Many of us assume that facts rule. Although I fall in to this trap like everyone else, it still amazes me how we constantly act against the facts.
We inconvenience ourselves to get to the gas station which is $0.03 cheaper per gallon on our way to dinner where we indulge on an extra dessert. Savings from gas: $0.45. Waste from the dessert you never needed: $6.00.
Why is it that we refuse to pay the extra pennies per gallon so we can save money, but then carelessly spend it many times over in many other ways?
We spend our time and resources so that the endangered spotted owl has an area to call home yet at the same time neglect our families and raising fabulous kids who can have an incredible affect on the world?
Why do we focus on those things which are obviously of less worth according to the facts? The keys here are perspective and emotion. We focus on that which falls within our perspective of life and to that which we are emotionally attached.
As I mentioned in the last post, stats only go so far – same goes with our personal knowledge. What drives what we do is our perspective and emotions. Think about any bad habit (and we all have at least one). Take smoking. We all know it isn’t good for us, yet those who smoke have a different perspective with an emotional element. Knowledge is great – but perspective and emotion drives action.
Want to change behavior in yourself or others? Focus on perspective and emotion and less on the facts (but always have the facts to back you up in your pocket).
(THIS IS THE 2nd POST IN A WEEKLY THEME OF SOCIAL BUSINESS FAILURES WITH THE INTENT TO LEARN FROM EACH OTHER. PLEASE ALLOW US TO LEARN FROM YOU BY POSTING YOUR COMMENTS BELOW.)
When I first tried to introduce social technologies to a company I learned one of my biggest lessons: Stats can only go so far.
I was asked to create a presentation for the Executives on social technologies and why we should use them. The charts focused on facts and figures: what social technology is, why we would benefit from it, the assumed ROI, etc. Honestly, it was a poor attempt because there were very little information about this working inside an organization. Coming up with numbers and facts was difficult.
Two (out of many) hurdles loomed in front of me: my boss and the Director of IT.
My boss thought it was a good idea, but he wasn’t sold. At least until he experienced the value first hand. At that point, I could have given him lousy stats and facts – it would not have mattered because he experienced it and knew for himself the value.
The Director of IT was against me during this whole process. One day he came to me and said, “I was going to shut this whole project down yesterday (because it was not going as smooth as other IT projects). But I decided to give it one more chance and I spent all night researching what you were trying to do. I get it now and I am behind you 100 percent. Tell me what you need me to do.”
From these experiences I learned that 1) experiences & 2) stories (in that order) are much more powerful than stats. Granted, we have to have the stats, but the heart will beat out numbers any day. Stats don’t move us to action – our emotions do. When we hear stories that resonate and when we have an experience, our emotions play a big part in how we will react. Shoot for the heart, not only the mind.
Questions to answer:
How can we capture stories?
What should we do with the stories?
What if an executive only wants the stats or only gives you time to present stats?
How do you help people create their own experiences?
If I could drive home any fundamental point to an organization it is: The way we use social technologies inside of an organization and outside are very different. Why? Because the goals/purposes are completely different. Not that they aren’t related and can’t work together (because they can), but the way in which they operate are different.
What this shows, however, is how they are using it for marketing or connecting the students, not for learning. Outside vs. Inside. Even though they aren’t using social media for learning, they are using it for marketing and college unity. That is great. This is the easy first step. Really, colleges CAN’T avoid this because the market demands it. The market isn’t demanding use on the inside as much because they don’t know what it might look like. AND it has the potential to completely change everything about how higher education functions.
This is what I am looking for. Are there any examples out there?
There is education and then there is learning. The former should lead to the other, but it doesn’t always. Yet the latter does not need the former to exist.
Let’s say the goal is to learn (actually, there are higher order goals than that, but let’s start there). There are different ways to approach this and how it can be governed.
Earlier this year I finished my masters in Instructional & Performance Technologies. One of the classes I took was on motivation. I came out and told the professor and the class what most people feel. “My motivation behind studying is to get a good grade and get a diploma, it is not to learn. If learning was the main part, I would start the class and go in a totally opposite direction – or I might stop and study something much more in depth because it strikes a cord with me. But I can’t. So in a way, this formal education is hampering my learning and passion. I understand that there must me metrics to show I have learned so I can obtain the degree. But I pay for education with money, I pay for learning with time, effort and excitement.” The professor fully understood and agreed (thankfully).
