My mother always used to say to me “What goes around comes around”. As a young boy she would say that to me every time I felt used by a friend or taken advantage of by someone. The older I got the more I witnessed how true this was and we truly do reap what we sow, sometimes immediately and sometimes it takes years.In business and personal relations a negative action can create a chain of reactions that center around a negative thread. We enter into personal relationships never expecting things will go wrong. However sometimes they do and the “wrongs” become defined through our personal filters of what the “rights” should be. What usually ensues is arguments over who is right and who is wrong with neither party seeking to understand before they can be understood.

Rarely do such arguments end in a win win solution but when they do it is evidence of both parties ability to set aside differences while agreeing to both respect those differences and focus on the common values of the relationship.

Is This True in Business Relationships?

Business conflicts usually arise out of broken promises and expectations not being met. The fuel that drives conflict is centric to economic gain or loss by either party. However, the essence of conflicts start and end with the dynamics of the relationships.

When we form business relations it follows the model of either a supplier, employee or a customer of the business. Businesses need suppliers and employees in order to serve the end product, service or message to their customers. When things go “wrong” anywhere in the supply chain or the delivery chain, whether it be with the product or service, relationship conflicts arise and much time and money is spent trying to resolve the “wrongs”.

When a wrong carries significance, either economically, emotionally, physically or mentally the magnitude of loss determines the degree of pursuit to be made “right”. In business the larger the perceived wrong the more likely that a legal process will be used as the means for conflict resolution. As soon as any conflict gets to the legal stage the cost of resolution goes up and damage to the “relationships”, or in a larger sense markets, becomes extremely difficult to repair or even salvage.

Then there are business conflicts which never end up in legal disputes but the cost of these conflicts can sometimes be larger than those pursued through the legal system. Historically these kind of conflicts were buried in the hearts and minds of those who have loss something as a result of the “wrongs”. Everyone simply walked away and the offenders hoped the issues would never arise again and that “word of the conflict” would not spread too far. Some businesses, not all, tend to take advantage of both there size and economic muscle, power, in resolving conflicts by leveraging the offending parties inability to fuel the cost of a legal dispute. Many consider these tactics a win and will leverage these dynamics any day of the week.

Will Conflicts Now Trickle Down or Up?

The social web creates transparency to both the wrongs and the rights of suppliers, employees and customers. The transparency of collective conversations are open to discovery by anyone, anywhere about anything and everything. Today’s media is quick to report “news” formed by either major business announcements or collective conversations facilitated through the social web. A wrong or right can trickle down to the masses very quickly.

The term “trickle-down” comes from an analogy with a phenomenon in marketing, the trickle-down effect. Some economist support “trickle-down economics” and “trickle-down theory,” and propose that it works best for a collective society. Conversational rivers flow through the social web and trickle down to the point of influence over people, businesses and markets.

Given these dynamics business owners, shareholders and entire markets may need to rethink how they deal with conflict resolution in the future. Focusing on the value of good relations may mean the past tactics of conflict resolution need to be reconstructed around enhancing good will with people rather than leveraging power against them for the wrong purpose.

The alternative is that the conversational rivers of the people become a negative influence over your business, your markets, your suppliers, your customers and certainly not least, your employees. In the old days conversations and the subsequent objectives trickled down. Today the conversations may trickle up.

What goes around comes around.

What say you?

Business leaders collect data and subsequently when confronted with the aggregate analysis the typical reaction is to create organizational change aimed at improving the negative results highlighted in the data.

The subsequent change initiatives consume internal resources, already overloaded with work, and typically involve outside consultants who make their living trying to help organizations gain from implementing change. Lots of time, energy and money is spent simply trying to align an organization with customer and market preferences.

The game is being better than competition at delivering on or exceeding the expectations of the customer and the entire market an organization serves.

So the challenge for business leaders is to organize people, processes and products/services that consistently and continuously deliver beyond what is expected and prepare for future expectations.

The two points of critical measurement are 1) “the voice of the system” (internal people and processes) and 2) “the voice of the customer and markets” (customers and suppliers aggregated as a market).

Where are these voices?

The social web’s interactive nature and ability to facilitate real conversations between real people, where there is common interest, is the phenomena driving voice of the customer analytics. Customers have real needs, companies offer real solutions. Voice of the customer research is driven by this common interest and a sincere desire to share and listen. Customer driven organizations are the result of technology used to forward the idea that ‘the common good’ can be explored best through democratic systems. A democratic system must be lead and by the “voice of the system”.

