Category Archives: Knowledge Management

This is some of my thoughts on Knowledge Management (KM)

3 Key Challenges in Organisational Excellence

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There are lots of synergy between Knowledge Management (KM) and Organisational Development (OD)/Organisational Excellence (OE). In Singapore public sector, many organisations subsume their KM unit under OD. This new tango with OD could push KM into greater heights.

Coincidentally, I was asked recently on the key issues/challenges in championing OE. Here are my answers:

The first key challenge is identifying the organisational “pain points” (organisational issues) that the organisation faces and recommending actionable plan that makes sense to staff. The OE team usually doesn’t deal with day-to-day operation and is not being involved in key projects in the organisation. Thus, many organisational issues are not surfaced for OE team’s action. To address this challenge, I suggest appointing OE representatives in various business units so that the OE team can collaborate with them to understand the issue, to quickly intervene and to recommend effective actions to solve the issues.

The second key challenge is showcasing the intangible result of OE initiatives to the stakeholders, i.e. the rank-and-file staff as well as the top management executives. The result of OE initiatives is often intangible, and this can cause scepticism and thus lead to the lack of buy-in among the stakeholders. It is not uncommon for stakeholders to put OE initiatives at the bottom of their to-do list. To address this challenge, I suggest collecting positive anecdotes/testimonials from people who have participated in OE initiatives, and showcasing the anecdotes during management meetings or in the corporate intranet.

Last but not least, the third key challenge in championing OE is implementing lasting organisation-wide change. Organisation-wide change often means changing the corporate culture. And changing corporate culture involves not only the stakeholders’ buy-in, but also communication and staff engagement. The challenge here is two-fold: (1) communicating the reason underlying the change initiatives; (2) and getting staff’s commitment to implement the change. To address this challenge, I recommend engaging staff in the early stages of the change initiative, by asking for their ideas and recognising early adopters as well as change evangelists.

In summary, the key challenges in championing OE are: identifying and understanding the organisational issues, showcasing the intangible result of OE initiatives, and making change permanent in the organisation. To deal with the three challenges, I recommend the following actions: appointing OE representatives in various business units, collecting and showcasing positive anecdotes, and communicating the reason for change and engaging staff as early as possible in the change process.

Thoughts? Do you agree with the key challenges that I’ve identified?

In Defense of Facebook Timeline: 5 User Adoption Lessons

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Facebook Timeline is awesome! That’s the first thing that runs through my mind when I tried the new feature in Facebook. Essentially, Facebook Timeline is a beautiful storytelling tool that helps you to lay-out milestones in your life. Isn’t this cool?

Oh wait, perhaps Facebook Timeline is not so cool when you have dirty little secrets. You know, stuff that you don’t want people to know (read: private stuff, e.g. partying hard, getting drunk).

But then again, you shouldn’t let people to be your Facebook friends if you don’t want them to know about your life. Better still, don’t post anything stupid in your Facebook – especially if your boss is your Facebook friend (*silent panic*).

If you are still concerned about your privacy, then consider these options: “un-friend” people you don’t trust, or adjust your Facebook privacy settings. It’s that simple. You have complete control over what to share on Facebook.

I don’t understand why a lot of people aren’t happy about Facebook Timeline. Yes, Facebook forced it down our throat and gave us only seven days prior notice to do some profile clean up. This is a rather insignificant inconvenience, considering Facebook Timeline is a vast improvement to the current Facebook profile.

5 Things Facebook Can Teach You About User Adoption

The truth is people want to maintain status quo as much as possible. In physics, this is called inertia. In business, this is called “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. In intranet / technology lingo, this is called user-adoption challenge.

Many times in our daily course of work, you and I (KM-ers) have to deal with user-adoption issues. We usually face it when we are introducing new features, or new collaborative tools in the social intranet.

We can definitely learn from Facebook. I really like how Facebook roll out its Timeline. Despite what the critics say, I think Facebook has a sound understanding on how people behave.

