12 Common Patterns that Make Some Companies Successful with Collaboration

What makes an organization successful with enterprise collaboration? They follow these 12 principles.

No two chess games are ever the same. In fact there are more possible chess moves then there are atoms in the entire universe or seconds that elapses since the big bang. The world of collaboration is similar. No two companies are going to have the same approach because there are too many variables. Things such as culture, budget, where collaboration initiatives start from, use cases, desired goals, and type of support are some of the variables that differ from one company to the next.

So if chess and collaboration are both limitless then how do we find solutions? One of the things a chess master does is look for similar patterns or positions to help figure out the next move. In the world of collaboration we also have such patterns of trends of successful companies.

Thus far I have identified 12 principles to the success of a collaboration initiative.

1. Individual benefit is just as important as the overall corporate benefit (if not more important)

Don’t focus on the overall corporate value and benefit when communicating collaboration to employees. Employees care about how this will impact them on an individual basis. How will this make their jobs and lives easier? So instead of talking about how much money this can make or save the company, talk about how this can improve the employees productivity, how it can make their jobs easier, and how it can make them happier at work.

2. Strategy before technology

Before rushing to pick that shiny new collaboration platform, focus on developing a strategy which will help you understand the “why” before the “how.” This is crucial for the success of any collaboration initiative. You don’t want to be in a position where you have deployed a technology without understanding why. You wouldn’t buy a $500,000 hammer and then walk around your house bashing things would you? Yet that’s exactly what many companies are doing today, they purchase a hammer and then try to find a problem for it to solve.

3. Listen to the voice of the employee

We are always so adamant about listening to the voice of the customer, what about the voice of the employee? When going down the collaboration road within your enterprise it’s important to make employees a part of the decision making process from step one. Listen to their ideas, their needs and their suggestions and integrate their feedback in your technology and strategy.

4. Learn to get out of the way

This is something Andrew McAfee talks about quite frequently. Learn to empower and support your employees and then get out of their way. By trying to enforce and police everything you stifle collaboration within your organization. Some best practices and guidelines are fine to have but let your employees do what they need to do. Avoid the, “wear any color as long as it’s black” mentality.

5. Lead by example

If leaders at your organization don’t use and support collaborative tools and strategies then why should the employees? Leaders are very powerful instruments to facilitate change and encourage desired behaviors. They must be visibly on board using the tools and not just writing checks to deploy them.

5 Key Ingredients Required to Achieve a Social Enterprise Transformation

In the world of business, knowledge is the most powerful asset that your employees, customers and partners can leverage to sustain a collaborative social culture. The ability to connect the right people with the right knowledge is critical to business success. Becoming a social enterprise makes this possible, but what is needed to sustain the social enterprise vision?

The Social Enterprise enables publication, storage and access to your knowledge assets, allowing your employees, partners and customers to accomplish their daily tasks easily. Knowledge resources may include manuals, letters, summaries of responses to clients, news, customer information, competitor intelligence and knowledge derived from working together through predictable processes.

A wide range of technologies are currently used to implement knowledge management systems: blogs, micro blogs, email; databases and data warehouses; group support systems; browsers and search engines; intranets and internets; expert and knowledge-based systems.The key ingredients to a social enterprise are well beyond social technology tools. Enterprises that are becoming socially enabled are quickly learning that engaged people, simple processes and effective technology play an increasingly important role.  

What does a social enterprise looks like? An effective social enterprise benefits the enterprise by evolving itself organically to become a relevant, connected and involved two-way interaction between publishers and consumers. There are 5 key ingredients that help you develop and sustain a social enterprise vision:

1. Empowering People

It all starts with the people in the organization. The organization must develop a social enterprise vision and establish a decision making governance with the right stakeholders. These stakeholders must be empowered within the organization to mobilize their people around to embrace the vision and provide the right resources to accomplish the goals.

2. Simple Processes

Social enterprise demands the organization to get things done quickly. This results in simple processes, connected people and a powerful knowledge repository. Invest in program officers for the social enterprise who are responsible for managing the process inventory, establishing cleansing on a yearly basis, developing the right topic's ownership to get the work done easily and establishing the right metrics to accomplish the organization's goals.

3. Culture of Sharing & Simplification

Social Enterprise demands the consolidation of siloed programs/systems. Learning to share is something we might have thought we mastered in kindergarten, but for enterprises taking on social enablement, there are some formed habits that must be replaced with new frames of mind, primarily the notion of “making others successful.” Developing a mindset for sharing and consolidating the internal digital experience is critical to the journey of social enterprise enablement.

4. Effective Technology

You need multiple sets of capabilities that need to be stitched together to create the social enterprise experience. You need to focus on end user processes needed to get the work done and then figure out the right technology stack that supports daily work.

5. Impact & Measurement

Most enterprises are driven by scorecards to know where a project starts and where it finishes. The key challenge with a collaborative project such as a social platform is how to share in the management cost and shared commitments. The metrics have to be on the CEO’s top line goals, otherwise the vision of social enterprise will never be achieved.

About the Author

Chaitra Vedullapalli has over 17 years of experience in the software industry. She brings a host of capabilities including marketing, industry, and partner expertise. She has a proven track record of enabling global transformations, architecting innovative business models, launching 360 degree marketing, and leading teams with excellence. Currently, she is actively engaged with GoLocal Program with City Managers, Zino Society, Washington Summit for US/India Trade Relationship and local PSTA’s.

Social Business

Social Business

Socialbusiness refers to exchange of knowledge, experience, and ideas for the betterment of economics and also responsibility for the society.

Socialbusiness deals with two concepts action based research and conceptual based research.

Action based research deals with sort out the problems and issues which are associated with the major issue and take necessary action to resolve these problems which are associated with that major issue. According to the conceptual bases research, researcher try to clarify the problem associated with a major issue and designed a study to solve those problems. Social business is a non loss and non-dividend idea which are designed to identify social objective within the highly regulated marketplace. The idea of social business is generated by Nobel peace prize winner Prof.  Muhammad Yunus. This concept is highly related with the Social Enterprise. The main objective of Social Business is to reduction of poverty. Prof. Muhammad Yunus create this idea also for economic sustainability as well as environmentally conscious. He also create this idea for the workforce which gets market wages with better working condition.