The “voice of the system“, internal people and processes, is very similar to the “voice of the customer” in that the common element which provides the most valuable input and influence is the people.

What Are The People Saying?

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council’s recently released a study called “Profitability from Customer Affinity“. A high level review of the most significant and noteworthy research findings included:

• Fifty-six percent of vendors perceive themselves as being extremely customer-centric, but only 12% of customers agree.
• An overwhelming majority of vendors—85%—are convinced that they are getting better at responding to customer needs, but 45% of customers disagree.
• More than half of customers surveyed described their relationships with vendors as “dependent and captive,” “struggling for common ground,” or “combative and adversarial.”
• When asked to describe their relationships with the channel, 45% of customers surveyed evaluated their channel relationships similarly.
• More than 30% of customer respondents said they would terminate relationships with companies that fail to gain their trust; 62% would scale back existing engagements, while 7% would no longer consider the vendor for future business.

The flyer we received for the report states “The full Profitability from Customer Affinity” report will help you rethink how you embrace, interact with and respond to your customers. The complete report is available for purchase for $299.00 by simply clicking here. .”

Notice how big the “gap” is between the voice of the customer and the voice of the system? Just maybe the root cause is a lack of listening by business leaders combined with the inability to effectively initiate top down changes within their organizations.

Ironically when you look at employee survey results the data pretty much reflects the same as the “voice of the customer”.

Maybe we can save a ton of money by simply paying attention to the blinding flash of the obvious. Then again leaders would have to let go of their control so that the people can fix the obvious. The rules of the game have changed and now business rules have to change.

What say you?

Doc Searls, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, did a anniversary presentation at the SAP offices in New York City today and his comments were summed up by Charlene Li on a blog post at Social Media Today that is worth sharing. Charlene writes : “Doc Searls started talking about the genesis of The Cluetrain Manifesto. This was fascinating to me. He started with reflections of the overblown 90’s (Push, Pointcast). “Customers treated as plankton.” A reaction to the overblown venture investments in “capturing eyeballs” in the 90s.”

“The genesis of a lot of those ideas as he described (e.g. 95 theses, “markets are conversations”) sounds as if it wasn’t all that thoughtful. And didn’t take that long to write. But what made these ideas so fresh and powerful (my opinion here) is that it was obvious to them long before anyone else was even thinking about it. The cluetrain authors were unafraid to talk about it frankly. And — this is important — they had each other to bounce things off of.”

“Does it hold up after 10 years? Rereading it — and listening to Doc — it does. The strident tone seems a bit “of its time” — that is, they were screaming about things you don’t have to scream about any more. But the content seems as true as it did when it was written.”

“But Doc has remained way out in front of what’s happening, rather than consolidating the gains we made in getting to the Cluetrain world.”

“I love Doc’s take on Web 2.0. He implies that O’Reilly’s emphasis on the software is misplaced — and wants to know why he uses advertising as his first example. I concur. The real change is about people and how they relate to business — software is the enabler. Fascinating, as Doc points out, that Google search “Web 2.0? search yields ads about Advertising.”

“He’s still got a problem with advertisers and advertising — including on Facebook. Searls’ updated theses (numbering is not a mistake — he skipped a few)”

1. Advertising as we know it will die.

2. Herding people into walled gardens and guessing about what makes them “social” will seem as absurd as it actually is. (Facebook is his example.)

3. We will realize that the most important producers are what we used to call consumers. (Yup.)

4. The value chain will be replaced by the value constellation. (Many connections.)

5. “What’s your business model?” will no longer be asked of everything. (What’s the business model for your kids?)

6. We will make money by maximizing “because effects”. (”Because effects” are what happen when you make more money because of something than with it.) E.g. search and blogging.

8. We will be able to manage vendors at least as well as they manage us. (Agreements between companies and customers shouldn’t be skewed in favor of the companies.) At Harvard Law they call this VRM — vendor relationship management — which is what Searls is working on (projectvrm.org).

10. We’ll marry the live web to the value constellation. (The Live Web isn’t just about stars. Relationships of anybody to anybody.)

Examples: The personal RFP — find me what I need (driven by buyer not seller) I should be able to manage my own health care data. I should be able to inquire and relate to whole markets on the fly. I think Doc is still a radical — a bomb-thrower, a provocateur. But to create real change, you have to be a revolutionary — someone who engages with the powers that be to create major change. We need radicals. But we need revolutionaries too.