Here are five takeaways from the roll-out of Facebook Timeline:

1. Leave them no choice but to adopt the new feature. Are you thinking to persuade your way to get people to adopt the new feature? (*cynical smile*) Let’s get real. There is no way you can get 100% user adoption using persuasion alone. Even the best demagogue in the world, Barrack Obama, can’t get all Americans to agree with him.

2. Explain what the new feature is using one-liner and creative contents, e.g. video, visual illustration. Check out Facebook Timeline page. Facebook describes Timeline in one simple sentence: Tell your life story with a new kind of profile. And Facebook illustrates Timeline using great videos and visuals. Neat!

3. Use Social Proof. At the bottom of Facebook Timeline page, you can see how many of your friends are using the new feature. Nothing is more persuasive than “peer pressure”.

4. Make the transition easy. To use Facebook Timeline, you only need to click Get Timeline button. In one click, you can instantly see the preview of your Timeline page. You can then fine-tune further and publish your page.

5. Give “opt-out” function to hide (sensitive) information.You can’t not force people to share information that they don’t want to reveal. People will resist fiercely to protect their information. So provide an “opt-out” function so that people can choose not to share (sensitive) information. See how Facebook does it.

Thoughts? Do you like Facebook’s user adoption method? 

Further Readings:

DailyMuse. (2 Feb 2012). Just Friends? What to Consider Before Befriending Your Boss. Forbes.

Winter, L. (27 Jan 2012). Facebook Timeline: what’s the fuss about?. The Telegraph.

Kristo, K. (23 Jun 2010). 6 Things You Should Never Reveal on Facebook. CBSNews.

Desmarais, C. (29 Jan 2012). Facebook Timeline Looms: What You Need to Know. PC World.

4 Lessons Intranet Managers Can Learn from SOPA/PIPA

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Think you have nothing to do with Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)? Well, think again.

The whole SOPA/PIPA saga has implications beyond US politics and beyond the use of information in the internet. It also contains valuable lessons for intranet managers who need to craft information and data protection policies in the organisation.

SOPA & PIPA – Explained Visually

Being a non-US citizen, I honestly couldn’t care less about the massive online protest against SOPA and PIPA. Heck, I don’t even know what they are. That’s until Wikipedia was voluntarily shut down for 24 hours on 18 January 2012.

[update: as of 20 January 2012, the two bills were withdrawn]

The Wikipedia blackout leaves me with no choice but to find out what’s the big fuss all about. It’s not easy. Wikipedia “simply” told me to contact the senate now (I’m not in the US). And everybody in Twitter and in other online media were just parroting each other and said that SOPA/PIPA is going to censor internet, inhibit innovation, and kill the start ups.

I thought: “Wow. Can two US-based regulations create so much ripple-effect in the internet?”. And “why people are against good-intention policies (they are meant to deter piracy, aren’t they)?”  To me, something was lost in translation (no pun intended). Thankfully this video helps to shed some light.

I found another visual explanation that is equally good in explaining the technicalities of SOPA and PIPA.

Basically the problem with SOPA/PIPA is its vague language. And the worse part is, they are killing the “messengers” – not the pirates. As a result, the weak languages in the two bills can be exploited and lead to internet censorship, while the pirates go scot-free. In other words, SOPA/PIPA doesn’t address the problem that they intend to.

4 Lessons Learnt for Intranet Managers

One direct implication of SOPA/PIPA being shelved for intranet is this: you can still download online information from internet, copy-and-paste it to Microsoft word, and share it in the corporate intranet. Yes, I know many of you are doing this stuff (Pheww! what a relief). But trust me, you should make use of pull technology, i.e. RSS feeds.

The SOPA/PIPA saga, including the campaign against it, has some valuable lessons beyond the use of information in the organisation. It also tells us how to promote open culture, how to craft great information policies and how to implement it in the organisation.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. Use Internet Publishing Model: Publish and then filter. Intranet has to encourage information sharing. Thus, make it easy for people to publish information in the internet. Filtering should take place after publishing, not before. This will encourage openness, and reduce effort required to filter information.

2. Don’t kill the messenger. The punishment has to be directed to those who abuse the shared information. Normally, it is understood that people aren’t allowed to share corporate information to outsiders. So people who share corporate information in the intranet shouldn’t be held responsible if another person leak the information to the outsiders.

