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.

Why Collaboration Fails And How Gamification Can Help

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I had the pleasure to speak at GovCamp Singapore, on 18 November 2011, at the Rock Auditorium, at Suntec City Mall. The title of my talk was The Game of Collaboration: Why Collaboration Fails and How Gamification Can Help. Here are the video of my talk and the slides.

The Game of Collaboration from Roan Yong on Vimeo.

The Game of Collaboration

View more presentations from Roan Yong

And here is the minutes of my talk (I change some of the words and cut some points for easy reading).

Collaboration is the most spoken word in private and public sector. But it is also the most misunderstood word. A lot of people take collaboration for granted. They assume that collaboration works like magic. And that open data, shared purpose, and similar ideas work like magical ingredients for collaboration.

In my talk, I intend to share my thoughts on why collaboration fails and what we can do to make collaboration works. I propose gamification as potential solution to the issues of collaboration. But first, let’s see how “self-interest” drives collaboration.

Why People Collaborate

The reason for collaboration seems simple enough. We need 10,000 hours (8 – 10 years) to master one topic. And we innovate by merging our ideas with other ideas. So we need to collaborate, in order to improve our productivity and to innovate.

Therein lies our self-interest in collaboration. We collaborate because we want to achieve something great that we can’t achieve though individual effort, i.e. greater productivity and innovation.

Why Collaboration Fails

Collaboration fails because of three main reasons:

1. Distorted sense of Altruism and Socialism

When working in team, we are often told that we need to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of others and that everyone should receive equal reward regardless of contributions.

Well, the truth is we can’t turn everyone into mother Teresa. People who are motivated by altruism alone, are extremely rare. And believe it or not, most people will kick-out liabilities from the team – just like what we have seen in the European Union (EU). The EU bickers on saving Greece – their own European brother. I believe Greece will be kicked out of the EU soon.

So collaboration is never about altruism / socialism. It is not about helping the weak, or the incompetent. It is about achieving something great that people can’t achieve through individual effort.

2. A false belief that shared purpose can overcome self-interest

Shared purpose is a good starting point for collaboration, but it is not enough to make collaboration happens.

As we have seen in the failure of world leaders to collaborate on tackling climate change, the hardest part in collaboration is managing self-interest / conflicts and getting people to agree on a set of collective actions to collaborate. Self-interest will not magically “disappear” – just because people have shared purpose.

3. A false belief that collaboration needs to be leaderless

We are fascinated by being leaderless. We believe that being leaderless is all good and is superior to having leaders. But as we can see from two “leaderless” movements, namely Occupy Wall Street and Slutwalk, being leaderless has two issues: you send mixed message and you can’t think strategically to solve the problem.

Not everyone is born equal in collaboration. In collaboration community, we can find “tribal leaders” – people who are very passionate in and committed to the collaboration. They form about 1% of the community. We can also find “active members” – people who actively contribute to the collaboration. They form about 9% of the community. Last but not least, we can find “the lurkers” – people who give minor contribution to the collaboration. They are the majority and form about 90% of the community.

To transform collective action into collaboration, we need to connect the tribal leaders – the 1%. We need to get them to think and set direction to the collaborative effort.

How Gamification Can Help

Gamification is the use of game-design techniques and game mechanics to solve problem and engage audiences. Applied correctly, gamification can bring the fun, engaging, and additive elements of gaming, to non-game environment, i.e. the business world.

What makes gaming so addictive? Gaming is addictive because it injects capitalism. That means, you have the autonomy to master the skills that you want, and you have the rights to earn incentives that you deserve. In addition, gaming is addictive because progress towards goal and character development, is visible. Progress visibility motivates us.

Gamified collaboration appeals to self-interest, so that people with the right motivation would participate in the collaboration. And incentives would motivate tribal leaders to connect, and would reward contributions so that no one left out (the ones who are being left out, are people who don’t give any contribution, i.e. the incompetent).

To gamify collaboration, we need to make collaborative task visible so that people can have the freedom to choose the task that suits their ability, time, or interest. We need to make collaborators’ strengths and weaknesses visible so that people can form collaboration team with complimentary skill set. And we need to give fair incentives based on contributions.