We’ve come to know Doc personally and all we can say is his mind sees the obvious while the masses see and engage in the clutter of the moment. Doc’s heart is as deep as his mind is broad and his perspectives are worthy of attention to those wishing to lead rather than follow.

Seeing things as they are and speaking to the obvious is frank, honest and given his reach and influence his perspectives are disruptive. Disruption is what we need to maximize the social web benefits in front of us by letting go of the paradigms behind us.

What say you?

www.relationship-economy.com 

02 13th, 2008

An average commuter will drive 60 miles a day which equates to $21,098 in cost a year per person commuting. This cost continues to rise as the cost of fuel goes up.The average worker spends in excess of 50 hours a week away from home. As businesses try and get leaner the demands on workers go up and to keep the job more is expected which means more time on the job doing more. People discuss these issues, one to one to millions daily. The conversations are abundant.

The current credit crunch and subsequent long tail effects could cause significant shifts in the “credit economy” with ripples being felt globally. Already new home housing stats are indicating a slow down in residential real estate and the bankruptcy rate is on the rise.  The conversations are abundant.

Consumer debt is at an all time high and the rate of late and default payments is increasing. The gurus of economics converse over whether this is just the beginning or the end of bad economic news. The conversations are abundant.

The debate over global warming continues and there is no denying that we are consuming more of the earths raw materials faster than they can be replaced. The push to conserve natural resources and find alternative energy sources is a global conversation which is and will continue to impact the future eco-system we all live in. The conversations are abundant.

The debate over the war on terror continues to capture our attention and that of global leaders. The different positions on the war continues to polarize people, parties, institutions, religions and governments. The conversations are abundant.

The state of our “relationships” with each other are showing signs of decay. Divorce rates are up, teenage suicide is up, criminal incidents are on the rise, employee turnover is on the rise and medication therapy for our ills is exploding with every new kind of psycho labeled malady being diagnosed and treated with yet another medication that promises to “help” us get through our mental and emotional anguish. The conversations are abundant.

The media feeds us with these stories which only sparks more conversations, responses and concerns as to what we individually need to do to cope with the issues that impact our life. The conversations are abundant.

The current political debates within the U.S. are all centric to these issues and each candidate “promises” to have the answers hoping to appeal to the masses and win their votes. The current conditions of the American landscape of issues and the possible outcomes are part, if not much, of the thread of conversations globally. Each of us and everyone of us are seeking answers to the complex problems that exist in our worlds. The conversations are abundant but the solutions are not.

Are These Abundant Conversations Converging Around Chaos?

We’re not trying to predict doomsday rather we’re only trying to illustrate what subjects are dominating today’s conversations. Subsequently what potential outcomes could come from all this chaos being discussed could indeed become part of the solutions.

Chaos is the complexity of causality or the relationship between events. This means that any ’seemingly’ insignificant event in the universe has the potential to trigger a chain reaction that will change the whole system. A well known saying in connection with this issue is “A butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side of the earth.” This is also known as the “butterfly effect“.

The issues that are dominating today’s conversations are very real and threaten to disrupt the eco-systems we live in. If one or more of the issues accelerate at the same time the convergence could create chaos that impacts our lives and subsequently forcing changes unexpected, unpredicted and adaption to these changes will be required.

In any chaotic event, remember 911, the foundational forces that create calm and adaption to unknowns is relationships and conversations.  When society feels collective stress we turn to our relationships and converse about the issues at hand and the solutions to anything that directly impacts our individual eco-systems.  When 911 occurred we reached out and conversed with those closest to us. We took time off from work and thought about the possible implications. We stayed glued to the media waiting to hear “What Next?”. We felt the need to get closer as families, communities and as a nation. Relationships became paramount and the conversations abounded.

Considering all the current issues the social web may actually become the backbone of society’s need to relate, converse and find solutions to perplexing issues facing our world, its eco-system and our communities, one to one to millions.

If the chaos of the moment forces us to spend more quality time with our relationships engaging in problem solving conversations what could the outcomes be? Self governed and self organized could we solve problems better than those who govern and attempt to organize us now?

What say you?

www.relationship-economy.com 

The internet is free. The tools are free. Content is free. Social networks are free and users have gained the freedom of expression and connectivity without constraint for free.The only factors of user and producer cost is time, attention and trust.The “free” model doesn’t fit well with traditional business models and mindsets. People have a hard time figuring out how to convert “free” to earnings. Most everyone considers the social web as a primary point of distribution for advertising and view advertising as the only means for converting free to earnings.

