Five Star Blog

Content is an extremely valuable asset for organizations; so much so that most have established guidelines and procedures defining how it should be developed and distributed. Yet with the emergence of Social Media, organizations large and small are faced with this question: “How should an organization respond to the prospect that virtually anyone can create and distribute content?”

Ultimately, there are three ways organizations can respond.

1. Ignore it and pretend that it does not exist (sadly, the most common response).
2. Establish strict policies, procedures, and guidelines that drive people away and discourage use.
3. Embrace it and seek ways to effectively implement it.

Unfortunately, most organizations have embraced either the ignore it or over-regulate it path when faced with creating a response to Social Media. However, some organizations, like Sun Microsystems, have responded appropriately by acknowledging the value of Social Media and establishing initial guidelines to establish expectations for using these tools. Let’s take a look at what they have done well.

If you visit www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp you will see that Sun has published its “Guidelines on Public Discourse.” There are three things that become quickly apparent as one reads this note.

1. Sun acknowledges that Social Media tools can change way people work, and people should be using them. In fact, this message becomes obvious as soon as visitors enter the site: “Many of us at Sun are doing work that could change the world. Contributing to online communities by blogging, wiki posting, participating in forums, etc., is a good way to do this. You are encouraged to tell the world about your work, without asking permission first, but we expect you to read and follow the advice in this note.”
2. Sun believes that Social Media has great value in creating and enabling conversations. “Remember the Web is all about links; when you see something interesting and relevant, link to it; you’ll be doing your readers a service, and you’ll also generate links back to you; a win-win.“
3. There is a place for guidelines and acceptable practices in the world of free thought. By offering advice on how to write content, use other people’s content, and discuss company-related issues, Sun establishes a baseline for conduct while giving people the liberty to be themselves.

As you begin to build you Social Media strategy, we would recommend that you check out Sun’s Guidelines and use them as a reference. They have done an excellent job in carefully outlining baseline expectations, while not hindering people from using Social Media. As always, we would like to hear what you think. Use the comments link below to discuss.

So, you have decided to implement Social Media within your organization. Now, what?
By nature, Social Media provides people with resources and tools for accessing information they deem valuable. However, the ability to access this information is not always reason enough to motivate people to adopt and use new Social Media. Knowing this, what steps should you take to get people excited and motivated to start using your new Social Media?

Consider the following as you create an implementation strategy:

1. Identify your application’s purpose and communicate it!
   There are many reasons why people choose to use Social Media, but at the root of it all are three desires: connect with others, build relationships, and create shared communities. What makes Social Media unique among all new technology is its ability to provide people who have similar interests and passions with a way to connect and create shared communities of common interest. As you build your implementation strategy, is it vital that you keep these desires front-of-mind and communicate how your application will either improve or help to remove obstacles hindering people from doing any or all of them.
2. Engage early adopters and share their thoughts with others.
   Engaging people who are already using other Social Media applications or who are early adopters can help you do three things. First, by engaging these people you are able to quickly gather insights into the perceived value of your application so that you can make changes that will benefit the larger population. Next, feedback from these people can be used to actively market the application to others. Most importantly, word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals from these people help to create buzz and raise awareness about your application and its value to others.
3. Don’t forget to engage the big cheese.
   People want to feel that their contributions are of value and that they play an active role in shaping the quality of their own lives and the quality of their future work. Therefore, it goes without saying that if people feel that their contributions are of no value, they will not participate. It is for this reason that getting influential people (like senior leaders and executives) within the organization informed and engaged is so important. A great example of this was illustrated by Bell Canada’s implementation of “ID-ah!” (a Social Media application for gathering and rank ordering ideas for improving the company). Once employees knew that senior leaders of the company were reading the posts and had a sincere desire to implement the best ideas (a total of 12 ideas have been implemented), the adoption and usage of the application rapidly increased.
4. Promote through other technology and think interactive.
   As you actively market and promote your new Social Media, be sure to seek ways to link and promote it on other heavily trafficked sites and resources being used within your organization. For example, if your organization has an Internet site or enterprise portal, look for ways to partner with the owners of these sites. Some ideas include trading links or creating interactive campaigns that “drive” users from their site to yours.

