After I posted my blog from a train this morning, Tim Kitchin got in touch and said:
Look forward to seeing the flow of the day…some very interesting developments ahead in workforce 2.0. I hope the conference gets into some of the ‘proper’ stuff…
I asked him – what do you mean by ‘proper stuff’? If and when I hear back from Tim I will update this post with his response. In the meantime – here are a handful of early observations I’m sensing about themes, feelings etc.
Co-creation and Involvement Matter
Yay – and…? How? That’s still not clear enough for me. I think there are lots of simple ways to push further on this front, most of them conversational.
Complete Control is a Total Illusion
I’ve bastardised this feeling so that a) I get a Clash reference in and b) it reminds me of my 2013 tour t shirt. And seriously – there is a rising awareness that this social stuff is going on regardless of your policy.
Total Illusion eh?
I’m enjoying following the Twitter feed of Grumpy Lecturer, who has pushed back on the control issue with this:
Is the interest in social media in workplace akin to Bentham’s Panopticon as employers paranoia increases?
I googled Panopticon and I suggest you do the same – I think we need to be mindful not to rebuild work in this scary shape.
Leadership
This has to mean more than where we sit on an org chart. There are leaders everywhere – acknowledge them regardless of their hierarchical position.
Reward
I think how people are rewarded is a vital part of how an organisation functions or dysfunctions. Mot people are not paid to collaborate – indeed many are paid to compete with colleagues instead. For me – this is currently missing from the conversation.
How About You
What do you think is missing – are we yet talking about the ‘Proper Stuff”?
Complete control may be an illusion, but total fear is all too real! Fear about who will be held responsible? Fear about what others may do! Fear about how others may react?
They do say that if you love someone you have to let them go. Well I feel sometimes with social media in order to get the best from it one has to “let go”.
Thanks Ian – I think your feelings are in the right place. Letting go. Always a pleasure to hear from you.
I’m hoping social media will lead to social revolution – we bloody need it. Oh, and whilst we’re on the topic – any chance of bringing back a sense of shame?
Hi Julia – can you expand on your second point please? I’m not sure how helpful shame is when defined as: ‘a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour.’
Vive la revolution!
I see it as quite simple – a lot of people have forgotten about shame. It can be a crippling social construct in the hands of the wrong people (often the church) but it is an important human emotion …. and as we have become so far removed from a sense of local the sense of shame for shabby behaviour seems to have gone missing. The lack of it in the banking sector is jaw-dropping and it continues. Fred Wise had to be forcibly ‘shamed’ into taking a reduced pension (public opinion was vociferous).
In terms of social – it’s not trolling or anything else. I just hope that we can bring back some sense of control via shame over those who commit bad to appalling acts which might put the brakes on the out of control behaviour we now see by those in senior positions.
And it wouldn’t do David Cameron any harm to feel the prick of shame as he jumps on the Nelson Mandela bandwagon – age 23 he was in South Africa specifically working on ways to break sanctions for a right wing organisation. He also gave a virtual state funeral (at our expense) to Margaret Thatcher who did not have the greatest record when it came to the ANC – irrespective of her political views it was widely known that she was tainted by protecting her husband’s business interests in South Africa.
Thanks – I really appreciate you coming back and expanding on this – it’s been very helpful for me.
Some of my favourite conversations this year have started with Doug Shaw saying ‘one thing I’ve noticed is…’. I’d like to hear more (or beer more?) about the controversial ways of pushing cocreation/collaboration.
I heard a story recently about an HR function delighted by its introduction of Yammer, proper ‘look what we’ve done’ stuff. They had 60 users in the organisation. 50 of them worked in HR. The org had over 20000 employees.
I think increasingly the tools are there for us to do great things – but if a man has a fear of travelling faster than walking pace then a car won’t get him anywhere faster. We need to understand his fear and then teach him to drive.
Thank you very much for this note David.
Firstly – I really appreciate the nudge on co-creation and collaboration. I must put more effort in to this stuff that I love to do and help make it easier for people to buy it too.
Love the 60 into 20,000 – plenty of that about, and I suppose it has to start somewhere…
Driving analogy is spot on – I think you might have to consider that one stolen and reused 🙂