Social Networks Enable Organization Change and Learning

By N.H.

October 19, 2009

Social networks make it possible to re-invent how we implement change, how we learn, and how
we shape the corporate culture. This is the very definition of a disruptive process, and so
implementation of the enabling technology must proceed with due care. It needs executive
collaboration and consideration of unintended consequences. This article lays out key guidelines.

In the midst of a recession and budget cuts, why are so many of us discussing culture change and
online social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other consumer technology for that
matter? Here’s why.

These consumer-adopted technologies (and those consumers also happen to be your workforce)
affect how groups of individuals share and communicate knowledge, and how we share and
communicate information among ourselves. These technologies have increased the power of the
individual, and extended communities and communication across previously impervious
boundaries. At a time of business uncertainty, they are opening the door to the possibility of
reinventing how we implement change, how we learn, and how we nurture our corporate
cultures. This can add a productivity dimension that until now has been unimaginable.

Consider the power of your workforce that can result when every individual has a voice, and is
connected in a Web that transcends your internal structures, hierarchy, and even company
boundaries.

Technologies developed for consumer consumption continue to tweak and pull at the business
community — a recent example is Second Life. Most new information and communication
technology application advances do not focus on business productivity. Most new technologies
increase immediacy and community – to enable close “relationships” among a far larger group of
people than ever before. A look at improving business through this new lens of immediacy and
community may be closer to culture shock than culture change.

Applying new consumer technologies to business is not easy. Consumer applications have the
values of individuality, and freedom of access and speech – the individual is firmly at the center
of all decisions about the information broadcast and received. This is not exactly an environment
that we’d find in business. Some who have looked at Facebook,, to critique and explore the most
popular social media application (now with over 300-million active users), have concluded that it
simply supports narcissistic pleasure. Well, that may be something that does fit in well with
business.
Within a corporation, applications of social network technology won’t be about “friends,” as it
currently is in the consumer world. Instead these applications will aim at creating a community
among all those who have elected to work for and advance the mission and goals of your firm.
The balance of power in management-employee communication channels will be a direct result
of your employees gaining a powerful mass voice. This is the culture shock that awaits business
early adopters of social media technologies for internal business use.

Unless you are ready to reconsider, and possibly redesign, your management and business
processes and structure, and to explore transformed approaches to business growth and
productivity, tread carefully into the online social media realm. Not unlike a democracy, opinion
on mission, values, behavior, strategies, and tactics will be up for discussion. That already
happens today, of course, but it happens in fairly closed groups. This technology enables a more
open, company-wide discussion, and, like a democracy, it probably will be messy. But – could
possible advances in business productivity turn social media into a competitive advantage?

The possibilities

It already appears that the simplest applications to deliver tangible value could be the planned
outcome of what now happens in public social networks. These outcomes include some new and
traditional HR/Learning challenges approached in new ways.

1. Peer Learning. Much preferred by next-generation employees as a balance to traditional

mentor/teacher-based learning; a social media application opens the door to get questions quickly
asked and answered. What could be better than to have direct input from someone who has
faced, or is currently facing, a similar situation – right here and now – on-the-job? You can get
more than answers (which may also be available in a current learning library or course). You can
also interactively discuss it until the situation makes sense to you for your own application. This
pedagogic solution however, will almost certainly be out of the reach of LMS functions – how
much upset will that cause?

2. Knowledge Management (in reality, Knowledge Access). At least 20 years have passed since
the knowledge management dilemma was to have been solved. We do keep getting better at it,
but it continues to fall apart in its maintenance and update complexity. Some still find that best
access to knowledge is to call someone, who will know something. A social network can extend
the reach, increase the immediacy, and reduce the mean time to reach a result, compared to the
original telephone and e-mail approaches. Once a social network site has been active for a period
of time, it becomes the de facto repository of current and applicable knowledge. There is still
great opportunity to have meaningless and false data there, so you must apply some kind of
moderation architecture, (e.g. voting, facilitating, editing) to have assurance that the information
you are reading is correct, up to date, and legal. It is interesting that the social network creates a
platform for interactive problem solving, and a transparent knowledge database – no extra work
required. Knowledge management and access can be seamlessly integrated into the fiber of
work.

