Branding: A Brand is a Promise

Many business leaders and professionals will say the phrase "we have to develop our brand, market it, make it powerful and recognized". Unfortunately, most of them are thinking about the physical image of it and not what it stands for.

A powerful brand is the reflection of general recognition of a consistently delivered relevant promise.

As a leader of a business or someone trying to create a personal brand those are the terms under which you have to think about branding. A great logo, trademark, a nice picture, a great bio, or creative catch phrase will just take you so far. Without a consistent delivery of a relevant promise all of that will fail in regrettable loss.

If you are in the process of creating a strong brand for your business, department or personal, let's break the concept down to ensure the key messages are addressed.

The end state of a successful brand is general recognition and desire. How you achieve that is by first defining your relevant promise followed by relentless consistent delivery.

What is your promise?

Whether you think in terms of a product, service or individual is irrelevant. The concept remains the same. What does your [thing] promise? Here are some examples of successful brands promises (this is how they resonate with me, not necessarily what you find in the companies' website):

Oreo - indulgent, familiar, comfort treat
Apple - ahead of time, innovative, simple and exclusive
Starbucks - relax, slow down and enjoy life in a nice place
Google - clean, fast access to all knowledge
McDonald's - fast and cheap

Are these promises relevant?Well, ask the millions of people who use these products and services every day. So, what is your product's or your personal promise? Is that relevant to your clients, customers or consumers?

Note quality is not in any of the promises listed above. Quality isn't something you promise, it's something you deliver. Quality is expected. It's also subjective to your promise. So let's talk about consistently delivering it. What would happen if you had to wait 15 minutes for a Big Mac once? How about twice in a row and in different stores? What if the next 2 iDevice generations deliver only new case colors and new sizes (this sounds familiar)?

The most fundamental way to keep a promise and creating general recognition is to delivery it consistently every time. There is not much to be said here. Start lagging and your brand will fall apart. Deliver consistently every time and word will spread. It's that simple!

As companies grow there is a constant battle for that consistency. The more people you depend on to do it the more difficult it is. It all goes back to the people you have. Hire the right people and train them well otherwise you will kill your brand as fast as you can say "I killed my brand". But that's a whole new subject.

It's ok for companies or professionals to adjust their promise over time for some of them become irrelevant or a commodity, but some of the brands won't survive that. It may be just as easy to develop a new one.

Some new brands may have the same promise as yours, and they will take over general recognition and desire because of better delivery execution. A good recent example is Blockbuster and Netflix. New brands have the advantage of starting from where you currently are and focus on making it better. That's why smart companies and professionals keep innovation top of mind. You can't rest of past success for too long. Actually, not at all.

Are you delivering a relevant promise, and consistently? Yes! Keep doing it and innovate. No! Go back to the drawing board.

Federation or Integration? The Dilemma of Executives during Acquisitions

This week I had the opportunity to attend a great executive workshop called The Art of M&A Integration hosted by M&A Leadership Council where we discussed a topic that most C-level executives and Sr. leaders of organizations will debate this year.

As many of us heard before, over 70% of mergers and acquisitions fail to deliver value committed during the public announcement. More concerning is that many deliver value erosion with very negative consequences ranging from complete disappearance of the acquired company to millions of dollars in write-off in later divestiture.

As we discussed examples it has become apparent that the most critical issues are (1) lack of clear definition/alignment of the business objective for the acquisition and (2) lack of professional M&A leadership in the business, or both.

So, if you don’t read any further keep in mind if your company is acquiring and planning to integrate another business make sure you address upfront both of these issues:

• What/why are we acquiring this for? IP, geographic expansion, supply chain execution, etc. “The answer must be crystal clear, documented and agreed at leadership level because it will serve as the guiding principle for all other decisions coming up” Jack Prouty – President, M&A Leadership Council
• Assign a professional M&A team to deliver according to the objective. No cutting corners are allowed here. You must have people who understand the business and possess superior leadership skills. “This is not for the faint of heart, unprepared or for the people available at the time” Mark Herndon – President, M&A Partners

There are other critical steps after that but to address all of them I recommend attending the 3-day executive workshop, especially if you’re in any leadership position of M&A. I’ll concentrate on the dilemma of what to integrate.

