‘Social' investment for team's success

There seem to be three kinds of managers at this point in the social adoption curve, observes Scott Klososky in Manager's Guide to Social Media ( >www.tatamcgrawhill.com ). “The thought leaders, the dragged along, and the naysayers,” he adds.

Pointing out that two of these are not helping themselves or anyone else for that matter, the author notes that somewhere between being a thought leader and being dragged along is a place where a manager is quick to adopt new methods of doing things, but not on the bleeding edge.

He chides managers who make lots of excuses to themselves about why they are not jumping into the social tech world – excuses such as that they are too busy, too set in their ways, or too far behind to catch up. “The only way you can justify these things to yourself is if you completely ignore what the future workplace will be like. For your own sake, be willing to invest in yourself even if you'll only be managing for a few more years. And if you're really not worried about your career, how about being willing to invest in your team?”

Uplift in performance

To fence-sitting managers who still wonder if there are any advantages in teaching social tech tools and concepts to the team, the book has ready insights. Such as that you will be surprised at the overall uplift in performance!

And, in the list of benefits, foremost is ‘a higher level of communication among team members.' For, social tools provide new ways to communicate internally, especially if the team is dispersed, reasons Klososky.

“Lack of communication is often cited as one of the biggest factors in a failed project or effort. Opening up communication channels (Yammer, Twitter, collaboration tools, Facebook, online discussion groups, shared knowledge-bases, etc) so that your team has real-time, efficient, and easy ways to keep each other informed would improve performance in ways you can't imagine today.”

River of information

The second benefit highlighted in the book is ‘a better river of information.' When you help your team develop deeper and real-time flows of information into their brains, you will raise the collective IQ, assures Klososky. More knowledge leads to better decisions, and better decisions lead to higher productivity and better profit percentages, he reminds.

A box item in the chapter speaks of ‘river' sources in the form of periodically having people share what their favourite new sources of information are with the rest of the team.

Make this a regular part of your staff meetings by setting aside a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting for people to explain what information they have discovered lately and how they are using it, urges the author.

He argues that this ‘best practice' forces people to always be looking for something they can share with others, and keeps everyone's rivers of information fresh.

One other benefit, which should interest the CFOs, is the availability of additional options to get projects completed on time and on budget.

For instance, ‘crowd-sourcing' can give you access to new vendors and less expensive and faster ways of getting things done, instructs Klososky. “Online collaboration software helps team members move through the project with greater velocity because they have better visibility into what other team members are doing.”

The next big things

An interesting section in the book is the one titled ‘What are the next big things in social tech?' Stating that it is not really that difficult to figure out ‘what' will happen in the future, the author hastens to caution that it can be tough, however, to know exactly ‘when' it will go mainstream — whether it will happen in one year or three.

Topping the list of his predictions is the standardisation of social tools. “Standards are lacking in the social space at the moment. This causes us to waste time on tasks like having to enter new passwords on sites over and over. We have to connect with friends and contacts on every new site we sign up with. When we write mobile applications, we have to create versions for multiple operating systems…” As the social tech field matures, we will have organisations that will suggest and promote standards that when accepted, will make using new tools much easier, Klososky hopes.

He forecasts that communication profiles will assist with contacts, as antidote to ‘one of the biggest holes in our ability to communicate with each other,' that is, no one provides a central profile of our methods for connecting.

“Sure, most of us have a cell phone, e-mail, and a LinkedIn address; many more have Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. Our mobile devices allow us to text and do video calls with each other. It's wonderful to have all of these ways to communicate, but for the most part, we don't know what people's preferred methods are, what their current status is, or where they are physically.” All that will change soon, the author visualises, because one of the major players will provide this type of profile!

Manage the organisational voice

An important chapter in the book is the one on ‘managing the organisational voice.' In this, the author alerts that the first thing that your people need to understand about using social tools to communicate with the public on the organisation's behalf is what authority they have and do not have. “When television, radio, magazines, and newspapers were the main way an organisation talked to the world, it was easy to restrict who could comment on your behalf. The lines of authority were clear. It's now more complicated because every employee has the ability to see a comment made about the organisation and to respond in an instant to millions of people.”

Klososky, therefore, demands organisations to make it clear to the staff which employees are allowed to speak on behalf of the organisation, and the rest are not; to make it clear to people how to represent themselves if they enter a conversation; and to make sure that they understand there is a concept of authority around what they say publicly on behalf of the organisation.

T rain your spokesperson

A section titled ‘the tone, style, and feel' emphasises that for those authorised to speak on behalf of the organisation, the skill of ‘talking' to people in the correct voice becomes important. “We've now moved into a time when people are tired of and jaded by corporate speak. They want even large institutions to have a soul, and they judge that by their actions and the vernacular used when they talk to their constituents.”

In the author's view, to get everyone on the same page, you must be able to define how the voice should sound. Do this by showing people examples of communication that hit the mark, and combining that with descriptions of the unique elements of the voice, he guides. “For example, if you look at the voice that Google uses to speak to the world, they clearly want the company to have a feel that includes a sense of humour, cleverness, openness, and a willingness to get along with other organisations and standards in the world. If you can't define how the voice should sound, people will create their own versions and that will be a branding nightmare.”

A simple exercise, in this context, is to let people practise writing in the style of the organisational voice internally (for the company newsletter, and blog), before they write externally. The author frets that using social tools to speak on behalf of the company is an area where virtually no one is providing training or giving people the chance to practise. His sage counsel, hence, is that in view of the consequences of getting this right or wrong, you should take the responsibility for helping those who might be the company spokesperson. “Don't make the mistake of letting people dive in live. If you experiment on your constituents, you'll find out the hard way that a few days of practice might have been a good idea.”

Ideal material for in-house training on ‘social' skills.

>dmurali@thehindu.co.in

Tailpiece

“As a proactive HR policy, we are displaying on a central dashboard the average…”

“Pay, age, experience, and so on, of all the employees?”

“No, the vital parameters of the organisation, such as pulse rate, sugar level, and blood pressure!”

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