3. Collegiality. What things are most valued in an offsite meeting? Managers tend to want to
say “learning,” but participants tend to speak of “camaraderie,” an opportunity to socialize with
colleagues, and to add a personal emotional context to work. Occasionally, participants mention
“inspiration.” The opportunity to share and discuss business, and personal perceptions of the
business tend to create a closer-knit community. Some of these relationships continue after the
offsite meeting, and become part of personal real-life networks. Could an online social network
obviate the need for off-sites? Readers who pay attention to time management and productivity
will have already computed the numbers. They are considering whether a two-day annual offsite
is actually equivalent to 5.76 minutes a day on a social network. (OK: 250 work days, and 2
twelve-hour offsite days.) While reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and travel cost are
benefits, certainly company offsite meetings will not be eliminated, just somewhat reduced, with
attendees strengthening and extending their personal ties in between events online.

7. The Killer App. There isn’t one – yet. But it we will discover or create it. Its characteristic will
be support for the business process. In fact, it may become the business process, one that would
not be possible to execute otherwise in a productive and cost-effective way. This will be the
source of the real value of online social networks for business. To make this discovery will
require a peer collaboration of a diverse and broad set of next-generation technologists,
sociologists, management, and business experts. It will be a group that probably hasn’t worked
together much as true peers in the past, thinking beyond conventional ideas about organization,
structure, boundaries, management, and leadership.

Transparency in business

Imagine open communication, contrasting dialog, and honest assessments of business direction
and individuals. Yes, this sounds too good to be true. Numerous organizational development
movements have striven in the past to achieve just that. With online social network technologies,
a strong push toward that environment may actually be unavoidable. While it’s unclear whether
we can predict the cultural reactions, a poorly facilitated implementation could generate several
negative possibilities. For example:

1. Open critique and discussion of leadership, peers, mission, values, products, and direction can
create a rich place to Google for lawsuits for product liability, anti-trust, harassment,
discrimination … and we thought keeping e-mail clean was hard!

2. The opportunity to enhance 360º performance evaluations could better support the, “why
you’re not getting the raise you expected,” message.

3. Support for evolution of a democracy in business means opportunities to bring about some
revolutionary spirit. Most business management today runs on a philosophy based in military
hierarchy – control, focus, efficiency, and execution. Democratic debate is messy, takes a lot of
time, diverts energy and focus from short-term value activity, and challenges the leadership –
constantly. Could this mean that business leaders will evolve into politicians?

4. The freedom to take time out of the workday to read, consider, respond, and create social
media entries and commentary. I wonder when and how some of my Facebook friends get any
work done. If all of us were that intense – would the world stop?

5. The more narcissistic among us will dominate the medium, not that this doesn’t already
happen in real life. In social media it’s just more invasive and pervasive.

6. Any attempts by management to control messaging or shaping of the new environment may
be treated cynically, eroding trust.

Critical success factors

Regardless of the risk and barriers, it is important to proceed to explore the business benefits of
this new portfolio of technologies. The way that business is accomplished will inevitably shift as
a result. Expect new business models, and a new approach to business management. The only
question is how the changes will manifest in any particular firm, and whether they can turn into a
competitive advantage.

While social media have the capability to cross every traditional boundary in business, initial
limitations on their reach are advisable. For now, focus exploration internally on areas that
require close cross-functional coordination. Carefully measure the business-value impact of a
barrier-free, open, communication channel.

Successful implementations require a culture of increasing trust. Discussions of trust and culture
may get muddied in organizational development ideology, but increasing trust would permit a
pilot in social media, and should produce upticks in “hard” productivity and employee
satisfaction measures.

The concept of lifetime employment at a firm has virtually disappeared. Even though, in this
economy, we are in an employment seller’s market, corporations will have to have greater
respect for individuals and their networks. Primarily due to Internet applications, including social
networks, employees know more about what is going on in other firms, in greater detail than ever
before. Think of your employees as treating their employment with you as their current project.
Their real long-term loyalty is to themselves, their source of stability is outside your firm, and
their network is the enabler.
An interesting analog to consider: corporations used networks to blast through the physical
boundaries of the world’s countries. Employees are using social networks to blast through
corporate boundaries. How did countries react?

Social networking in business may not happen in its current consumer form, but it will happen.
The value of integrated knowledge management (knowledge access), the ability to elicit almost
instant contribution of multiple minds, including a possible seamless integration with partners
and customers, is too seductive. This change is inevitable; the question is how gracefully we will
complete the transformation.