Getting to the answer is not easy but the principle is simple: integration objectives must be fully aligned and supportive of delivering the acquisition objectives, the ones I mentioned above, which in turn must be clear and aligned across M&A leadership team.

Example: a large company which product has slowly become a commodity and revenue is lagging year over year has decided to acquire a small innovative company with the objective of transforming its business and return to innovation, product differentiation and scale up sales for the target company.

Integration objectives: retain target Co. talent at all cost (it may very well be a condition for closing), incubate and protect their innovative spirit as opposed to integrate or consolidate, integrate back office in the short term, cautiously integrate sales in the medium to long-term.

Not to do: absorb organization. It’s common companies will lose sight of their acquisition objective and will make decisions that will destroy or erode value of the acquired company. Great ideas when looked at the micro level of integration, such as “why don’t we integrate our R&D teams and we will save $1M in lab and organization costs”, have proven to be value eroding or killers of great acquisitions. In this case the company would lose all the talent and end up with a product which it can’t sell or develop. That means a major loss of the acquisition investment and high probability of not being able to turn the situation around. Company would have to eventually ingest the loss.

In conclusion, to answer the question about the right approach for integration you must first align on the objective of the acquisition and then assign a strong leader who will be capable of delivering accordingly. Fail to do either and you’ll have to prepare for disaster recovery.

Please share your thoughts, comments and experiences with our community.

I want to express my deepest appreciation to Jack Prouty, Mark Herndon, Jim Jeffries, Melanie Endert, the entire M&A Leadership Council, and fellow Coaches and Alumni of The Art of M&A Executive Workshop from whom I learned so much this week. Thank you.

People leaders, understanding individual needs and desires

Read here part 1 People Leaders are Bridge Builders

I invariably start a conversation with people about their career with the following question: where do you want to go? If they can’t answer that question the conversation is usually very different from the ones who can. You may have already heard that quote by Lewis Carroll “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

My version is slightly different: if you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere. I can’t build a bridge to someone who doesn’t know where they want to go. However, I still can help. That’s the first step for people leaders:

1. Understand the individual desires and needs of a person.

No answer to the question is wrong if someone is really seeking self-realization. I met countless people looking for professional advice who provided canned answers to that question. Things like: I want to grow and have increased responsibilities, I want to be Director of this or VP of that, I want to be the CEO, etc.

My follow-up probing question is simple, one word: why? That’s when most people will freeze and either have that blank stare common to those who never thought about it or they’ll look at me as if asking why they have to have a reason!

If there is no why it’s unlikely to really be a solid long-term answer. The answer though doesn't need to be a noble cause but it has to be meaningful for the individual. Some will want power and money, some will do it to help others, some for pure passion. However, there are many who in reality just want to keep a job but feel compelled to show ambition because “that’s how it works”. Others want it because it’s their parents’ expectation or to show their friends they are successful. These are not valid reasons for one will sooner or later feel empty despite all accomplishments.

2. Recommend the individual to search for a reason (no need to get too philosophic, even though it can be a great opportunity for it; one can keep it simple and look for short-term answers).

This soul searching exercise can take time but it’s important to be done often in life. Finding our true passion and reason allows us the find the path to self-realization. As we mature our reasons may change. The motives of a young professional may be different from senior ones. That’s where I believe Abraham Harold Maslow did an outstanding job with his model for Hierarchy of Needs.

Once there is a good answer to that question a leader can start the next step to help building one’s personal bridge:

3. Help individual with self-awareness. Assessing one’s true position is key. Neither being too optimistic nor too humble about it is a good thing here. It’s not a discussion about confidence but about reality. Many people struggle to see it or accept it. I’ll talk more about it in the next article.


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People leaders are bridge builders

During the past 20 years of professional experience leading people I've been working on consolidating my leadership principles. As I mentioned in a previous article One rule and 6 steps to drive employee engagement I feel I got to something valuable. Today I have one of the most engaged team of employees working with me. No easy feat during these turbulent times.

What if I told you that this was achieved through building bridges? What if I told you your job as a leader is to build bridges? Some of them long and solid, some high. You may ask bridges to where, for whom and why? What for?