3. Get diverse opinions before rolling the policy out. SOPA/PIPA was supported by Rupert Murdoch and Hollywood, but criticised by many internet entrepreneurs like Google founders, Jimmy Wales, etc. Worse, the policy makers don’t have answer for the critics. You don’t want this to happen on your intranet policy. Get staff’s opinions from different departments/ranks, and make sure you plug any flaw in the policy.

4. Run campaign to promote your policy. Remember I mention earlier that Wikipedia blackout made me aware of SOPA/PIPA saga? You have to run great PR campaign to bring the newly-minted policies to people’s attention. Informing people via email will not be sufficient. How about getting the top management to share their views? Or how about showing how many people support your policy, like how Google does it. (of course, for this to happen, you have to make it easy for people to show their support. See how Mozilla does it.)

What do you think about SOPA/PIPA saga? How are you going to learn from it to create better intranet information policies? Share your thoughts.

Further readings:

Topolsky, J. (19 January 2012). SOPA and PIPA: The wrong tools to combat online piracy. The Washington Post.

Condon, S. (18 January 2012). SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know. CBS News.

Social Media for Old Folks? Why Not! Here Is A Case Study

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I have been told that social media isn’t for old folks. So any programme that targets senior citizens, shouldn’t use social media – but should only use the traditional media, i.e. brochures, pamphlets, tv commercials.

Well, I disagree. While the senior citizens may not be savvy in using social media, their children and grandchildren are. Senior citizens can benefit from reverse mentoring and pick up the required social media skills from their younger relatives. And, by doing so, the senior citizens have opportunity to connect and bond with their family members.

Using “Live Well, Age Well” programme as a case study, I’ll describe how social media can benefit programmes targeting the senior citizens.

According to the Council for Third Age (C3A), Live Well, Age Well means wellness in six dimensions: intellectual, physical, social, emotional, vocational, and spiritual. The breadth of Live Well, Age Well programmes necessitates cultivating strong communities of interest and organising engaging events like Active Ageing Carnival.

Using social media, C3A can strengthen these communities, can enrich the senior citizens’ experience and can provide better engagement and motivation in its programmes.

The rising trend of social media usage among American senior citizens, gives reason to believe that more Singaporean senior citizens are using social media. Like USA, Singapore has high internet penetration rate.  Social media provides a new opportunity for C3A, to motivate and engage Singaporean senior citizens.

Getting the senior citizens to learn social media can be challenging. However, this challenge is also an opportunity to improve the senior citizens’ intellectual wellness, since they need to learn a new skill, i.e. social media skill. Furthermore, social media can boost motivation and engagement level in C3A’s Live well, Age well programmes, because:

1. Social media connects the seniors’ activity with that of their family and friends.
The seniors’ participation in C3A programmes becomes visible to their family and friends. When their family and friends “follow” their activities, the seniors become more engaged and motivated to participate in the programmes. In addition, the seniors can keep track of their family and friends’ life and vice-versa – which means, social media can boost the seniors’ social wellness.

2. Social media captures stories and promotes knowledge sharing.
Senior citizens love to tell stories and to share knowledge about their passion or life experience. Social media is the perfect medium to capture these stories / knowledge and to distribute them in the seniors’ social network (family and friends). This provides a new channel for the senior citizen to express their feelings and thoughts – which can boost their emotional wellness, as well as their vocational wellness.

3. Social media provides space for conversation and community-building.
In Social Media, the senior citizens can converse and connect with like-minded peers, whenever it is convenient for them to do so. This extends the peer-support network, so that the seniors can continue to encourage each other through online space. Providing an online space to converse, connect and cultivate communities of interest, could translate to a better spiritual, physical, and vocational wellness.

In short, social media can be used to supplement the C3A’s Live well, Age well programmes so that the senior citizens have higher motivation and engagement. Through social media, they can receive morale support from their family and friends, can capture stories and share knowledge, and can participate online in community of interest discussion.

I hope C3A can seriously consider social media as an additional means to get involvement from the senior citizens’ family members. Thoughts?