As you roll out new Social Media applications, be sure to focus on these considerations. We would like to learn more about how you are exciting and motivating people in your organization to use new Social Media. Feel free to comment below!

Navigating through many available Social Media technologies can be challenging. The options and types of technologies are endless, and like most technology solutions, finding the best solution to meet your organization’s needs is not easy. Recently, many members of our team read the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. This book is an excellent resource and provides research and practical recommendations for evaluating and building a Social Media strategy. In today’s post, we will outline the book’s four-step planning process to building a Social Media strategy, as we have found this to be of great value.

When building a Social Media strategy, Li and Bernoff recommend that you use the POST method (People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology) to guide your planning process.

1. People – You must first ask yourself, “What are my customers ready for?” As a first step, it is important that you assess what technologies your customers are currently using. For example, if the majority of your consumers are seeking a way to write reviews and rate other comments, then tools that employ more robust social networking uses might not be necessary or applicable to your audience. The authors offer a tool to help you determine your customers’ profile, for more information click here.
2. Objectives – What are your company’s’ goals? Are you likely to utilize social technologies to achieve marketing objectives or to achieve sales goals? It is crucial that you determine what you plan to accomplish with Social Media before you choose a technology.
3. Strategy – How do you want relationships with your customers to change? Do you want your customers to become engaged with your company, or do you want them to help you carry out messages to others? By deciding how you want your customers to change, you can plan for that change and determine how to measure it once the strategy is underway.
4. Technology – Which applications should you build? Once you have addressed the people, objectives, and strategy concerns, you can then begin the process of evaluating possible technology solutions.

A high-performing organization is one that can adapt to new technologies successfully so choosing the correct social media is crucial. There are many other factors that should be considered when choosing the correct Social Media technology (e.g. Will your customers feel secure using the technology?). Yet, the POST framework provides you with a solid foundation to build your strategy. We’re interested to hear what you think about a social media strategy for your company, so feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.

In a recent post, we discussed how Social Media is making its mark on the corporate landscape. In that post, we talked at a high level about the reasons why corporations are using Social Media. These reasons included enabling communication, collaboration, and media sharing within organizations. If you have not had a chance to check out this post, you can do so here.

In today’s post, we are going to continue the discussion by specifically focusing on how organizations are applying Social Media technology to solve real business challenges. There are many applications of Social Media. Although there are many nuances in implementation applications, seven common types have bubbled to the top.

• Organizational learning, , communication, and collaboration – Resources used for people to create virtual communities focused on specific interests, roles, geographies, and professional networks.
• Innovation management – Resources used to leverage the content sharing, rating, and discussion aspects of Social Media in order to ask a population of people, “How would you solve this challenge?”
• Customer engagement and relationship building – Resources used to connect customers based on needs, purchases, and shared interests. Content and media can be shared, rated, and distributed only to those who choose to see that content.
• Recruitment – Resources used to communicate the status of job openings and recruitment events and connect applicants who share the common interest of gaining employment with an organization.
• Marketing and brand building – Resources and sites to enforce an organization’s brand by providing collaborative tools and resources for people who share common needs, experiences, and interests.
• Partner relationship – Resources used to connect partner organizations together based on needs, purchases, markets, verticals, and shared interests. Content and media can be shared, rated, and distributed only to those who choose to see that content.
• On-boarding – Websites and resources used to connect newly hired employees together so that they can share knowledge and information with each other and collaborate with seasoned employees on how to successfully navigate a new work environment.