Well, I define the role of real people leaders as bridge builders. Our role when it comes to the people we lead is not for selfish growth and fame. It’s a selfless responsibility of serving others through valuable and rare skills. The skill of providing clarity to people looking for answers about their future and how to get there.

The majority of people unconsciously know in their hearts what they want in life. Few will ever realize that and turn into action. They lack the understanding or the courage to make it happen. However, when you help by removing the fog around and allowing them to find out where they want to go you will see their inner lights shine while they fulfill their potential. Then you build a bridge.

When you are helping building the bridge to your people you will have to resolve 3 simple yet critical puzzles. I’ll share them here and break them down in future articles:

1. The process of building a bridge starts with a fundamental question one must answer: where do they want to go? If one doesn't know where to go she shouldn't spend energy moving because she may be just going to the wrong direction anyway. As a leader facilitating that process it takes time and patience.
2. The second puzzle is for the individual to clearly understand where they are.Another critical step of self discovery and self awareness that great people leaders must facilitate. If one can’t accept where she really is and believes she’s somewhere else, you can’t start building the bridge for the individual won’t be able to find it.
3. And finally the final step. Once the present location and destination are fully realized by the individual, the leader will be able to start the construction. In some cases the distance between the points is great and will require a few hops. Sometimes the depth of the valley between the points is great and will require time for building solid foundations. Those analogies translate into people development approaches the leader will apply.

When people comprehend a leader’s main motivation is helping constructing bridges to their desired future, they will reciprocate, work hard and be loyal. It’s also a fact you may lose some people along the way. Some for good reasons if they found their desired destination is in a different path. Even in that case, they will respect you for life for you helped them finding their true path. The reward for all this incredibly demanding leadership task is a highly engaged and performing workforce along with the gratifying realization of seeing people fulfill their dreams; a people leader’s ultimate accomplishment.

Stay tuned for next articles with insights about how to execute the 3 steps above.

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One rule and 6 steps to drive employee engagement

You may ask what qualifies me to speak about employee engagement and it’s a fair question when you are about to spend your valuable time reading something on such critical leadership competency. I understand leaders are busy so I’ll go straight to the answer:

• 21 years of proven leadership and people development at PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and Lowe’s
• Highest employee score in recent employee opinion survey
• The highest score (90% strongly agree) to the question “my team members come together and help each other to get the job done
• Full profile here if you want additional details

So let’s get to it shall we. The trigger for this article was a question from my management about what did I do to get such results, comparatively so much better. There was speculation about bribe, power play, torture and other common leadership methods. But I didn’t use any of that. Honestly, I could not exactly describe it other than say that my team’s development is my single most important priority.

That was not enough to put the interrogators at ease. So I really had to put some time and think about it, and in a way create some sense, some logic, some method regarding something that for me was day-to-day practice.

This is what I came up with. Don’t expect rocket science. This is something you can apply any time but it must be sincere:

RULE #1 and only: give before you ask; give more than you ask.

GIVE (4)

1. Make your employees’ career your #1 priority (I stuck to my initial gut feel here) – Indeed the most important step is to remember that as leaders of people our first priority is to take care of people. Forget about your boss, forget about your deliverables and forget your other stakeholders. Their needs will be met naturally while you attend the needs of your employees. Engaged employees will deliver better results. Your engagement with your employees will provide the information you need to properly communicate with your boss and stakeholders.
2. Trust before compliance (this is a tricky area) -. There is no question about the need for employees to comply with company rules and policies. However, if you treat everything under the compliance lens you are removing the one thing that differentiates us from the rest the animal kingdom: intelligence. Give them trust and they will positively surprise you.
3. Flexibility and space (but stay connected) – one important way to demonstrate you trust your team is giving them space to work and allow flexibility in how they work. Set a clear objective and get out of their way. It doesn’t matter if they got there in a different way than you thought. Actually, often they will find better ways to get there. Note it’s very important that you understand people’s limitations and support them when needed. No matter how much flexibility and space you give a trainee he won’t be able to devise the company strategy. I’m assuming this is common sense though.
4. Appreciate – this is likely the one step that requires the most sincerity. You don’t need to say “great job” to everything that is not really a great job. However, expressing your gratitude with a simple thank you goes a long way. Make appreciation public and again sincere. Remember that some things that may look like business as usual and simple at your career stage; can represent a major accomplishment to a more junior professional.