Ever since then, and after reading Macro Wikinomics I have some up with the beginnings of a new higher educational system – one that mentors and helps fan the flame of discovery and at the same time rewards those who apply themselves and learn. Soon I will go into the details, but not in this post.
This infographic from OnlineEducation.net shows this sway. How we learn and teach is broadening. Will formal education be able to keep up? From the experiences I have had, if they intend to keep up, they better get going because they have a long way to go. But I really hope they do.
(This is the first post in a weekly theme of social business failures with the intent to learn from each other. Please allow us to learn from you by posting your comments below.)
This is a picture of a survival kit (which, BTW, I could not take with my iPhone because I went swimming with it last Saturday – another failure I won’t get into now) – one of the many hiking/camping type knacks I received for Father’s Day. Everything is packed in there very tightly When I opened it for the first time, safety clips came flying out. I know if I took anything else back out, I would never be able to get it all back in.
Notice the top zipper part. Would it have hurt to spend an extra penny to extend the top just a little bit so that it wasn’t busting at the seams (one of my pet peeves for packaging)?
Yet this is often how we buy social business. Some buy the cheapest platform that can be found, put it on the cheapest hardware and then hire as few people as we can to make it look like it is working. And then they are disappointed when it doesn’t work like they hoped. Can we really be surprised?
At one organization, budgets were really tight, so it was decided by management (against the team’s best judgement) to put up an environment that did not meet technical recommendations. It worked fine for the pilot with limited usage. Then launch day approached. The promotions were genius which drove the usage and… Crash #1. Mad dash for technical adjustments & restart #1. Up for a little… Crash #2. Mad dash for technical adjustments & restart #2. Stable, but not where it should be. That night more adjustments were made. Finally, after a few more adjustments over the next few days they felt comfortable. It was a bitter sweet moment – great usage, poor execution.
In the end they had to spend more resources to do it right than had they configured it correctly in the first place.
Another organization didn’t put the personnel in place as was recommended. The months following the launch, they were disappointed by the adoption. Yet another organization chose a tool because it was not as expensive. Their requirements seemed fulfilled, but they went cheap. In the end, they spent more time in upkeep and no one used it because although it had all the bells and whistles, the user experience was weak and it was very difficult to use.
Here are some questions you might think about. Please let us learn from you by commenting below.
What can you do to ensure you don’t go cheap on your social business efforts?
What if management is set on going cheap – how can you ‘convince’ them to spend the money it will take to do it right?
What if you have already launched, but there isn’t enough of a budget from your sponsoring department to do what needs to be done?
3) Failures we ignore, don’t talk about and pretend like they don’t happen – like at these conferences. It seems these are the big elephants in the room that we want to avoid. But there is a danger in not sharing our failures. Here we often talk about WHAT E2.0 is. We talk about HOW to do it. Yet we don’t often talk about WHY we failed or succeeded. We see a lot of use cases, but not the analysis to really understand WHY it worked or didn’t.
4) There are failures that are so bit that we can’t do anything but face them. NASA is known for the many incredible things it has done, but it has also had some difficult failures. So much so, that just about everyone – at least every American alive at the time – can remember where they were when they heard about NASA’s failures.
It is odd that we shun failures, yet our culture often times sets us up for failure.
Watch this video and learn more about why MBA’s fail at a certain task, yet kindergarten kids do extremely well.
Why did they do better? They iterated. Fail. Try again. Repeat. (Just like shampoo.) Then we take what works and amplify it. And what didn’t work we dampen it. (link to this video)
Why don’t we like to fail? Because it (unfortunately) cheapens our value in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. But it shouldn’t unless we don’t move on and iterate. But to do that, we have to trust those around us. When we don’t trust, we make rules and try to box people in and control them. Feeling controlled, they don’t want to make mistakes. Instead of focusing on the things that will make us successful, we focus on the issues that are small and – in the end – inconsequential.
When we trust, we allow for more failure. It kind of seems backwards, but it is true.
If we don’t trust, failure will happen less. Then so will learning, innovation and progress.