As you plan to implement a Social Media application, it is important to point out two things:

1. Before implementing any technology, including Social Media, there must be a compelling reason for doing so. Ideally, this purpose should be rooted in the pursuit of helping solve the felt needs of the end users. Most organizations cannot afford to implement novel technology. Therefore, as you explore how your organization can employ Social Media, be sure to take the time to understand your audience and their felt needs so that you can adequately implement technology to meet those needs.
2. Although Social Media applications tend to be much more organic in nature than other enterprise technology, this does not undervalue of good implementation plan. A good implementation plan outlines a clear strategy for how the technology will be deployed and communicated. Most importantly, this plan should identify the feedback mechanisms that will be put in place to ensure that end user comments are gathered and responded to in a strategic and timely manner.

A question we commonly ask ourselves and our clients is “What makes an organization high-performing?” Recently, Five Star hosted a Potential for High Performance Seminar and this very same question was posed to the audience. After a few moments of thought, one participant stated that high-performing organizations are accountable. When asked to discuss how a lack of accountability within an organization manifests itself, one respondent commented that when accountability is missing, “nobody can say yes, but everyone can say no.” This response sparked an interesting discussion about the connection between accountability, empowerment, and decision making. Below are some of the thoughts participants offered about how these three concepts are linked and how they work together to contribute to the creation of a high-performance organization.

1. To build accountability there must be clearly defined goals and an agreed upon commitment by    everyone regarding how each person will contribute their unique talents.
2. Accountability requires that individuals earn and receive a level of empowerment from their leader and their team to contribute their personal talents and experiences. True empowerment is given, earned, and accepted.
3. Leaders must believe that their team members are competent and trustworthy to make decisions that are in the best interest of the team and the organization as a whole.
4. Ultimately, there must be someone who takes ownership of the decisions of a team or work group. If this is missing, the finger pointing game quickly ensues.
5. Although decisions must be made rapidly, in order to make good decisions, there must be patience to think.
6. High-performance organizations track and report out on the effectiveness of decisions over time and reward people for making decisions that advance the mission of the organization.

The connection between accountability, empowerment, and decision making and the role they play in creating high-performance organizations can’t be understated. Offer your ideas by commenting on this post below!

What does it take to build an enthusiastic and energetic workforce? How can you encourage all of your team members to begin each day wondering how they can do their job more effectively? Furthermore, how can you create a sense of urgency, particularly during tough economic times?

The simple answer is strong leadership. Leaders who inspire others with a compelling purpose are necessary in order to cultivate the kind of culture in which employees look forward to coming to work. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to examine each of the four key behaviors of effective Organizational Leadership.

Inspire Others with a Compelling Purpose and Vision

People have a basic desire to be a part of something important. Most want to know that they are making a difference in the world. Strong leaders have the ability to inspire that kind of purpose by effectively communicating the importance of their organization’s mission. They provide a clear vision for the future – a future that can only be reached through the commitment, competence, and energy of everyone on the team.
There are a lot of people in leadership positions who would probably not describe themselves as inspirational. When we think of inspirational leaders, persuasive speechmakers like Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. With his “I Have a Dream” speech, he moved hundreds of thousands of people. However eloquent, it’s not necessary to possess that exact kind of charisma. What is necessary is the ability to personalize the importance and value of your work in a genuine way. Organizational leaders must be able to communicate how their team’s work makes a difference to their organization, industry, customers, and community.

We were recently motivated by this very clear example of a leader who found a way to inspire others. This person is the department manager of facilities for a corporate campus. She leads a workforce of landscapers, maintenance workers, and janitors. Her vision is simple, “We create peace and serenity for our employees and visitors. People should experience serenity when they look out the windows at a beautiful, well-groomed landscape. They should find peace and calm with the cleanliness of the restrooms and other facilities. This peace and serenity leads to higher productivity and employee morale.”

What is your compelling purpose? How do you inspire your workforce to high performance? Share your inspirational story with us by commenting here, and be sure to visit our blog next week to learn the next key behavior for effective Organizational Leadership.

Does your organization struggle to meet deadlines? Is the blame-game commonplace in the daily life of employees? Have client/customer satisfaction scores fallen below desired targets? If any or all of the following symptoms resonate, your organization might have an accountability problem.