Gamifying collaboration makes sense because playing games is about collaboration. In games:

  • quests’ characteristics are visible. This enables us to gauge whether we are ready to take on a certain quest.
  • each character’s strengths and weaknesses are shown. This enables us to form collaboration team with complimentary skill set.
  • each action is recorded and rewarded. This enables us to build reputation and allows leaders to emerge from the collaboration community. This also ensures each action, big or small, is rewarded accordingly.

Web 2.0 will make collaboration gamification a reality. To create lively discussions among their community members and to build collaboration community, TED has incorporated some gaming elements in their discussion forum (TED Conversations), namely task autonomy, social validation tools, reputation system, and expertise search.

TED is not alone in the effort to gamify collaboration. I give you another example: Salesforce. Salesforce makes personal development visible, so that people are motivated to collaborate, and to achieve goals in workplace setting.

The future belongs to organisations who gamify collaboration.

How do you find my talk above? What do you think of using gamification to make collaboration works? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.

If you like my talk above and would like to book me to speak at your event / conference, then email me at roan_yong [at] yahoo [dot] com. (I give free talk for non-profit organisations and for public agencies.) 

If you would like to find out more about how to gamify collaboration and how to design incentives for gamification, then read my free e-book: bit.ly/sociacol, or skype me at roan.yong, or email me at roan_yong [at] yahoo [dot] com. (I’m always open to meet people for lunch / dinner). 

Here is a list of recommended readings that you may find useful:

Amabile, T, and Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Harvard Business School Press.

Pink, D. (2011). Drive: The Suprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead Trade.

Hansen, M. (2009). Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results. Harvard Business School Press.

McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Press HC.

P/S: I also captured my talk in MP3 format Podcast_TheGameofCollaboration. You can download it to your iPod, iPad, or iPhone. Feel free to distribute the materials in this blog post (please acknowledge roanyong)

KM Is About People. Really? So What?

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Most people understand that “KM is about people”. You don’t have to repeat this over and over again. What you need to do is to explain the meaning of people-based KM. I think the manifestation of “KM is about people” is three-fold: facilitating conversation, cultivating communities, and designing social intranet and user adoption strategy.

I came across this situation many times. KMers rants-and-raves about KM is being hijacked by technologist, and enthusiatically sends a message that sounds like a gospel: “KM is about people”. Wow, what an insight (sarcasm intended). I’m totally not impressed. Here is why.

First of all, everything is about people. Could you name one thing that isn’t about people? Last time I checked, every organisation’s function is about people! From Finance to HR, and from operations to technology, people is the center of every function. This is common sense. It’s not something that we (KMers) should stress mutiple times. Most people get it! They are not dumb. They understand that people is important for organisation.

Second, when you say “KM is about people”, what do you mean? What is the “call to action” that you want to convey? Check out what the KM experts are advocating, and you would find different meaning to “KM is about people”, for e.g. Dave Snowden advocates complexity and decision making; David Gurteen stresses the importance of conversation; David Griffiths talks about talent/human capital management. This is where the problem lies. There are mixed messages beneath the simple truth: “KM is About People”.

Don’t get me wrong. I think KM is about people. Alas, I also think that we fell in love with this message so much so, that we forgot to clarify the “call to action” beneath it. We think people don’t understand what we are saying, when actually they aren’t sure about what we mean. Words are slippery! Same words can carry different meaning to different people.

To succeed, we need to do a better job in translating what do we mean by “KM is about people”. Allow me to share my thought. The call to action should be three-fold:

1. Facilitate Conversations. We need to facilitate conversation – especially the difficult one – so that people can share and capture their knowledge. This means KMers have to be quality conversation facilitators. We have to tell people that they can look for us when they need help in capturing knowledge or in facilitating AAR/Retrospect. We should also organise and moderate Townhall meeting where the top management can have a dialogue with the people.

2. Cultivate Communities. Communities (or Tribes) are natural occurring in any organisation. However without proper intervention, the right communities may not have the resources to produce strategic results. They may not even survive. We need to cultivate communities, that are strategic for the organisation, through a combination of top down and bottom up approach.

  • Top down approach means we work with the top management to identify strategic areas and key people, so that strategic communities can be formed immediately and be visible to the management.
  • while bottom up means we also open to the possibility of people forming communities and producing important knowledge work. Our job is to highlight the deserving communities to the management so that they can get the resources that they need.

