An online notebook
I’ve found myself banging on a lot recently at events and other engagements about pretty much the same stuff.
It’s what organisations need to do to grasp the digital opportunity – but which isn’t about actual tools on the internet. At least, not just about that.
Embedded below is the first attempt I have made to write it up. I would really welcome feedback on this. If you can’t see the embed, download the PDF direct here.
[slideshare id=37041031&doc=think-digital-140716061200-phpapp02]
With reference to my previous post, I was intrigued to see this pop up via Seth Godin:
If you try to delight the undelightable, you’ve made yourself miserable for no reason.
I was part of an interesting discussion recently where internal communications was being debated. It was revealed that only 40% of staff were engaged with the communications coming from the corporate centre.
The conversation focused on what could be done to engage better with the other 60%. What mediums should be used? What tone and style? Should it be online? What about those without computer access?
I jumped in, slightly provocatively perhaps, to ask why you would want to that. Perhaps there’s a bigger issue here, which is that probably 40% of people paying attention to internal corporate communication is about right, and nothing could really be done to change that more than a couple of percentage points either way.
Maybe it’s the case that 60% of workers in a large organisation just don’t care that much. They come to work, do their job, and then go home and do the stuff they are really interested in. I’m not being critical, it’s just that different people have different priorities.
It might sound insane to the readers of this blog, but not everyone gets excited about the idea of transforming local government!
Instead of spending time and resources chasing after this large group of people, who, with the best will in the world, couldn’t care less about the new corporate strategy, perhaps it would be best to focus that energy on those who actually want to talk about this stuff.
In other words, who are your 40% of enthusiastic, motivated people? How do you find them? What do they want from you, in terms of communication and engagement? Give it to them!
Yammer is a good example here. Someone said in the discussion referred to above that not that many people were active on Yammer. That’s an experience across a load of organisations I know who use that particular tool.
However, those people who use Yammer are likely to be positive about change, curious about new tools and ways of working, willing to experiment and to go beyond the usual ways of doing things. I’d say they are exactly the sort of people that a corporate centre would want to have on-side, engaged with what’s going on in the organisation.
What do people think? I’m not actually saying to stop trying to communicate with everyone, just that putting extra effort to persuade people to do something they don’t really want to do might not be a good use of precious resources.
Am currently reading, and very much enjoying Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator.
It’s basically lots of interviews with founders of companies that were once startups about what life was like in the early days.
The book’s blurb sells it well:
Founders at Work is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders…tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.
It’s an impressive list of people, too, including:
There loads more too. What I like is the mix of new digital startups and some stories from earlier in the story of the technology based startup, particularly around the time of the birth of the personal computer and software industry.
Funnily enough, as I started typing this post, I got notification that Tim Dobson had written a book review post of this very tome! It’s well worth a read through his detailed notes, but his concluding paragraph sums the whole book up well:
As a book, it comes across as well written, and is full of genuinely interesting interviews. If you’re interested in the history, or how some of these companies and startups came into existence, or you’re interested in learning what people feel they did right… and wrong, then have a read through it.
What is always interesting to think about when reading this type of material is what those of us working in larger organisations can learn from startup culture and the way these scrappy little companies work.
A common theme of Founders at Work is the role that luck can play in the success of a startup. However, equally important is determination – a refusal to accept failure – and linked to that, flexibility – so when one route looks like it won’t work, pick another and have another go.
A key part of working smarter is the idea of flexible or remote working. One neat way of describing it is that work isn’t a place you go to, it’s what you do.
There’s a lot of misunderstanding though about this concept, with it often being seen as a perk for an individual employee, say, rather than an organisational approach to work and how it should be done.
Here’s some success factors in making remote work succeed on your team.
Right location for the right work
Remote working doesn’t automatically mean home working. It means going to the right place for the particular work that is being undertaken.
Potential locations include:
What’s more, a remote worker doesn’t just work in one of these locations but should use a range of them depending on what they are trying to achieve.
No single comms channel
Don’t pick one channel for communicating amongst remote workers. Again, as with work locations, it depends.
Some of the options include:
The temptation is often to try and pick a single winner (and losers) for communications in a team. We’ll do everything through Yammer! Never use email – it sucks!
There are a range of variables that will affect which channel you might use for a particular comms task but the most important are: what are you trying to achieve; and what are your colleagues most comfortable with?
It’s always good to have a range of options available that everyone is familiar with so that no matter what the task is, you’ll have the tools to do the job to hand.
Keep communicating
In an office environment, it could be argued that over communicating is possible. Not so for a team that works remotely.
Part of the point of remote working of course is to escape the hustle and bustle of a busy office. In which case, an individual worker could just step back, switch off, and find a quiet space to concentrate in.
The rest of the time though, it ought to be possible to get hold of people individually or as part of a group. So find a way of doing group chat and encourage people to be present in it most of the time. Or ensure there is a way of privately instant messaging individuals to quickly check on the status of an action or project.
This means it’s important not to get into the habit of thinking that as someone is working outside the office, they shouldn’t be disturbed. In fact, because they aren’t physically present, disturb them more!
Meet up
Remote work really doesn’t mean never actually meeting your colleagues. What it does mean is that these get togethers become even more important to get right.
This means not meeting up for the sake of it, but ensuring you have some objectives for a get together. So, only meet when there is a need to, and not just because it hasn’t happened for a month.
Consider having a project for a meetup, with a specific deliverable to come out of it. Having everyone in the same room might not happen often, so consider whether it’s possible to run a micro project in that time.
Whole team or organisation approach – everyone adapts
Remote working only works when everyone buys into it – even (especially!) those who don’t work remotely themselves.
The important parts to remember are:
Without this wider development of working culture and acceptance of remote working and what it means for an organisation, it will always be seen as a bolt on, and many of the opportunities it presents will be missed out on.
What do you think? What are your experiences of remote working, and what helps and hinders its success?