ASK (2)

1. Accountability – make sure people understand that with greater power comes greater responsibility. It doesn’t need to be through punishment. Explain that along with trust you give you expect the individual or team to take accountability and escalate whenever things are not going as planned.
2. Results – under the same principle, all that you gave to enable team success will be measured by the employee engagement and also by results. If everything else is in place and results are not being delivered there is something wrong. It can be your team’s readiness to transition to a more open model, your understanding of their capacity to deliver or lack of support. With time these will be discussed openly and any problem will be minimized.

The method is fairly simple. Make your people your first priority. Give them more than you ask. Observe your team thrive. If this is too different than what you do today and you are willing to try, make sure to explain the game plan and pace the transition accordingly. If team members are afraid to speak up or to think rather preferring to take orders, it will take same time before it works, however, the prize is worthwhile. The power of 10 engaged brains is always bigger than 100 disengaged ones.

Is Social Business creating Corporate Socialism?

so·cial·ism     noun \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\

1 : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

2 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

A scaring thought in the corporate world so used to hierarchical, top down, do-what-I-told-you model.  Can the S-word (I know what you thought but I meant Social), belong in the same phrase with the C-word (I meant Corporate just in case you had any other creative idea)?

The thought of allowing people at all levels to speak freely in a corporate environment feels like a dictatorship enforcing free speech for its people, a nice conversation between Government and Unions, allowing woman to vote a century ago or people from different ethnicities to share the same seat in a bus not that long ago.

Is social business the beginning of corporate socialism?  Is Marx becoming real at the heart of the capitalist world?  I know a lot of people are cringing now.  Some of these words put together bring back memories of the most fearful time of a generation.  Socialism, Marxism, Communism, Capitalism, Cold War, Nuclear War, End of the World.  I know, sounds scary for some of us.  But it’s good that most in the social revolution didn’t live through that and don’t have the same reaction.

There will always be a certain level of command and structure required for an organization to run.  Ever since I joined the corporate world back in 1990 I hear about reduction in hierarchical levels, elimination of higher and middle management, improving our listening skills, etc.  It seemed my promotions were always timed with corporate culture change.  Every time I was promoted matched the time the level I now belonged to no longer had the right for an office.  Worse than that, it was always perfectly synchronized with workforce reduction and empowerment down the ladder.  What meant in reality fewer direct reports, and luckily the same but most often more work.  So, while my boss had 10 people and a nice office, by the time I was promoted to take his job I had 2 direct reports and the same windowless cubicle.

And now this Social Business thing.  After all things we had to put up during our careers, we have to allow anyone in the company to say what they think and smile!  We have to share with everyone the knowledge that gave us competitive advantage to grow our career?  Share that knowledge with those who are competing for a promotion with us, when unemployment rates are high and the world is in economic crisis?

Yes.  Companies are becoming social.  Under the following definition corporate socialism is happening.  I define Corporate Socialism as:

 1 : a system of management or team working in which there is no private knowledge but protects intellectual property.

Whether this will happen through generational change in the corporate world or paradigm change in the current management model is the only question to be asked.  People will learn that socializing knowledge while protecting intellectual property will make drive results.  Those retaining it will get stuck in the past and will be eventually forgotten there.  And no; retaining your knowledge will no longer help your career.

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Move like Jagger, Think like Jobs

The one on my right is Steve Jobs!

Would the Rolling Stones exist without Mick Jagger? No, it wouldn't. It would be either a cheap copy of the wiggly legendary lead vocal or something that wouldn't resemble anything of the former band, which means it would literally cease to exist. Soon we will find out whether Apple was a one man show.

In a world built on volatility, it's hard to say Apple's leadership has been established. Mostly for 2 reasons: (1) no company is ever assured of keeping a leading position without continuous improvement; (2) there is no longer such a thing as established leadership.

