Open Leadership

I just finished reading my advance copy of Open Leadership by Charlene Li (co author of Groundswell and Principal of Altimeter) - two thumbs up! It’s a must read for leaders navigating emerging technologies across organizational waters. The book is packed solid of one case study after another of insightful examples of social business innovation focused on fostering an open culture. It’s rich with checklists, thoughtful questionnaires and action plans to help leaders evaluate their readiness and develop plans to embrace a culture of openness.

In her book, scheduled to come out next week, Charlene defines open leadership as “having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals.”

I’ve been fascinated with the cultural shift required by organizations to fully embrace social business and how leading companies are transforming on the inside to embrace the outside. I’ve been equally fascinated with how business leaders still think social is just a marketing or public relations function. “So you are saying that in order to develop a social strategy, we have to change our culture? Are you crazy? I just want a Facebook and Twitter page. “ “Yes Yes! Let’s do social and let’s be open! Hmmm…. that means we have to change the way we lead? Forget it, let’s just put our ads up on YouTube.”

Five Rules of Open LeadershipThe degree of openness and cultural shift required by companies is determined by organizational and strategic goals. At the foundation though Li provides five rules for open leadership to help foster these new relationships.
1. Respect that your customers and employees have power
2. Share constantly to build trust
3. Nurture curiosity and humility
4. Hold openness accountable
5. Forgive failure

Charlene gives solid evidence and affirmation that “doing social” requires internal business transformation. As rule one asserts, power (or illusion thereof) is no longer an exclusivity of the boardroom. True power is in the hands of the customers and those closest to and engaging with the customer. It always has been. Social technologies though are shining a flood light on and calling attention to this dynamic like never before. Savvy digital customers who call a spade a spade will accept nothing but the truth. The speed of communication online is demanding internal efficiencies and quick access to information. Polished corporate messaging is not trusted online. All of which is challenging the old school hierarchical command and control style of leadership.

Being open, transparent and authentic doesn’t mean that companies mindlessly open up and share all knowledge and data irresponsibly – that would be foolish. Charlene encourages leaders to develop “sandbox covenants” – guidelines to structure process, policy and behavior. I often hear people talking about the risks of allowing employees to engage online and fears of openness. What if employees start chatting about our confidential information? What if they divulge our recipe for our secret sauce? What if, what if, what if? Charlene hit the nail on that head when she asks the reader, have you heard of any damaging business secrets being divulged by employees of those most engaging and open brands we all want to model?

Open Leadership. I can’t wait to see where companies are at a year from now. In my opinion, the front runners will be those who continue to innovate and embrace Charlene’s direction and the direction of business leaders and consultants who champion openness and cultural transformation. Stay tuned.

Changing corporate culture is like getting kids to eat peas

Last week I had the humble pleasure of participating in the Dachis Group ‘s Social Media Business Summit (http://www.dachisgroup.com/2010/03/social-business-summit-roundup-austin). I was blown away at the high level thinking of all of the participants and speakers who presented various aspects of social business design – or as I like to call it, holistic social. I’ve spent the past week letting the session wash over me to clarify my take on this journey. The one thing that I keep coming back to is corporate culture – changing corporate culture to embrace social business design.

Leading the social business efforts for an organization is exhilarating, but equally terrifying. Being on the edge/fringe of the organization and trying to move a business and its executive leadership to a whole new way of behaving and operating without tried and true business theories ? Sounds crazy and arrogant. And yet, I know its not. My passion and 'blind faith' (or bat faith as @katenieder shared) were validated in last week's summit. But changing a corporate culture? Yes, even changing a corporate culture.

Corporate culture is messy.
Corporate culture is defined as the sum of values, customs, traditions and meanings of an organization. The stories we tell and the way we speak and behave in a company amplify its existence. Performance evaluations and training define its behavioral expectations and financial rewards and benefits validate its continuation. People conform to those around them, making this all the more complex. So how does one even begin to think about changing an organizational culture?

Charlene Li, Altimeter Group – @charleneli spoke about Open Leadership. (Her new book is coming out this spring). She challenged leaders with letting go of control but staying in command to create a more open environment. An open environment, in her view, is one that shares information (vs. hoarding for power), sees opportunities and optimism (vs paranoia and threats) and is about building relationships, .

Changing corporate culture is like getting kids to eat peas.
In doing some investigation of my own, I found a University of Illinois experiment. The experiment was to find the best way to get a child to eat peas. A number of tactics were researched, such as telling the child that eating peas was good for him, punishing the child if he didn’t eat his peas and rewarding the child with ice cream if he did eat his peas . What the researchers found ultimately worked the best was sitting the child at a table with other children who liked and ate their peas on their own. The child modeled his behavior to confirm to the others – peer pressure works!

Kate Niederhoffer, Dachis Group – @katenieder - gave a similar example in her presentation at the summit. She shared research showing how others confirm to the group, even if they know the answer is incorrect. She also shared how difficult it is to just tell people to stop doing things - like stop emailing and use social, stop hoarding information, stop controlling. Isn’t that like trying to force people to eat peas?

So how do we get our organization to eat peas?
I certainly don’t have all the answers yet. But a few things I’m going to try:

1/ Find people who like to eat peas. Locate the open leaders of the organization (those who share information and decision making) . Get them in key roles and have them share new organizational stories about what’s working with the way they do things. Help them facilitate the peer pressure.

2/ Build relationships – work to create bridges between teammates and others in the organization.. Build relationship based on trust, respect, inclusion. Most of all build human relationships.

3/ Share Decision Making - involve people in decisions. Give up the need to be in control and empower others.

4/ Value Feedback –feedback of our teams and employees is just as important as our customers feedback on social media sites. The good the bad the ugly – need to value it all

5/ Open up information – share metrics/reports/information with others and be honest. If the project isn’t going well, fess up. Share conversations and information along the way to create a culture of sharing with one another.

6/ Create Guidelines – create guidelines for social computing so boundaries are clear.

7/ Experiment – this is a new playground. I heard this in a number of presentation. Expect to fail at some things but keep trying.


So this is a long way of saying, what I learned from the Dachis Group social media business summit (#sbs2010) relative to culture change is this: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” (Mahatma Gandhi). Or as that classic rock song goes, “All I am saying, is give peas a chance”