Watch your local Pee-wee football team’s practice sometime and you’ll see a lot of dropped passes, missed tackles, and a whole host of other mistakes. But…what would happen if you put that team on Heinz Field and gave them all the same amenities as the Pittsburgh Steelers? Yep, they still wouldn’t be able to complete a pass, kick a field goal or break a James Harrison tackle. Clearly, just because they were put on a better field and given the latest equipment doesn’t mean they will suddenly learn to play football.
It doesn't matter what kind of equipment you give them, these players aren't going to win the Super Bowl
Similarly, simply adding the latest Enterprise 2.0 platform behind your firewall doesn’t mean your employees will suddenly learn to collaborate with one another. Collaboration doesn’t just magically happen because you went out and bought the latest Enterprise 2.0 or Social Business software. It happens because they have a reason to collaborate. It happens when they are rewarded for sharing information. It happens when they like working with the people around them.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen dozens of failed wikis, blogs, microblog platforms, forums, and idea management deployments, and I’m sure I’ll see many more. This is frustrating on a couple of different levels for me. First, since I suffer from HOLI (“Hatred of Losing Information“), I hate seeing the missed collaboration opportunities that result from these poorly implemented solutions. Secondly, I know that because of these failures, these organizations will most likely write off social media behind the firewall as some sort of snake oil.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of all of these failures is the reliability with which their failure can be predicted. If you’re implementing some sort of social media behind your organizational firewall, and you’re doing any of the following, I can tell you right now that you probably won’t be successful:
- The same IT department who installed your email system, your ERP system, or your databases is responsible for leading the implementation of your wiki, blog, microblogging platform, etc.
- You don’t have anyone talking about user adoption and community management on the team from the very start
- You don’t have a plan for funding this initiative beyond this year
- You’re measuring success by the number of “users” you can claim
- You’re talking about giving away iPads and candy bars to get people to use it
- There are numerous conversations among senior leadership about how to mitigate the risks of your employees using the tools “as a dating service,” to “goof around,” to complain about everything, or editing things they don’t know anything about.
- You’re more concerned with the available features instead of making it fast, reliable, and accessible
- The team responsible for the platform doesn’t even use it
Instead of trying to give the players the latest and greatest stadium and equipment, start focusing on improving their passing and tackling skills. Maybe you could have them run some pass patterns instead of installing a state-of-the art locker room?
- Do my employees have a reason to collaborate with people outside of their immediate team?
- Is collaborative behavior rewarded during the performance assessment process? Are they punished for hoarding information?
- Does leadership model collaborative behavior?
- Are colleagues encouraged to spend time with each other outside of work hours (softball teams, happy hours, etc.)?
- Are there multiple levels of approvals needed before anyone can share anything?
- Do your employees trust each other? Do they trust management?
If you’re interested in learning more about why your Enterprise 2.0 implementations are failing and what you can do to help them succeed, take a look at the webinar that I just did for UBM TechWeb. The “It’s Not the Field, It’s the Players” webinar will be archived here, and the slides are now available below.
[UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE PRESENTATION BELOW]
[slideshare id=9663453&doc=e20webinar-draftfinalslideshare-111012142902-phpapp02]
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Very well said , I totally agree that collaboration just does not happen overnight even if the organization is provided with the best of collaboration tools. I work in Enterprise 2.0 space, built a social business platform called KineticGlue, same challenges on adoption, acceptance etc . bigger challenge is to move people away from the primary communication/collaboration tool in organizations – email. People are simply comfortable with emails because of it’s flexibility , ease of use and more importantly familiarity. We have to keep this in mind while building a collaboration platform. One biggest learning we have had is that it’s very difficult for employees to adapt to a platform that is stand alone, it has to be aligned with the work
process, it’s also very important to provide process context to the collaboration tools.
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Thank you for your email. I’ll be out of the office on vacation from Friday, October 14th through Monday, October 24th. During this time, I’ll very little access to either voicemail or email. While I’m out of the office, please consider reading my blog (www.steveradick.com) or following me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/sradick). In my absence, please reach to one of the following individuals:
For questions about Booz Allen’s Digital Strategy & Social Media Practice, speaking opportunities, or my blog, please contact Tracy Johnson (johnson_tracy@bah.com) or Jacque Myers (myers_jacque@bah.com).
I will respond to your email upon my return on Tuesday, October 25th.
Steve Radick
Lead Associate
Booz Allen Hamilton
Read my blog at http://www.steveradick.com Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/sradick.
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Good post. I’m going through a few of these issues as well..