What was Steve Jobs' legacy to Apple? Was it a roadmap or pipeline of ideas and products? Was it his creative and visionary brain? Or was it a way of thinking? No company can depend on a single individual for its success. No company will achieve competitive longevity based on a single leader, no matter how good he/she is.

We know great leaders not only when they have the job but perhaps more importantly after they leave, their legacy. We often see companies striving under a leader just to lose its momentum after a leadership transition. If the way of working has been ingrained into people’s beliefs and behavior, the company no longer depends on a single visionary individual to achieve greatness.

It’s a fact we can’t only blame Jobs in case Apple loses its luster. But preparing someone who can take your job is a key role of a leader. Hopefully the new person will bring even better and greater ideas. Inheriting a winning company is probably more difficult than taking a company that needs change, if we can really say a job is easier than the other. The rationale before this statement is that in relative market position a leading company can only keep it or go down.

I don’t know how much value there is learning how to move like Jagger, but I can say that if you can do it along with perpetuating a winning corporate culture you’ll be a hilariously entertaining leader on top of being a great one.

Jobs didn’t have Jagger’s moves that’s for sure. It now remains to be seen whether he succeeded making Apple think like him.

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How Google+ Will Shake the Social World

By now you probably heard all kinds of predictions:

• Google+ will take over the social space and gain Facebookers’ hearts with the new features, specially the ability to consolidate networks and manage privacy;
• Google+ is coming too late;
• Or, “what is Google+?”; among others.

Working with technology for many years, I learned we can never say it’s too late. Look at Apple’s success in changing completely the landscape of the technology world. Or even Facebook itself taking over My Space leadership. There are countless examples. The fact Facebook is in the social world today what Microsoft was in the personal computing space during the 1990’s , doesn’t guarantee its position at the top. The company has been facing on-going criticism on how it manages its users’ privacy, and that’s where Google+ is betting its chips.

But before you consider migrating your networks to a new solution, let’s consider some important facts:

• Social network doesn’t work without a network: Google’s controlled release approach may backfire. It’ll be difficult to reach critical mass if the majority can’t actually join it. This will likely give time to its competition to catch up with some of the innovative capabilities offered by Google+.

• Privacy has been less of a concern than previously estimated: most of the younger generations are less concerned about their privacy. This may come back to haunt them when applying for a job or looking for a stable relationship. However, since this may be the new norm, people are likely to be more forgiven to things they know happened in the past. And who has never done anything wrong and could judge other people anyway. The fact they were able to hide doesn’t make than better, just sneakier. This openness will actually be very helpful raising serious red flags.

• There is some benefit keeping your professional network in a completely separate solution than your personal network: Google+ assumes there is a lot of value aggregating all your networks into a single place. But professional and personal networks have different demands. When someone tries to deliver everything, usually doesn’t do any of them with the highest quality. I always tell my wife “do not trust a pizzeria that also has steak, sushi or even pasta”. The best pizzerias I ever ate at made pizza exclusively (by now you guessed I love pizza). So there is benefit having LinkeIn specializing on your professional networking requirements and Facebook on your personal ones.

Moving one’s networks is a hard labor. Specially if you took it very seriously when creating it. I’m yet to see a compelling reason why one should and I bet Facebook is already working to catch up. Now, playing catch up is not a position a leader wants to be. So it better take innovation and user requirements seriously. Because if by the end of the day my networks move somewhere else, I can guarantee I’ll move as well. As I said before, there is no network of 1.

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Enterprise Collaboration in the Cloud at Kraft Foods

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8 million jobs: desperately looking for professionals

There is no shortage of jobs here.  Actually, there is a desperate need for professionals right now.  To be more precise, over the next 3 years it’s estimated 8 million new jobs will be created and it’s already clear there will be no professionals available to fill them.  This is Brazil.  And I’m sure similar situation ought to be happening somewhere else as well.  There is no shortage of jobs in the world.  The caveat is they may not be where you are.

I spent the past week in Brazil, the country where I was born and left about 10 years ago seeking better professional opportunities in the United States.  To my surprise, when I arrived at this giant of Latin America in 2011, the situation was completely reversed.  The first thing that caught my attention when I passed by a newsstand was the title of this local business magazine EXAME: “Searching 8 million professionals”, in big red bold letters.