3. Design Social Intranet and User Adoption Strategy. KM technology has to be human-centric (this is one of the manifestations of “KM is about people”). That means, we need to have social intranet because it uses social technology. Social technology is a human-centric technology, because it connects people and allows them to promote relevant contents. We also need to have user adoption strategy, i.e. making sure that people use the social technology.

There you go! I have explained my thought about people-based KM. What do you think? What’s your version of people-based KM?

It’s Not Invented Here. But Use It, Microsoft. For Your Own Good

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Innovative organisations don’t need to always produce new “never-seen-before” products. Sometimes the key to innovation lies in improving the existing innovative product/ideas. I truly believe “re-innovating” can revive the ailing giant, Microsoft – who is struggling to compete against younger, hungrier, and more innovative technology companies. And for goodness sake Microsoft, do away with that “Not-Invented-Here” philosophy.

I read a superb article by Mike Elgan in Computer World, titled: Why Microsoft’s vision of the future will really happen. He liked the futuristic vision that Microsoft painted in their videos. See below to find out more about the videos.

He also argued brilliantly that although Microsoft’s vision for productivity in 2019 may be accurate, Microsoft will not be the one who realises that vision. He drew lessons from AT&T’s failure to realise its own vision in 1993.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mike that Microsoft is an old giant corporation and couldn’t respond, fast enough to the changes in information-consumption habit and preference. While Microsoft is sleeping, new innovative companies like Apple, Google, or Facebook fill the gap.

Microsoft’s “late-to-the-party” habit is shown in Microsoft early absence in mobile platforms, i.e. smart phones and tablet devices (they released Windows 7 way too late. Apple has dominated the market) and in search technology (they released Bing way after Google took off).

It’s kinda sad really. I grew up idolising Bill Gates – the school drop-out who took the world by storm (now everyone’s favorite is either Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg). Back then, Microsoft was the most innovative software company in the world. With its revolutionary Windows and Office products, Microsoft dominated the software market for desktop/PC (Personal Computer).

I believe all is not lost for Microsoft. They are still a very profitable multi-national company. That means they still have immense resources (money and talent) to compete against the “new kids on the block” in the software market, i.e. Facebook, Google, or Apple. What Microsoft needs to do is to be more open and dispose its “Not-Invented-Here” attitude.

Microsoft is always “the-last-to-show-up-at-the-party”, not because they can’t envision the future. Obviously, from the videos you can see that Microsoft has pretty good sense on how people use information in the future. They fail because they believe that they will be the one who make that vision comes true (yep. You know what they say: “Pride goes before the fall“).

In today’s complex environment, you can’t be too confident that you have the necessary knowledge and resources to meet the market needs – especially when it comes to software and technology. Even if you have the knowledge and resources, people may not be ready to embrace the innovative tools that you offer them. Take for example, the ill-timed Palm-Pilot devices. In other words, you need to be openly embrace good ideas from outside of the organisation.

So what do you do when you can’t be innovative enough to offer dazzling “never-seen-before” products? Pull excellent idea from the industry and improvise on it, or “re-innovate” existing product from other organisation. This isn’t about infringing innovative company’s intellectual property. This is about innovating upon other people’s idea. It’s about innovating on existing innovation (in KM-lingo, we call it knowledge reuse).

Radical innovation is always risky. You can reduce that risk by re-innovating. This isn’t a strange strategy/concept by any means. Apple innovates upon Palm Pilot devices and introduces iPhones and iPad to the world.

[P/S: Thankfully, Microsoft says that they are more open now. I think the most innovative product that Microsoft has in its arsenal, is Sharepoint. Don't lose your competitive advantage, Microsoft. Watch out for Yammer and Jive Social Business.]

What are your thoughts on this article? Share it with me and fellow readers by leaving a comment in this blog post.

Blaming the Bosses: How KMers Sabotage KM

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It’s too easy to blame the bosses on KM failure. It’s too easy to say that they failed to understand how KM could help the organisation. On the flip side, have we (KMers) done our part in explaining KM in terms and languages that the bosses could understand and appreciate? I don’t think so. We self-sabotage KM by positioning KM at the wrong angle, or explaining KM from “10,000 feet” view.

I had interesting Twitter conversations with David Griffiths (@KMSkunkworks) on the state of knowledge management – Griffiths’ recent article in the KM world.

In the article, Griffiths described that the result of 2011 KMO (Knowledge Management Observatory) survey: people are dissatisfied with knowledge management. Furthermore, he explained at great length that KM is people-focused and strategic. He blamed the senior management for the dissatisfaction with KM.