The currency of any social system is trust. Think about an organization that is going through (or anticipates going through) layoffs. What is the natural human reaction? Because they don’t trust the organization they box themselves in, making sure they do their best to protect themselves and their own teams to the detriment of the whole organization. Having worked with many organizations going through layoffs, it is a consistent reaction that happens in every case.
So, in the spirit of progress, embrace your inner failure. When you make a mistake, celebrate it, iterate and move on.
There are a few E2.0 catastrophic failures (but no one wants to talk about them). More common by far – and the failures we are all accustomed to – are the smaller ones. They can make a big difference if we learn what they are, how to avoid them and what to do if we fall into the trap. The fear of failure is a paralyzing feeling. Let’s not allow it to stop our progression.
Starting tomorrow I will post one E2.0 failure a week. I encourage you to answer these two questions:
1) How can we avoid this situation?
2) Now that the mistake is done, how to we recover?
Please add your opinions, experience and expertise in the comments so we can all learn from each other.
My favorite part of any conference is meeting one-on-one with people or in small groups and letting the conversation take us on a journey. I learn so much from many smart and experienced people. My hope is that we can continue the conversation here.
Attending last year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference was a great experience. I learned a ton, met friends I had never met before in carbon, and left feeling invigorated. But there was a nagging feeling – it was all too perfect.
The sessions and keynotes were all about how great this was and how successful everyone had been. But I knew those were not the full stories. Having worked on Social Business for a few years, I had made my share of mistakes and had made a partial living off of fixing the mistakes of others and I learned a ton from these experiences. Why should a conference be any different? Why can’t we learn from each others’ mistakes? Was there a huge fear of failure?
So, when the call for presenters went out, I decided to talk about failures. I had some I could share, and I was sure I could find others so it didn’t turn into a “Kevin Failure Show.” I was wrong. As I started compiling stories I realized that there were very few who were willing to talk about their failures. But I had to go forward and the only failures I knew where my own or were from organizations I had worked with – and I didn’t feel like I could rat them out.
My first thought was, “I don’t have THAT many failures I could share!” Wrong again. It was amazing how many times I had failed. Not catastrophically, but even in small and simple ways.
My sweet wife was concerned. “Will it look like you are a total failure? Will they understand that you are really good at what you do?” I assured her it would be just fine. But this meant I had to be very open and transparent about my mistakes. This really is not an easy thing to do (mentally).
While creating the content for the session I learned that all of us make very few huge failures, but instead we make many small ones, quickly learn and adjust and turn them into wins. And the more I thought about it, the more mistakes I could name off. Soon, there were so many that I had to figure out which went into the presentation, and which I would merely mention and not explain.
The day of the presentation came. I was scheduled for the first time slot immediately after the keynotes. Arriving a bit early, I set up as I watched attendees pour in to this huge room. Susan Scrupski (queen of the Social Business Council) came up and said, “Have you seen the line to get in?” I had to go see this. She was right and it was long. By the time everyone had filed in, this large room was full.
I mention this only to point out that the reason they were there was not because of me, but because of the topic of failure – there were many others that felt the same way I did – a nice validation of my thoughts, but now the pressure was on (I didn’t want a live failure of a presentation on failure!). They wanted to learn from the mistakes of others so they would not repeat it.
In another post I will go over the content, but there are a couple things I did in the session that were kind of fun. The day before, during the workshops, I made the above video, and that is how I started it off. Immediately after it was silent, everyone waiting for me to start. I stood there, quietly for a moment, and then said, “Hi. I’m Kevin and I have failed.” A few giggles followed. I had planted four others in the audience who, in turn, stood up and introduced themselves and said the same thing. It was a Fail Flashmob or an FA meeting (Failures Anonymous). Then I went on to talk about the nature of failure, followed by examples of failure and how they could be overcome.
Time was running out and I had MANY more in the hopper (just in case time went long). I didn’t expect to explain most of them, but just use as examples. Later others told me that as I blew through the last 20 or so, they personally recognized each one and realized that we fail all the time, but we recover.
At the very end I issued two challenges to the audience. The first was to share their failures and not be afraid to talk about them. The second was to join me in discussing them after the conference has ended.