This country, home of the largest portion of remaining Rain Forrest on planet Earth, is moving at an amazing pace.  Unemployment rate is at about 5.7%, which is close to say there is no unemployment.  Anything under 5% is considered a state of absolute employment, since at that rate unemployed is mostly voluntary or result of transition to better opportunities.  Salaries are increasing fast.  Companies searching for employees are dropping some of the qualifications required and investing in preparing talents in house.  So why is this a problem?  Because there are no qualified people available in the country, and there won’t be at least over the next several years, and as a consequence, government has to decelerate growth to control inflation.

What a contrast to the United States today, where the biggest concern is exactly the sluggish economy and high unemployment.  The good news is that despite the fact the US is in a tough position today, the world as a whole is actually getting stronger.  The bad news is, for a country accustomed being the place to be for the past few generations, it’s difficult to accept the idea that many of the best opportunities are somewhere else.  For me in 2001 when I was offered a job in the US, it was only natural to leave my country, family and friends, accept all the pitfalls of doing so and move.  It was expected and praised, a symbol of success.  This is not so much how it’s perceived today in the US.  After decades of absolute world leadership, people were raised under the paradigm they already were in the best place of the world.

It’s very unlike the US will become a bad place to live.  However, slowly the world will change, and some of the tradeoffs of moving abroad for better opportunities will become less of a barrier.  For the young, it may actually sound like a great idea moving to a country with so much energy, growth opportunities and optimism compared to what they see around today, i.e. pessimism, concerns, negativity and problems.

Our role as parents, educators and professionals is to prepare them to this new reality, while we try to make things better at home.  We can’t just discount 8 million open jobs.  We must educate them to the global environment to ensure they will be competitive and will have more options.  Continue to invest in their education, including languages and international affairs will be fundamental.  In this way we will prepare them to cover gaps created in developing countries with the accelerated growth they are facing.  Education can’t follow the same pace as development, and that’s where the US is in a better position to source for the global gap of qualified professionals.  We only need to accept the world out there as a real opportunity and work towards that reality.  It doesn’t need to be treated as the only option but it must definitely be an option.

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--- Vinicius da Costa is Associate Director, Collaboration and Social Media Solutions at Kraft Foods. This text represents his personal opinion and does not represent the views of Kraft Foods, Inc.

Social Business – It is not just about technology!

Click HERE to watch recording of NewsGator, Kraft Foods and Microsoft Webinar in case you missed.

Transforming your business and culture using social computing software

Kraft Foods is in the middle of a dramatic transformation to embed innovation into every aspect of its business. Consumer driven technology is evolving at such a rapid pace that it is hard for corporations and their diverse employee populations to understand and agree on how technology can best enable the flow of knowledge and collaboration that leads to innovative thinking. Generational differences and a wide variety of comfort levels with technology impact the pace of internal change and the ability to roll out new tools quickly and effectively.

In this complex environment that many companies are currently facing, transforming the way the organization works is very difficult. Implementing new social and collaboration technologies will not work if a majority of the workforce doesn’t understand their value.

Check out this one-hour Webinar with Vinicius da Costa, Associate Director for Collaboration and Social Business with Kraft Foods, and Doug Caywood, Industry Manager of Microsoft’s US Consumer Goods industry organization.

In this Webinar they discuss the following topics:

• Moving away from e-mail as a primary collaboration tool
• Leveraging social business tools to drive business value
  • Innovation, knowledge management, efficiency, speed, agility, and enabling partners to fully participate
• Investing in creativity, people skills, marketing, and branding
• Being bold with the outcomes, be focused on the results

Check it out interview about Social Collaboration on CMSWire

Social Collaboration at Kraft Foods: An Interview with Vinicius da Costa

...Ultimately we want to create knowledge spaces vs. physical spaces….creating a true "networked" organization. It’s not about the device, network, or physical location as much as it’s about knowledge, delivery, execution, and collaboration... click here for complete interview

Also available Warc commented version

4 Reasons Why You Must Start Social Business Transformation through People (and how)

For more than 2,000 years we’ve been communicating through some variation of messaging system, e.g. smoke signals, messengers, postal services and e-mail.  Collaboration in the same period of time was done either through gatherings (today called meetings), then conference calls and because of lack of anything better, e-mail.

