In this post, I cover the content of the session I gave at E2.0, complete with some of the videos (5 in all) that gave me inspiration.

Starting tomorrow (Tuesday, June 28th) I will talk about one E2.0 failure a week.  Then I encourage everyone to talk about how we can avoid it and what we might do if we get stuck in the situation.

We learn a ton from our failures, and I hope you can join us!

(This is a crosspost from vinJones.com)

(For the Challenge, skip to the bottom)

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.

(Link to the presentation.)

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 the vinJones.com 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) and wrote articles (SearchCRM, CMSWire), 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

I have submitted two sessions for the Enterprise 2.0 conference this year.  Could I ask a favor and have you please vote for them to be chosen?  I would sure appreciate it!

To me they are great topics that have not been discussed at length yet – but many people keep saying they want to hear more about them.

E2.0 Failures – And What We Learn From Them

The Role of E2.0 in Employee Performance Improvement

At the beginning of this new year, I was reminded of this classic commercial…

Why was I reminded of this?  It has always spoken to me.  It may have spoken to you.  Do you hear what I hear?

“Keep doing what you are doing.”  “Your future lies in the hands of others.”  “Your path is already trod.”  “You know your destiny – it isn’t any different than what you see every day.  Now fulfill it.”

Of course, this commercial was intended to bother us.  And I think it did, but did it bother us enough?  Enough to make a change and take some action?  So this is how I translate it for this new year.

“Keep doing what you are doing.”  “Your future lies in the hands of the way we traditionally work.”  “You can’t do anything about it.”  “You know your destiny – you will work the same way you always have.  Now, keep working.”

Does that bother you?  It does me.  So here is the text for my own commercial for the new year…

“This next year, I want to work differently, all day.”

“I want to open up my communication.”

“Be valued for what I share.”

“I want to have an active voice.”

“I want to be an innovative man.”

“I’ll do anything to work more effectively.”

“This next year, I want to be appreciated for the information I share.”

“To be able to help another person out that I didn’t know before.”

“I want to create the sunshine and be the example of how to work differently.”

“How do you want to work?”

There’s a better way.  But will you?

“Fear of Retribution” is probably the most feared reason why employees DON’T use Enterprise 2.0 tools.  This has been hit home recently as I and a number of other friends have had our hands slapped for “working out loud.”

“Ha,” you may say!  ”What on earth did you all say?  It must have been bad!”

You decide.  We said things like,  ”The project’s official process is slowing us down.”  ”They have had an old-world mentality in the past.”  ”The culture will need to change if this is to work.”  ”If we try to control too much, we will lose control.”

This is how I have seen the game unfold all too often:

1. An employee makes a true statement which is obvious to everyone but no one would say it because of fear of retribution. The statement is not made maliciously, nor is it toxic.  Rather it is just a casual statement or the person is trying to make things better.
2. Management doesn’t like it and a) enacts a punishment and b) tries to control the message.
3. The employee goes quiet as does all those around him/her.
4. Employees take on a passive-aggressive stance which hurt the business.

All it takes is for someone to not like a statement.  It doesn’t even need to be someone in management , nor does the statement need to be offensive.  This can happen as one does not agree, takes an issue against it and informs management.  In the spirit of being PC, the employee is informed of the issue and we jump to step #3 above.

My advice to management

Charlene Li, in her book Open Leadership, noted that, “Business leaders are terrified about the power of social technologies, by they are also intrigued and excited about the opportunities.”  My advice?  Pick a side and stop waffling.  Stop telling your employees that these technologies can be a real asset but at the same time don’t allow the culture to change.  It is one or the other.  Either is fine, just pick one.

My advice to employees

Just say it.  If you get your hand slapped, so be it.  If they exert more control, OK.  In my experience, most people, in time, come out of the fog and realize that you were right and in the end you are a visionary and hero (and this is what is happening with those who made the quotes above!).  It is a difficult time to go through.

But here is the lesson:To get to the good stuff you will have to go through the difficult. There isn’t any way around it.  Plow through with confidence and this caveat: Do not make any statements which are mean, negatively critical, caustic, or toxic and don’t be arrogant.

As one of these friends correctly pointed out, “Change is a dangerous business!!”

Apple (the company) was on a decline.  You can’t say that they were failing, but they were headed that direction.  They had fired Steve Jobs a decade before.  Now, struggling they turned back to Steve who had been a success in other ventures.  When he took over as iCEO (interim CEO) he reset the focus of Apple.

“There were too many people at Apple, and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of  - for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose.  And it was clear that you didn’t have to play that game.  ’Cause Apple wasn’t going to beat Microsoft – Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft.  Apple had to remember who Apple was, because it had forgotten who Apple was.” (Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs - video)

The opposite of winning was not losing to Microsoft.  It was losing themselves.

Fredrick Herzberg created the Motivation – Hygiene Theory (or Two-Factor Theory) detailed in his book The Motivation To Work.  In his studies he basically asked people what they liked about their work and what they did not.  From this he learned that there are factors that motivate and others that demotivate.  But those that motivate, if not there, do not demotivate.  Got that?

Basically, the opposite of motivation is not demotivation, it is no motivation.  As Herzberg pointed out, the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, but rather no satisfaction.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and it has changed my outlook on life in many different contexts.

Too often we think, “Oh, I didn’t accomplish this – I failed.”  No you didn’t.  You just didn’t accomplish it.  And I am not trying to put a positive psychological spin on this.  For example, many people thought that for Apple to win, it had to beat Microsoft or lose.  This wasn’t true.  They were fighting an enemy that didn’t exist, which is why they were losing.

The opposite of success is not failure, it is no success (at least in that thing).  When I really realized this, I found that a lot of my assumptions on opposites was wrong and each of them have a big affect on the way I now think about the world.