Accountability is the willingness and interest to assume responsibility for one’s actions and work. It occurs only when people accept full ownership of the results of their work. Without accountability, an organization is incapable of achieving and sustaining high performance.

Cultures in high-performance organizations have personal and team accountability that drives the execution of strategy and the delivery of value to the customer. Unfortunately, the concept of accountability has escaped many organizations in today’s marketplace. Although the prospect of instilling accountability throughout an entire organization can seem daunting, every person within an organization has the capability to build personal and team accountability. Here are some practical steps you can implement to cultivate accountability within your organization:

• Clearly define goals.
  Individuals have a tendency to feel ownership of measurable goals and will work harder to achieve those goals.
• Discuss the impact their work will have on the organization and/or the client.
  There is more accountability among individuals who know the impacts of their contributions, and with this knowledge, they will likely internalize consequences of those impacts, both positive and negative. Be sure to link employee goals with customer goals and expectations, as well as explain what it means to exceed those goals and expectations.
• Develop and train your workforce to feel accountable for their actions.
  Accountability in the workplace is supported when you have ongoing discussions with your employees about their goals and the impacts the goals have on the organization. Also, discuss the consequences of not delivering on those goals.
• Carry out on agreed upon consequences.
  Once goals and outcomes have been agreed upon, follow-through on the various consequences for results that meet and do not meet expectations.
• Remember the concept of accountability is contagious.
  In a team environment, it is crucial that all members hold each other accountable. Team members should feel empowered to identify a need and identify solutions for how they can meet that need. In a team setting, it is likely that the members will hold each other accountable through peer pressure and the desire for the team to be successful.

Accountability can happen only when responsible leaders and workforces commit to holding each other accountable for exceeding goals and expectations. Although accountability is not always innately found within organizations, it can be cultivated through a focused effort and ongoing coaching and training.

Over the last five years, the emergence of Social Media and its impact on society has been well documented. Social Media connects people with similar interests through technology, enabling them to share ideas/thoughts and media and collaborate around common interests. What separates Social Media from all of the previous technology-enabled movements is the dramatic paradigm shift in who drives and owns the content. Check out this great YouTube clip, which illustrates this point and demonstrates how Social Media works.

A recent Harris poll found that 49% of Americans are using Social Networking tools. This is an amazing statistic if one considers that most of these tools did not exist several years ago. The growth and popularity of these tools is going to continue to grow as they continue to gain acceptance and utility within the workplace. Some might argue that the adoption and use of these tools represents the next great opportunity for corporations.

But, how exactly can corporations use Social Media? To answer this question, it is important to understand the value that Social Media brings to a corporation. There are several key reasons why corporations are using or plan to adopt Social Media. These include:

• Communication – Enabling people to communicate with each other when they need to and about topics they find most important. Some examples of applications that are now in use include Blogs (Blogger, WordPress, and Vox), Microblogs (Twitter and Yammer), Social Networking (LinkedIn), and Events (Meetup and Upcoming).
• Collaboration – Tools to enable people to work together more efficiently and share common information that they deem important. Some examples of these tools include Social Tagging tools (Delicious and Digg), Wikis (Wikipedia), Virtual Environments (SecondLife), and Ratings Tools (Answers sites).
• Media Sharing – Sites and tools that enable people to share media about a specific topic or area with each other. Some examples of these tools include Photo Sharing (Flickr), Video Sharing (YouTube and Vimeo), LiveCasting (Ustream and Justin.tv), and Audio Sharing (Podcasts).

We are interested in finding out more about how your organization has implemented or plans to implement Social Media. Use the comments box below to submit your ideas and discuss them with us.

This week our discussion on the importance of Relationship Leadership concludes with the focus on building trust-based partnerships, internally and externally.