Social Organisation – Definition and Three Advantages

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It’s 2012 folks! This year marks the end of era where “average-joe” intranet rules, where SOP is preferred over empowerment and engagement, and where customers keep mum about their dissatisfaction. And this year means screw business-as-usual! Organisations have to transform themselves to be social organisation or face slow-painful-death.

What is Social Organisation (a.k.a. Social Business/Enterprise)?

So what is social organisation anyway? You probably heard of the term and confuse it with social business (social enterprise) - a term made popular by a nobel price winner, Muhammad Yunus. According to Yunus, social business is a cause-driven business ala Tom Shoes (Tom Shoes commits itself to give a free pair of shoes to those in need, for every pair of shoes purchased).

Yunus’ concept on social business is beautiful. The world certainly needs Yunus’ social business model to beat poverty. Too bad, the IT and KM folks use the same term to mean organisations that use social technology, i.e. social media and social intranet, as competitive advantage (for examples, case studies, and definition, please read how IBM consulting describes social business).

For the sake of clarity, in this blog, I will use the term social organisation to refer to businesses empowered by social technology. I will avoid using the term social business/enterprise - unless I want to talk about Yunus’ version of social business (very unlikely as microfinance is not my passion. Social technology is). I suggest you do the same too.

Alas using the term social organisation doesn’t end the confusion. Some experts like two Gartner analysts: Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. Mcdonald, use the term to refer to organisations empowered by social media application to business. Others like a Forbes contributor: Fred Cavazza, use the term to refer to organisations empowered by both social media and social intranet.

So, which version of social organisation is correct? It depends on what you believe in. I believe corporate (internal) and consumer communications are converging, and thus I think social organisations have to be supported by social media and by social intranet. So I agree with Fred Cavazza’s definition of social organisation.

I also think the main purpose of social technology is to build communities. Combining these thoughts, I get the following definition of social organisation:

Social Organisation is organisation that maximises the use of social media (technology) and social intranet, to improve consumer and employee engagement and to build communities for innovation.

Why Organisations Have to Be Social Organisations?

Three big benefits underpin the need to become social organisations:

First, improved ability to engage employees, esp. the gen-Ys. Gen-Ys are moody bunch. This generation was brought up with a belief that the sky is the limit. They have a high (often unrealistic) sense of entitlement to pursue their dream/passion. The Millennials demand empowerment and bask in entrepreneurship working environment. Social organisation offers them such environment – an environment where they can be engaged and have the freedom to pursue their passion.

Second, improved ability to build communities. Social technologies are great community-building tools. They allow people with similar passion to “gather” and connect beyond the physical limitation, i.e. geographical boundaries and time difference. In other words, social technology is a catalyst for community-building. And we all know that passionate communities are breeding grounds for collective learning and innovation.

Third, ability to build relationship with social customers. Many people use social media like Facebook, Twitter, not only to improve the way they interact and live, but also to give recommendations and voice-out displeasure. Organisations would be wise to maintain presence in social media, to engage the social customers, to capture their testimonials, and to address their concern real-time.

Any thoughts? Write them down in the comment box below.

Recommended Readings:

Bradley, A., J., and McDonald, M., P. (2011). The Social Organisation – Chapter 1: The Promise of Social Organisations. Harvard Business Press.

Cavazza, F. (2012). The What and How of Social Business. Forbes.

N.A. (n.d.). Social Business. IBM.

Neisser, D. (2011). Move Over Social Media; Here Comes Social Business. Fast Company.

Why SMRT Has to Be More Empathetic and Be a Social Organisation (Part I)

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SMRT (Singapore MRT operator) has a huge problem. No, I’m not talking about profits. As the sole operator of MRT in Singapore, they must have been reaping millions of dollars of profits. SMRT’s problem is two-fold. First, its top management has lack of empathy. Second, the organisation doesn’t know how to deal with social customers.

These fatal flaws severely damaged SMRT’s corporate image and handicapped SMRT’s ability to recover its credibility in the eyes of the Singapore public. In this blog post, I’ll talk about the first fatal flaw, i.e. the lack of empathy, and convince you that SMRT’s top management can be more empathetic, by mastering corporate storytelling to present facts. I’ll talk about the second fatal flaw in the next post.