With historical changes caused globalization, creation of internet and the progression of its capabilities like blogs, wikis and social networking, today people across the world are capable of sharing knowledge in previously unimaginable ways.  However, corporations are still struggling with the change that is already almost consolidated in the consumer space.

To help addressing this situation, I listed here 4 key issues and opportunities which make me believe it’s fundamental to start corporate social business transformation through people.  You will also find some recommended actions for each of them, based on research, studies and experience.

1. FEAR OF OVERSHARING

·         I want to target the audience in communications (CORRECT)…

·         …and I can’t do that with enterprise social tools (MYTH)

·         I want to target the audience for collaboration (NOT NECESSARILY)

·         Legal and confidentiality concerns (REAL)

·         I want to ensure security of proprietary information (CORRECT)…

·         …and enterprise social tools are too open (MYTH)

Action: Educate people about some of the myths around security and how to use different social business settings depending on the confidentiality of information.  In some cases, a personal message will remain the best option.  However, people in general tend to withhold information as a matter of personal power rather than security concerns, as you will see next.

2. VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE: from individual to collective

·         What would you choose (in a scale of 1 to 100)?

o   Know 60 if everyone else knows 30

o   Know 80 if everyone else also knows 80

o   Most will choose the former because that’s how they were able to grow in the past

·         PAST PARADIGM: What only I know makes me more relevant than others

·         If you manage knowledge within a limited space, i.e. your direct reports, your peers, your function, your business units (BU), you will be capped by that much space

·         TODAY’S REALITY: I’ll learn more if I share more

·         Collaboration will enable you and your team to transcend the very limits silos create

Action: Work with the leadership of your organization to recognize collaborative (team, multi-function, multi-BU) outcomes as much as individual (one person, one function, one BU) contributions.  Some of those collaborative outcomes can create unprecedented breakthroughs and business results.  It may be time for a change in the reward and recognition system to put more weight in team results rather than individual evaluation.  Create a pilot for global collaboration to demonstrate its power.  Showing is always better than telling.

3. THERE IS NO WAY TO STOP THIS WAVE

·         Internet has seriously cracked the dams holding knowledge

·         Social collaboration destroyed those dams for good

Action: Focus in securing proprietary and confidential information and then let knowledge sharing flow.  If you try to stop it people will find potentially dangerous alternatives, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.

4. IS YOUR COMPANY’S LEADERSHIP READY TO LISTEN?

·         In a strong hierarchical culture it is a lot more difficult for social business to fly

·         Social business will break into “secret brotherhoods” and will allow people to voice their opinion

Action: Understand the culture of your organization.  If you work for an extremely hierarchical organization it will take a long time to get to a social business environment.  Hopefully not long enough to compromise the future of the company.  In that case you have to understand if there is any intention of leadership to give it a try.  If so, start with a small and clear business case that can demonstrate the potential of the change.  You may have only one chance, so study the alternatives thoroughly and choose wisely.  In less rigid cultures, you still have to make sure leadership engage in fair and open discussions, encouraging participation at all levels.

On March 24 2pm US ET, I’ll be talking more about these opportunities during a free Webinar titled Social Business – It is not just about technology!  Click here to register and join me in this conversation.

Visit me at about.me and connect on Twitter @VMRdaCosta

Don’t transform Social Network into the next inbox nightmare

Whether you are leading Social Business transformation in your company or joining the bandwagon of Social Networking in your personal life, there are some few tips I wanted to share to make sure you create real value from the experience. Approaching it recklessly will just create a new information overload nightmare to your clients or to yourself.  Read

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Social Media increases employee life span by 25%

Check this blog I wrote for AIIM Enterprise 2.0 Community:

It’s been said that people who are actively engaged in social networking will live in average 25% longer lives.  The main reasons identified in this study are: click here to continue reading...

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If all you have is a Social Hammer...

“When will you stop giving us more tools and start making our lives simpler”? That was the question I was asked during a casual meeting last week with some classmates from the University of Chicago. The inquiry came when we were talking about Social Media for the enterprise environment. Read

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