The Opposite of…           is…                            it’s not…

Being Motivated              No Motivation        Being Demotivated
Success                              No Success               Failure
Winning                           Not Winning           Losing
Focus                                 No Focus                  Chaos

Keep this thought in the back of your mind and apply it to different situations you are in and you see others are in.  What you learn will produce some great insights for you.

Organizations are looking for the bulletproof collaboration strategy.  I often hear, “How are you going to do XXXX?”  I might reply that “my plan is to do YYYY, but if it doesn’t work we will try something else”.  The reaction takes people off guard because they think there is a right way to do all this social stuff.  It is not that I don’t know what I am doing.

It is not that I am incompetent and guessing what we should do.  Rather we have to remember that Enterprise 2.0 environments are not build on software (which is possible to implement perfectly) but rather they are based on people who are fickle and not altogether stable.

Their likes and dislikes change, they are moody and they have strokes of insights that can change everything in the matter of one day.  Yet too many times –  especially if the Enterprise 2.0 project is headed by I.T. – they want it done right.  (This leads me to my next blog post on opposites, coming soon.)

Remember this:  There isn’t a perfect “right way”. And what might be right today may be wrong tomorrow.  What is right for my organization may be very wrong for yours.  The way to develop a collaborative strategy is tailor it to your org and run with it.  But then be flexible enough to change – this is all very iterative.

Because this is about people you must be willing to change.  DO NOT treat this like an IT project.  Treat it like a people project.  In fact, it is not a project at all.  It just is.  It is woven into the way we work.  It is about sharing, collaboration and openness which don’t need a project to work well.  This is a difficult concept to help key stakeholders understand – but help them understand we must.

Iterate.  Try, fail, succeed, share. (In fact, as Bart Schutte points out, there is also a bit of luck to it.)

• A pencil can be used to write, as a test of manhood (a first grader showing how strong he is by breaking it), and as a murder weapon (I have never seen this, but I am sure it could happen).
• A book can be used to enlighten, kill a cockroach or as fuel for a fire.
• A campfire can be used to cook, to get warm or as a stage for pyrotechnics.

The point?  It depends on how you use your tools.

And I am afraid Enterprise 2.0 will be used more and more as a “Get Rich Quick” scheme.

Training has.  When I first started training I quickly found that managers, in an attempt to increase the performance of their employees, would ask that a training course be created so their employees would know what to do.  I would diligently do what they asked, but it never made it quite right.  Eventually I learned that a manager who wants training is not a good enough reason to give it to them.  There are often better alternatives to increased performance.

Why did they turn to training so often?  They were lazy.  They didn’t want to put in the effort to 1) analyze what is really happening, 2) to find an appropriate solution and 3) execute on that.  All of that took too much time and they had things to do – training was a simple answer.

Enterprise 2.0 is starting to go that way.  ”Just create a community and all will be well.”  ”Put it out there on (tool’s name) and someone will figure it out.”  These and many others are starting to creep in as possible solutions.

Creating a community that functions well is not a walk in the park.  Yet many are hoping it will be: Give very little for a big return.  Sounds like they are using E2.0 as a “Get Rich Quick” scheme to me.

If we are going to do it, let’s do it the correct way instead of taking the shortcut.

There aren’t any steps. I’ve never really liked “STEPS” lists, because they are too generic (unless you are putting together the Space Shuttle, or something like that).  It is as if they will take you to the holy grail.

Steps imply that they must be done in order – in sequence.  Yet each community is in its own phase.  They have their own unique strengths & weaknesses & culture.  There isn’t a One-Size-Fits-All method.  It is impossible to come up with a list of steps that will cover them all.

Instead, here are 10 things you must do (or not do) when creating a community.

1. DO gather (virtually or in person) the community together (or a portion of it) and look at it from a performance improvement perspective.  You can’t go in thinking that an online community will solve all of its problems.  How much better to be able to go in, recognize an area that can be improved, and then be able to provide a solution, whatever that may be!  If not provide it, then recognize what a potential solution could be and who to contact.  It could be training, process re-engineering, dealing with cultural issues…
2. Don’t just target the GenY or Millenials.  Those who are older get this just as much as they do.
3. Don’t ask them to blog, or tweet, or use a wiki.  They won’t know what to do with it.  Well then, how do we help them use these new tools?
4. Work the tools into their workflow.  If it is an extra chore, they won’t use it (this seems pretty intuitive, but is forgotten in practice).  Make it a part of how they work.  But don’t focus on the tools either…
5. Focus on the people, the culture.  Usage of the tools will follow.  Help the people “work out loud.”
6. Don’t create communities hoping they will join.  Make sure you have a plan! (Again, that seems obvious, but…)  Throwing something out there will rarely work.  Be strategic, yet flexible enough to allow the employees to set the agenda.
7. Do set the example yourself.  Use it.  Show others how it can be used in the real world.  At NASA we are in the middle of development of our enterprise social solution.  How do we communicate?  Using the tool and principles of transparency.  I can’t tell you how effective that has been in showing others the value and how to use it practically.  Oh, and I have avoided a ton of meetings and emails as well.
8. Do dare to be different.  Don’t go with the flow which will only lead you back to the same results the organization has always achieved.  You MUST go against the grain – not to be combative, however.  But when people challenge you, stand up with them (not ‘to’ them) and help educate them, allthewhile having a smile on your face.  Some will laugh at you and that is okay.  Just smile, knowing that they will come back later and use the very thing they mocked.
9. DO focus on TRUST.  I can’t stress this enough.  Talk about it in your meetings, online, on the phone, all the time.
10. Help others understand the difference between personal and professional uses – internal and external uses.  They are very different (although they can bleed into each other, but keep it simple with them for right now).  Beat that drum loud and hard.