Steve Nguyen (@nguyen162- who we have interviewed in one of our podcasts) attended our webinar yesterday and had a question about an answer I gave:
“In response to your answer to “How do you get people to contribute?” you said “force it”. As part of their workflow of course.
I agree with you, however, I’m caught up on something you said earlier in the webinar. You said something about “not forcing people to read a blog.” But “force” people to contribute? I’m feeling a disconnect there. Thoughts? ”
This is a GREAT question and one that I struggled over for some time awhile ago. When do you and when do you not?
DON’T FORCE IT if it is an added task or responsibility to what they are already doing. EXAMPLE: When I started in this space I tried to add blogs to training. I created a post everyday of a sales question or scenario. The salespeople were to read it and respond in the comments and review the others’ comments. This was supposed to be a great learning activity. Functionally, it lasted two days. They didn’t have time for an extra task. And so it died. Very quickly I added that the only way for it to be adopted was to make it a part of their normal work flow. Thus…
DO FORCE IT if it substitutes a task or workflow. EXAMPLE: as I mentioned in the webinar we did yesterday, instead of emailing the attendees for a meeting the agenda and then the meeting minutes (and doing that every meeting) I created a wiki page and did a running tab of all agenda items and minutes. No more emailing. No more confusion. All real time. But the reason this worked is because it substituted the old way with the new and made it more efficient and effective.
I have done similar things like this with processes, manager/employee communications, projects, asking questions and, of course, formal learning. Use it yourself. Post notes or thoughts on a discussion or in a wiki. If people want them, they will need to go there and get it – thus they are ‘forced’ to use it – but nicely forced. 
The key? SUBSTITUTE. You both will be glad you did.