And so I invite you as well. Each week I will post an Enterprise 2.0 failure on this blog and encourage you to answer these two questions: 1) how can we avoid it and 2) if it still happens, how can we correct it? I have enough for a half year’s worth and by the time that comes around, we’ll all probably have that many more again.
The response after the session and for the next three days was wonderfully overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who tweeted during the session, blogged (Nigel Danson, Steve Radick, Cecil Dijoux) and wrote articles (SearchCRM, CMSWire, IT Knowledge Exchange), came up and talked to me about it and referred to the session in subsequent sessions. I wish I could thank you all individually. I am truly humbled by the response.
So please join us. The more perspectives we get each week, the more we can learn from each other and be better we will be at what we all love to do. I hope to learn from you next Tuesday with the first failure! (I promise the posts won’t be nearly as long 😉
The shoe laces on my shoes just broke. I bought the shoes two months ago, so they should have been fine. When I finally found the time, I went into Kohl’s where I bought them and was looking around for shoe laces, thinking they might give me an extra pair. I asked an associate and they said they don’t carry laces. But they would just trade shoes – no questions asked. I was amazed. So, I found another pair and exchanged them. Easy.
Kohl’s trusted me that I, as a consumer would make the right decision and not abuse the system. Guess where I am going back next time. A similar circumstance happened at Costco. I will go back to these two stores forever because of the trust they place in their customer. And because of their trust they will have this family of 10 visiting their store.
Why do we make rules? In this video I talk about consistency. But very often it is because we lack trust. Take a look at any person or organization and often you can tell how much they trust the people they serve by the number of rules they make. A jail has MANY rules – and probably for a good reason. But what about our workplaces? Do they need to be filled with so many rules?
I often hear people complaining about the rules, trying to find ways around them and, in general, being less productive – the very opposite of why the rule was made in the first place.
What would happen if we trusted more? Would we get burned or would we realize that there are hidden benefits to trust? I bet on the latter.
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Why do we make rules? When I talk about rules I mean laws, company policies or procedures, sports rules, chore charts for our kids or anything like it.First, you have to have a goal. Unless you have a goal there are no need for rules. You can do whatever you want and get whatever result you get! Just ask the Cheshire Cat.
But let’s assume we do have a goal – we make rules based off of two factors: trust and consistency. This video, is about Trust.
(TRUST) Why do we put up railings on balconies? It’s because we don’t trust that someone won’t accidentally look too far over the edge.
Every day we make trust judgements. And it’s only natural to have few rules for those we trust, and more rules for those we don’t. While it’s important we make these judgements, sometimes we can get a little carried away.
I saw an email recently where a company reminded its knowledge worker employees that they were not allowed to come in to work late, leave early nor take unplanned time off unless it was previously approved by a manager. If they didn’t follow the rules, they may face company discipline, up to and including dismissal.
There is a big contradiction in life here – For 12 years up through high school we were reprimanded if we were late or left early or didn’t show up for class. Then in college we were told we are an adult and could do whatever we wanted to. But now that we are in the work force, we go back to grade school rules. Why is that?
Guidelines like these are important if they are working a shift and production depended upon them. I get that. But most people are knowledge workers now. The models are really very different.
But it isn’t just an 8-5 work time issue. It’s also applies to sick and vacation time, internet policies, lunch breaks, social media restrictions and a host of other company policies.
I once worked at a company which gave everyone three weeks of vacation, but we were the only ones who would keep track of it. And we could come in when we wanted to and leave when we wanted to. If we wanted to watch a movie in the middle of the day, go for it. As long as the work gets done and we worked hard – that’s what matters.
Although we never turned in our daily hours, sick or vacation days, I didn’t know anyone who took advantage it. Simply put, they didn’t abuse the system. In fact, I haven’t worked with a group who worked harder.
On the other hand, with all the restrictions in some companies, I hear employees often wasting time trying to find ways to get around or stretch the rules or complaining about them. In the end, this makes them less productive – the very opposite of what all those rules are trying to accomplish.
Without the right level of trust from employers, employees often hold back and don’t give their all. But, it goes the other way, too. Employees need to give a healthy level of trust their employers. There must be a good balance between the two.