“Part of the blame has to be placed at the top. It seems as if KM has functioned in isolation, a response to a strategic need that too often is not communicated or goes unidentified.”
- Griffith. D., & Moon, B. (2011)

To improve satisfaction on KM, he recommended two things: (1) improve the quality of KM certification and get KMers to be certified – so that KMers can offer the same standards of quality in KM services and can have some credibilities; (2) integrate KM processes with those of HR – so that the impact of knowledge loss / KM in general, is “visible” to the senior management.

I think the 2011 KMO survey findings are great. Almost all of us (KM practitioners) have to grapple with the lack of buy-in for KM initiatives. And I agree with him that people need to be at the center of KM and that KM is strategic. However, I think we shouldn’t blame the senior management for KM failure and I have doubts about his recommendations.

Here is why. While the senior executives are the strategic decision-makers and the designers of the organisation’s business model, they are not the subject matter expert in KM. Thus, it is our job to explain to them how KM will impact the business in “plain english”!

Let me explain what I mean by “plain english”. First, don’t tell them about KM and its benefits. The bosses are not interested in KM – they are interested in business. So explain, in detail, how KM could solve the current organisation-wide issues that they think are important (not what we think is important). If HR-related issues are not the first priority, then don’t link KM with HR. It’s sad – but that’s life. Get on with it!

Second, don’t explain KM from “10,000 feet” view. We can’t continue to use the tired overused explanation about KM: “KM helps strategic decision-making”, “KM minimises knowledge loss in the organisation”. That’s too high-level! The bosses can’t visualise how KM can be run and can achieve those lofty targets (although they won’t admit it). We need to explain KM from “1,000 feet” view and propose how KM can be implemented in the organisation.

To address the dissatisfaction on KM, I suggest we brand KM. By branding, I don’t mean the “bling-bling” glamorous kind of branding. By branding, I mean explaining KM succinctly (this should be like “elevator pitch”, i.e. explain KM in three minutes or less) and positioning it as a solution to business problem (not necessarily HR issues).

Without clear understanding of what KM is, we wouldn’t be able to issue professional certificate on KM. Even if we establish a professional body on KM training, I doubt the bosses would invest in professional KM education – especially when they are clueless on what KM is.

What’s your opinion on this matter? Let me know by leaving a reply in this blog post. If you want to trace my Twitter conversation with Griffiths, use bettween (see illustration below). Too bad Twitter doesn’t provide the function that Bettween provides.

Why Civic Groundswell Is Pure Madness

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Leaderless civic movement (civic groundswell) shows that social technology is an effective tool to get attention, but it isn’t the right tool to produce a strategic comprehensive plan. What really blunts the groundswell’s strategic edge, however, is the lack of means to resolve conflicts. That’s the main drawback of being leaderless.

Slutwalk, Cook-a-pot-of-curry, and Occupy Wall Street (and its franchises). What do they have in common? Yes, you are right. These are leaderless social movement empowered by social technology like Facebook and Twitter. In other words, these are groundswells.

Groundwell is a term coined by two Forrester researchers, Charlene Li and John Bernoff, who wrote a book with the same title: Groundswell in 2008 (they have since published a revised edition in 2011).

In essence, groundswell is a spontaneous movement of people, who use online tools to:

  • connect with like-minded people
  • influence each other’s opinion (as opposed to getting information from organisations)
  • and express the collective opinion, often by encouraging collective action such as boycotting a product, organising a mass protest or a strike.

In the book, Groundswell, Li and Bernoff argued that groundswell is increasing in numbers – thanks to the endless social media tools at customers’ disposal. And they offered advices on how to use groundswell as organisations’ competitive advantage.

Though the two authors are clearly defining groundswell in organisational context, it can also be used to illustrate the phenomenon of leaderless civic movements / active citizenry.

We are seeing an increasing trend of activists / citizens, using social technology to spread a message and to connect with like-minded folks, and expressing their opinion by taking a stand over social problem.

Does civic groundswell excite you? Are you fascinated by leaderless movement? To be frank, I’m not excited nor impressed, and neither should you. Let me tell you why.

In his article, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly pointed out that Social Technology is useful when you want to bring the world’s attention to the social problem that you are championing, but it is less useful when you want everybody to collectively solve that social problem.