Lack of Empathy

Many Singaporeans depend on MRT to travel. So, it’s no wonder that the public grew angrier at SMRT’s top management, especially its flamboyant CEO, Ms. Saw Phaik Hwa, 57, for failing the fix the issue quickly. Some people even call for Ms. Saw’s resignation in Singapore’s speakers corner.

But the real reason why the public are so upset is the perceived lack of empathy from the SMRT’s top management. Listen to what Ms. Saw Phaik Hwa and Mr. Goh Chee Kong says during press conference below, and you can’t help but notice their lack of empathy.

To exhibit an attitude of “business-as-usual” when crisis stuck, is bad for business. To be successful in today’s economy, organisations have to make that emotional connection with their customers. So when some screw-ups happen, don’t just say sorry and give technical explanation that no one understands.

Who cares about the third rail is misaligned with the collectors’ shoes? I don’t. In fact, I don’t give a damn! All I want to know, as a customer, is how SMRT is going to solve my problem, i.e. how SMRT is going to help me go to work or to go to some malls – to do my Christmas shopping.

Unfortunately, as you can see in the video above, Ms. Saw Phaik Hwa failed to deliver empathetic statements. Immediately after the first train disruption, she made the following cold statements, in national television:

I do know that many customers are very unhappy…there is nothing much to say except that we are very sorry for yesterday’s incident…what we can promise is that we will spare no effort in preventing such occurrence. I personally …improving our incident management…especially in the area of giving timely and better information, as well as crowd management.

Well, the train disruptions did happen again, for the second and third time in four consecutive days. No further respond from her. This may not make her a bad CEO (perhaps she had been working hard behind the scene), but this makes her statement sounds like a series of empty words. No wonder she is under intense pressure.

SMRT has to empathise with their customers! That means they need to understand how train disruptions are going to ruin Singaporeans live (the top twitter harsh tag when the incident happened was #SMRTruinslives. It was a huge hit for SMRT’s brand). They need see the problem from customers’ point of view. And tell the customers how SMRT is going to help them.

This implies, in addition to acknowledgement that the train disruption is going to cause great inconvenience to the customers’ lives, the top management has to offer contingency plan to re-assure customers that when it does happen again, SMRT can deploy cheap alternative transports for the customers – quickly and effectively.

Fortunately, SMRT does understand what needs to be done for service recovery. When the MRT broke down for the second time, the company provided free shuttle bus service for the commuters. But unfortunately, SMRT is clueless on how to present this fact. A horrible blunder.

Although, there were some delays and hiccups that upset some customers, the top management should have communicated that SMRT would provide free shuttle bus service as a contingency measure, when the first train disruption occurred. This would calm the customer and minimise damage to SMRT’s brand.

Too bad the problem and the alternative solution aren’t presented in an engaging story. Stories are the best medium to connect emotionally with the customers. SMRT’s top management has to master corporate storytelling, so that they can better project empathy to the customers.

SMRT’s top management has no other option but to master this storytelling skill. The time where top management can just present facts without stories, is over. Today’s management is about presenting facts in stories.

(To be continued…)

Do you agree that the SMRT’s top management has a lack of empathy towards the customers? What are your thoughts on this matter?

In part II of Why SMRT Has To Be More Empathetic And Be a Social Organisation, I’ll discuss SMRT’s failure in addressing the needs of a new breed of customers: the social customers. Stay tuned!

iCollaborate: Collaboration According to Steve Jobs

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I stumbled upon these two fantastic Youtube videos about what Steve Jobs think about collaboration.  I’m absolutely delighted to learn that Steve Jobs’ opinion on collaboration, resembles mine. That is successful collaboration involves competent individuals who have the right skill sets and attitude.

Here is the first video.

In the above video, Jobs argued that Apple is an extremely collaborative company. There is no committee in Apple and the whole organisation is organised like start-ups. He said:

one person is in-charge of iPhone OS, one person is in-charge of Mac hardware…another person is in-charge of world-wide marketing, another is in-charge of operations. We are the biggest start ups on the planet!