Wisely letting go is actually liberating. If you make too many rules with your kids, for example, you wind up spending all your time as an enforcer rather than actually enjoying them.
My philosophy? Stop wasting time and making rules that, in the end, really don’t matter. This allows you to give your attention to the things that are most important. Trust your employees, focus on what will make you successful and let the small stuff take care of itself.
Will they make mistakes. Sure, just like you do, I do, we all do. In fact we need to give them that latitude and be OK with it. What they do next will show their trustworthiness.
And if they’re not trustworthy, they need to leave. But that also means you need to trust. It initially might be a scary thing to do, but I bet you’ll find that on many levels, the payback is huge.
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I once heard a story of a newlywed couple going to marriage counseling. He complained that she didn’t trust him with the other women in the office. After a little probing the councilor discovered this was his second marriage, she used to be his secretary and she had good reason to not trust him. Ouch.
Over the years I have given many presentations and keynotes at conferences. And usually there are blog posts and tweets about them afterward. But rarely are people talking about the session BEFORE they actually see it. This is what has happened for my session at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference.
This session should really help organizations understand what failure looks like and how to avoid it.
And to the post from Steve Wiley (who organizes the E2.0 Conf):
Kevin’s session should provide a healthy contrast by tackling the subject of failures head on.
What great advanced notice of what others want to hear! Obviously it is a topic that is on the minds of many, as it has been on my mind for some time.
We all know there is Enterprise 2.0 failure, but rarely is anyone willing to talk about their own. We all want to be successful and to let that shine through and not look like we don’t know what we are doing (at least at times). But I figure at some point we have to admit it, and embrace it, and not only work out loud, but live out loud as the only way to really succeed is to fail our share of times.
My goal is to do this topic justice and make it so everyone walks away feeling 1) it is OK to fail, 2) just not too much, and 3) how to manage failure when it does come and 4) how to avoid failure overall. It is in the first general session time slot – (great! we are starting with failure 😉 ) It may be a good dose of reality before we hear all the great ways NOT to fail that will follow.
(On the other hand, if I do fail in this session, it will be easy to make fun of!)
So if you are going to be there, come join me and the others. And be prepared to open up and talk about your failures as well.
1) The business side. There was a hole in the ability to create online challenges quickly, easily and for little cost. Engaging customers with a product or service is the best form of marketing. But up until now, creating an online challenge was a difficult, expensive task – one that only the larger companies could pay for and pull off. Challenge Vault now makes this easy and inexpensive for any company or organization. Each challenge page & associated answer can be themed with a company’s brand with a background image and banner ad.
2) We all build off of each other. Because the Internet has opened our view worldwide, the opportunity to build off of the best – wherever they may live – has grown a tremendous amount. Challenge Vault is all about getting off our duffs and creating something new and innovative. This is the really exciting part to me.
The beautiful part about for businesses is that when a player accepts a challenge, they get their friends to vote for them so they can win. How do they do that? Facebook, Twitter, email. This is free advertising for the business or organization. They create the content centered around your brand, they distribute your brand through their social media channels, and they encourage others to do the same.
There are a TON of ways Challenge Vault can be used with great results:
Build a challenge around a brand name, like Mo’s Restaurants. They have had the same radio jingle since the 70’s and need a new one. The winner will get a dinner for four and the jingle will be played on the air.
A recording artist could challenge his/her fans to write lyrics to which the artist will write the music.
Looking for a particular talent and need a pool of people to choose from? Put up a challenge to complete a certain task. From there you will receive entries of people who have the necessary skill, and a pool of potential applicants for future projects or positions.
Challenge chapters of your organization to come up with the best new slogan, or design, innovative idea, or…
Create a video involving your brand and stop half way. Challenge your customers to finish the video.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. I have come up with MANY more uses that would engage customers.
What about price? A non-themed challenge is free and always will be. Normally a themed challenge – adding a background image and banner ad – would cost, but as I am more focused on getting usage, even that is free for now – but not for too long.
So if you want to take advantage of this and really engage your customers, members, students, family members, friends or any other group, jump on right now and create your challenge. If you need help, let me know and we can put together the perfect challenge!
Many of us assume that facts rule. Although I fall in to this trap like everyone else, it still amazes me how we constantly act against the facts.