Groundswell is an emotional cauldron that has no place for critical thinking. People in groundswell, are usually expressing their emotionally-charged opinion that stokes more (usually negative) emotions. It is an effective conduit to make the collective opinion louder.

Alas, the collective action that spring from groundswell, sends mixed messages. Which one is Slutwalk’s message? (a) “women can dress what they want without getting raped”; (b) ”stop rape”; or (c) “let’s celebrate feminism”. And which one is Cook-a-pot-of-curry’s? (a) “immigrants should respect Singapore culture” or (b) “stop influx of foreigners”. Let’s not talk about Occupy Wall Street. I totally don’t understand what the protesters want (I’m with Herman Cain on this. Check out the video clip above).

What sorely lacking in these so-called leaderless movements is, well…leaders. In leaderless organisation, everyone has equal rights to interpret the purpose of the movement and to determine the best way to achieve that purpose.

Therein lies the problem. If everyone (translation: all leaders) has big differences of opinion on the movement’s purpose and strategic direction, then how to get everybody on the same page?

Yes people in groundswell may agree on the main theme of the movement. But that’s the easy part. People can agree on almost everything from birdeye view. However, to produce a strategic plan, these people have to scrutinise the details and to do a series of collective action. This requires high-level commitment to solve the problem – something that people in groundswell are lack of.

And if you can’t produce anything strategic, you don’t have a concrete plan to solve the problem that you are championing. In other words, you are just being noisy but not helping. To me, that is madness!

Further Readings

Flanagan, C. (4 Aug 2011). The Trouble with SlutWalks: They trivialize rape. NYDailyNews.com

n.a. (21 Aug 2011). Curry Smell Fuels Singapore Immigration Row. Reuters.com

Riaz, S., & Bapuji, H. (14 Oct 2011). Occupy Wall Street: What Businesses Need to Know. HBR.org

Stop Tweeting: How I Avoided Heated Online Discussion

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Conversation is never easy, especially when you are talking about deeply divisive emotional issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict. The key to manage difficult conversation is have such conversation face-to-face. Don’t use social technology platform for holding deep, emotional conversation.

Online conversation is ten times more difficult than face-to-face conversation, because on social technology platform, you can’t see the person’s facial expression, or read their body language (that gives you hints on the person’s emotional state and ability to empathise with that person).

That’s why social technology platform is simply a poor medium to hold quality conversation (i.e. difficult conversation that can stoke negative emotions / strong reaction). Social technology simply can’t substitute the “richness” and the “trust-building factor” of face-to-face conversation.

To have a deep quality conversation with people, you need to explore/discover the tacit assumptions, beliefs, feelings under their strong views. Now, you can’t easily do that in social technology platforms – where you can only articulate your thoughts and feelings through limited text string/images/videos and where you’d have difficulty in projecting your full empathy (your strongest weapon in conversation).

If you must conduct a quality conversation, my advise is to hold such conversation offline, i.e. face-to-face, in an informal, warm environment like cafe (I think Starbucks is an ideal place for conversation, because it has round tables). Keep the conversations in social technology platforms for information and knowledge-sharing purpose.

But life isn’t always ideal, is it? Sometimes you found yourself in situation where someone “attacked” your views/values during an online conversation. I was in that difficult situation, on 4 Sept, when I re-tweeted @Harrisvederman tweet that said Palestine shouldn’t be allowed to become a state.

I got a rude shock when I received a tweet from @Thabo99, that said “What a load of poo (translation: shit) RT @roanyong…”

My initial reaction was, “Huh, how dare @Thabo99 called me shit”. Then @Harrisvederman replied. He tweeted “…Poo (shit) you @roanyong”. I was like, “Damn! @Harrisvederman called me shit too!”. In my mind, I was tempted to tweet, “Poo both of you! @Harrisvederman @Thabo99″. But thank God, I didn’t.

After re-reading those “offensive” tweets again, I realised that both @Thabo99 and @Harrisvederman were trying to engage me in the heated online conversation. They weren’t actually called me shit (I hope).

So what do you do when your views are “attacked” in social technology platform? Well, keep your cool and don’t reply! Yes, don’t do anything foolish. Just ignore whatever hurtful words that they typed-in. Use this opportunity to understand their views as much as you can. And then invite them to have face-to-face conversation over a cup of coffee/tea (if the issue is important enough for you to pursue).