Notice what he was saying (bold text): one person is in-charge of something. Not two person, not five, not ten – but one. This is the “collaboration gospel” that I have been preaching. In fact, I gave a talk about this in GovCamp Singapore (#GovCampSG) in November 2011.

Collaboration isn’t about fake camaraderie where two or more people are in-charge of a single task. True collaboration is organised like start ups where highly competent individuals collaborate to achieve BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) – that they can’t achieve individually.

Here is a second video that emphasises the need to have talented people in the collaboration team (fast forward the video to 1 minute). He said:

You’ve got to be a really good talent scout, because no matter how smart you are, you need a team of great people and you’ve got to know how to size people up fairly quickly, make decision without knowing people too well…

There! Collaboration according to Steve Jobs. Gosh, I miss him. I still regard him as my mentor and role model – even though I have never met him or known him personally.

Do you agree with my interpretation of what Steve Jobs said about collaboration? Any thoughts?

Q&A on The Game of Collaboration Talk, in GovCamp Singapore 2011

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I was pleasantly surprised by the onslaught of questions at the end of my GovCamp Singapore talk: The Game of Collaboration, at the Rock Auditorium, Suntec City, Singapore. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone would bother to ask any question.

Unfortunately, because of the limited time, I couldn’t address all the questions and my answers at that time may not satisfy those who asked the questions. I felt guilty about this.

So in this blog post, I would like to thank those who asked questions and would like to provide quality answers to the questions. Furthermore, I hope to continue the conversation about collaboration and gamification beyond GovCamp Singapore.

1. Q: What is the leader’s role in collaboration? 

A: The leaders have three main roles: (1) to set direction to the collaboration; (2) to manage the conflicts within the collaboration community; (3) to design incentives – so that self-interests are aligned to the collective interest (the goal of collaboration).

2. Disagreement: Someone disagreed with me about kicking-out incompetent people from collaboration. He added that the result of collaboration can be about learning.

Comment: The bulk of collaboration community is lurkers – who give minimum contribution to the collaboration. These lurkers can certainly learn from the active members and tribal leaders if they want to. And the lurkers can become active members or tribal leaders once they acquire the necessary skills or experience (this “upward social mobility” is called Legitimate Peripheral Participation).

What I mean by “excluding incompetent people” is to exclude them in key decision making in the collaboration, in setting the direction of the collaboration, and in rewards-and-recognition. But we shouldn’t stop them from learning.

And I’m not saying that the incompetent people should be despised and looked down upon. In fact, I truly believe that everyone has a talent. Therefore, people should collaborate according to their talent. Forcing people to stay in the collaboration team where they can’t make valuable contribution, is equivalent to creating lose-lose situation for everybody.

3. Q: Does the leaders in collaboration need to be visible to outsiders?

A: Yes the collaboration leaders need to be visible – within and outside the collaboration community. Visibility means earning well-deserved reputation for those who become the collaboration leaders. The leaders become collaboration leaders because they want to known as the champion of a cause, i.e. they do it to increase their personal credibility/brand.

So visibility is important because it boosts the leaders’ personal brand and rewards people intrinsically for being the leaders. When you are a passionate advocate / thought leader on a certain topic, being visible is inevitable. People will see you as the collaboration leader even though you don’t have a formal recognition as “leader”.

4. Q: Why bring gamification to leaderless movements such as Slutwalk, Occupy Wall Street?

A: Gamification helps more people to see who the collaboration leaders are, and helps to shorten the process of peer-recognition.

So, in leaderless movements such as Slutwalk or Occupy Wall Street, gamification be used to identify the leaders of the leaderless movement.

The leaders are not necessarily the organisers of the leaderless movement. More leaders could emerge from the community. And it is not always easy to identify who the collaboration leaders are – unless you are deeply involved in the community.

But, using gamification, anyone can easily find out who the collaboration leaders are – at anytime.

5. Q: What kind of incentives in gamification? intrinsic or extrinsic?

A: Gamification incentives should be tied to intrinsic motivation. The incentives have to be meaningful to the right people. i.e. passionate people with the right skills and attitude.