Mutual trust and respect is at the heart of all effective working relationships. As a leader, it makes good sense then to realize that in order to build effective partnerships with those who work for you, alongside you, or above you, you must focus on establishing trusting relationships.

Build Trust-Based Partnerships, Internally and Externally

“Why doesn’t everyone in our organization have the same sense of urgency as I do? “ Where is the accountability?” “All I ever hear are excuses.” These are just some of the thoughts and frustrations that leaders share with us when we begin leadership development engagements. Our answer is always the same. In order to build a sense of urgency and accountability, everyone in the organization must be on the same page. The only way to create this sense of teamwork and shared responsibility is by establishing trust-based partnerships with everyone in your organization – direct reports, peer leaders, suppliers, and customers.

A partnership is formed when two or more people have a common set of goals and realize that their best chance to achieve results is through collaboration. When those building blocks are established, trust begins to grow. Each person in the partnership takes ownership for his/her part in the organization. At that point, accountability for delivering expected results is a given. You don’t want to let your partners down!

Here are the three keys to creating effective trust-based partnerships:

Frame Your Values – The leader and his/her partners have to frame their relationship around a common set of values. Each person openly discusses what is important to him/her and consistently stays true to the values that are shared by the partners. These values form the foundation for the partnership. Staying true to those values provides the strength for that partnership.

Show that You Care – The leader needs to clearly demonstrate that he/she is just as concerned about his/her partners’ success as his/her own. Taking the time to get to know a partner’s needs and interests strengthens the relationship. Listening, communicating, and doing what you can to meet your partners’ needs goes a long way toward maintaining a trusting relationship.

Deliver on the Shared Vision – The final bond that seals a trust-based partnership is delivering results. Nothing does more for a partnership than the successful feeling of being a part of a winning team. When each partner gets as much or more out of a relationship as he/she puts in it, the partnership endures.

Leaders who build trust-based partnership in all aspects of their business are able to create high-performing organizations. Do you have these kinds of partnerships with your employees, peers, suppliers, and customers?

Visit our blog next week as we begin the discussion on Organizational Leadership.

This week our discussion on the importance of Relationship Leadership continues, focusing on the next key behavior of effective leaders: Provides Open Access to Information.

No one likes to be told, “You don’t need to know that.” It’s even less flattering to hear, “That information is only available to people at a higher level than you.” In addition, it can be very disheartening to find out that you are the last to know about a change. Leaders play such an important role in the effective delivery of information to their workforce. It’s important for leaders to know the right way to deliver information, in the right amount, at the right time.

Provides Open Access to Information

When employees perceive that their leader is withholding important information from them, it leads them to believe that they are not qualified or considered important enough to know certain information. Thus, we have the beginning of the phrase, “Information Is Power!”

As a leader, you can use information to convey trust and empowerment. At the same time, you are responsible for what you share, with whom, and by when. Often, the decision regarding who gets to know what is made on the “needs to know basis” theory. Often, this theory can be too restrictive. The more information an employee has, the better prepared he/she is to make decisions quickly. With the current pace of change and the increasing demands of our customers, rapid decision making is imperative. Therefore, making information accessible to as many people as possible is a competitive advantage.

A better criteria with which to judge who should receive information is as follows. As a leader, ask yourself, “Could this information in this person’s hands be harmful to our organization?” By asking this simple question, you will feel more comfortable making more information available to more people. The challenge then becomes how to keep from overloading your employees with information. The key is providing open access to information without dumping information on employees. Make your employees aware that information is available, and tell them how to access it. Communicate change as early as possible and then direct your employees to a common source where they can receive information.

If you feel that an employee is not ready to hear certain information, that may be your cue to offer development assistance to that person so that he/she can get to a point where you feel comfortable providing open access to information. Employees who are provided with open access to information are better prepared to serve their organization and their customers.

Are you strengthening trust by preparing your employees to handle more information and make better decisions? Are you building these kinds of trust-based partnerships with your employees?

Visit our blog next week to learn the next key behavior for effective Relationship Leadership.