/pEu1ta), Seth Godin suggests that publishers stop publishing books with a target audience in mind, "...the glory days of publishing to fill a niche are gone...The new frontier is to publish books that spread."  Today, Marketing needs to let customers declare themselves first, then service those customers as effectively as possible.

Channel - Social media channels present a spaghetti web of connections.  While advanced analytics are enabling more personalization, serving up ads for instance only to individuals who meet certain criteria, social media can also make it more difficult to engage.  In the old B2B world, for example, personal knowledge of customers was a sales role, not a marketing perspective.   Yet, effective use of social media channels requires knowing your customers.  Where do they hang out on-line?  In what social media communities?  What Twitter hashtags do they follow?  How do you humanize your organization to become part of the customer's personal network?  Does your culture mesh with your customer's personal and professional cultures?  Where you socialize is itself a message and a determinant of the customers likely to find you.  Who within your organization can comfortably participate in these communities?

The 3 Cs of Social Media reflect the basic change demanded of Marketing and the role of Marketing in your organization.

How is your Marketing Department changing?  Does it still exist? 

Internal Social Networs - Behavioral Change Before ROI

Intranets are everywhere, and companies are rapidly adding social networking features - wikis, blogs, tagging... Yet satisfaction with these tools is stunningly low.  Prescient Digital reports that only 23% of executives rate 2.0 tools as good or very good, and 38% rate them as poor or very poor.  (http://ww.prescientdigital.com/articles/intranet-articles/intranet-2-0-becomes-mainstream)

Technically, a LOT of good tools are out there.  So what's going on???

•  Tools increase efficiency

• Tools improve productivity

• Tools make it easier for employees to find information and the experts they need

• Tools alone don't work

Prescient points out, "Those organizations that don't have intranet 2.0 tools are not getting executive approval to proceed as they don't have a proper plan or business case that convinces senior management of the need."  Is the failure to achieve the promised savings the reason behind the dissatisfaction of those who do have intranet 2.0 tools?

Maybe in a few cases.  But overall it's not execution or the lack of a plan or business case that is the problem.  The problem is the core need to justify internal networks with business cases.  ROI is critical, and I have written about it many times (see, for instance, http://bit.ly/internalROI), but the anticipated ROI will not be realized if the social network does not reflect fundamental shifts in organizational and interpersonal behavior.

The objective of social media is lifestyle, not initiatives (http://bit.ly/kYsQ6u).  And lifestyle within the corporate walls needs to change before internal or external social media strategies have lasting and measurable value.

When Starbuck's introduced MyStarbucksIdea.com, the driver was CEO Howard Shultz's belief that the company needed to reconnect with its customers.  Look at the site (really, even for non-coffee drinkers, it is a great site).  Yes, Starbuck's is engaging its customers.  It is also engaging its baristas, those rarely listened-to front-line employees who see it all, who talk to and listen to customers, who execute the policies and operational procedures and know what works and what doesn't.  Effective social media ignores hierarchy and organizational silos.  The results probably do drive greater employee efficiency, but that is a by-product of the new social lifestyle. 

One of my favorite corporate activities was the "feel good" campaign by Canadian credit union Servus.  Servus gave 20,000 people $10 CDN and asked them to create a "Feel Good Ripple" by giving the money to someone else.  Buy flowers for the grocery store cashier; buy coffee for the person behind you in line at the drive-thru; give $10 for a lunch to a homeless shelter.  (http://www.springwise.com/financial_services/feelgoodripple/)

To have a positive impact, internal social network initiatives similarly have to change the interpersonal dynamic.  

• Reward employees for sharing what went wrong so that others can learn.  
• Reward people for helping others when it didn't affect their own jobs.  
• Have people track how much time the intranet saved them, and allow them to donate that time to help someone else. 

Internal social networks work when they help corporate lifestyle and culture to change.

What has your organization done to make the intranet a lifestyle change agent?