Badges, points, or level-ups are not extrinsic reward. Those are intrinsic reward because they are tied to the person’s reputation / personal branding.

It is wrong to use badges, points, or level-ups in collaboration without any purpose. You won’t attract the right people, and people will soon get bored with the point system.

Instead, use badges, points, or level-ups to motivate people to attain mastery in certain skills / personal development.

6. Q: Why you need gamification in a company? Is gamification the same as the traditional reward-and-recognition in organisation?

A: No, gamification isn’t the same as the traditional reward-and-recognition. Gamification incentives are tied to the intrinsic motivation as I have explained above.

You need gamification in a company to make work meaningful by giving task autonomy, making progress visible, and recognising people who have achieved personal mastery. The traditional reward-and-recognition isn’t enough to make work meaningful. Gamification can fill the gap.

7. Q: How effective gamification in sales team if they aren’t rewarded by something tangible?

A: Gamification can be effective in many team settings – including sales team. To be effective, as I have explained earlier on, the gamification incentives (badges, points, or level-ups) should be tied to intrinsic motivation, i.e. attaining personal mastery or boosting personal branding.

Do you have further questions on collaboration or gamification? Post your questions / thoughts in the comment box below. I’ll be happy to offer my view. 

Use Your Guts! Why Decision Making (Sometimes) Requires Instinct

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Apple product freebies

Not having sufficient information (intelligence) in a common situation at work. Instead of fretting upon it and being indecisive, trust your instinct and make that long-awaited decision. But be ready to make adjustment and correct your mistake if your decision turns out to be a bad one.

Here is a news for you. Steve Jobs was right all along. HTML5 wins and Adobe Flash sucks! Big time. Yea! long-live Apple and Steve Jobs.

What?! No cheers? Oh you probably don’t care but I’ll explain what this means anyway. This simply means the fact that your iPad / iPhone doesn’t have Adobe Flash (thus, you can’t watch videos), doesn’t matter anymore. In future, you don’t need Adobe Flash to view fantastic videos.

How Steve Jobs Make Decision Based on Incomplete Data

Ok, enough of the geeky stuff. Let’s talk about what this news means for those of you who need to make decision. The interesting bit about this whole story, was the part when Steve Jobs insisted that he was right and decided against installing Flash in all Apple product.

Of course, he was the CEO of a company and could easily brush off any opposite view. But wait a minute, aren’t he supposed to engage in dialogue/debate and get the facts right? After all this is what the conventional management wisdom advocates.

Well perhaps he did. The amazing thing is how he trust his instinct and decide against what the majority does. It looks obvious now that HTML5 is superior to Flash. But it certainly doesn’t back then, when Flash is on the verge of dominating the whole tablet devices.

Thankfully, Steve Jobs – being a visionary leader – did not wait until he get all the data/facts to make the right decision.

Trust Your Instinct, Please?

You’ll likely face a similar situation in your organisation, where you don’t have enough intelligence (sufficient information) to make smart decision and where the alternatives seem equally valid and attractive.

Being indecisive doesn’t help. The longer you wait for more information / data, the more likely that the whole team freezes due to inaction. And this doesn’t bode well for the whole project management effort.

What to do? Have faith and trust your instinct. In other words, use your guts!

This is easier said than done when you aren’t Steve Jobs. But, let’s face it. You don’t have much choice. It’s either use your guts, or wait until you have enough data/intelligence so that the right decision can emerge. Alas, having complete information is a utopian situation – not the real-world situation.

The truth is preventing a bad decision can be a futile effort. The problem may be more complex than you originally thought. A better way is to fail fast and to make quick adjustment to correct mistakes, i.e. use rapid prototyping (design thinking).

I believe what separates Steve Jobs from the rest, is the fact that he has the confidence (guts) to make decision, not the fact that he can make the right decision. You and I don’t have to be Steve Jobs to make decision Steve-Jobs-style.

Now, where is my copy of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow? I can’t wait to read the book. (Daniel Kahneman is a nobel prize winner in economics. His insight in decision-making is invaluable. If you want to know when to use your guts, read his book.)

Do you have to make decision at your work? Tell me an instance where your instinct proves to be right.