This paradox boggles the minds of many and most conclude that the social web does not contribute to earnings thus lets not spend lots of time, attention and resource engaging in all this “social activity”. Sound familiar?

Most Businesses Currently Provide Numerous “Things” for Free:

1. Customer support is free although a bad experience may cost plenty.
2. Slick & expensive marketing materials are free although over hyped promises may cost plenty.
3. Communicating is free although many types of communications cost plenty.
4. IT support, internal and external, is free although unresolved problems may cost plenty.
5. Mediums that provide interaction with customers and suppliers are free although most are poorly designed and cost plenty.

There are a number of other “free” things that business builds into a product or service offering and the cost of “free” is built into the overhead to run the business. However, the cost of poorly designed “free things” and the subsequent impact on relationships, i.e. customers, suppliers and markets, is rarely measured or itemized on financial statements or shareholder reports.

The gurus of industry have always proclaimed the value of good relationships with customers, suppliers and markets yet the organizational designs and collective actions tend to but up barriers and create consistently poor experiences that alienate relationships with customers, suppliers, employees and entire markets.

Lets talk about two real time examples. Previously we had written a post about a very poor experience with Verizon’s customer support system which is touted as “free”. Just last week we spent over eight hours on the phone with our bank, Bank of America, trying to tract down a trasnaction.

After dealing with numerous phone prompts to get through numerous instructions we ended up being passed around to nine, count them, nine different people and to make matters worse none of these people could provide an answer as to where the payment went.

To fuel the frustration further every time we were put on hold the automated messages kept repeating “Your business is important to us and we value our relationships. Please stay on the line until our customer service representative can assist you. The next customer service representative will be available in NINE MINUTES!”.

In between this repeated message was “Have you tried our free online banking service? Bank of America provides its customers with free online banking to serve all your personal and professional needs“.

To further aggravate this situation none of the real people we talked to were allowed to give us their full name, direct phone number or email address. Go figure, just how important or valued is my relationship? Actions speak louder than words but words spread on the social web can indeed create actions.

Will This “Free” Message Be Copied and Create Influence?

Kevin Kelly writes: “The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

There are a number of qualities that can’t be copied. Consider “trust.” Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you’ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world”.

This blog has received 180,000 pages views since Jan.1 by over 30,000 “connected users”. Those users have second degree connections of over 3 million people. The social web magnifies peoples experience with business, good and bad. Bad experiences can be remedied by simply following the basics of creating good relationships. However, the very systemic design of many businesses are not friendly to establishing and maintaining good relations rather the “relationship experiences” are anti-social to say the least. Most people who read this post will relate and pass the message on, one to one to millions.

The social web is indeed free but the cost can be very high to those businesses that don’t understand the power of free. How good or bad you are at free could influence how much you earn.

What say you?

Featured post by Terry Kaufman from YourEnglishSuccess!

One day I went to HSBC to interview my customers and their non-native English speaking colleagues. I wanted to understand their communication case better and get greater insight into Anglophone and non-Anglophone interactions.

During one interview, I was amazed at how eloquently one individual, Mr. Boyer, clearly expressed the essence of Sustainable English:

“An environment is friendly when everyone understands the stakes, objectives, and viewpoints of others.”

As I was preparing my program and notes, I had originally defined it as:

An environment that is friendly towards non-native speakers – it consists of clear English, collaboration, and focus on mutual understanding.

Mr. Boyer expressed exactly what the communication-friendly environment has to offer, when it is implemented and fully operational.

Every native English speaker has the potential and ability to create his/her own personalized environment to accommodate non-native speakers.

Less frustration. More success.

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.comThe social web is creating a reversal in the process of managing customers. People learn from people and subsequently are avoiding influence from institutions rather the conversations of people, one to one to millions, have become the power of influence.These conversations are creating “social markers” on brands. “Social markers” is a term created by Hugh MacLeod whose blog, GapingVoid, defines social markers as “ a prime form of social shorthand, that people use to STAKE OUT the ecosystem they’re occupying”. A brands social marker can be either good or bad. It is tagged by the conversations of those that have experienced the brands product, service or culture.

Every business has an ecosystem forming within the social web. The ecosystem is driven by the people who have experience with your brand. Whether suppliers, employees or customers the relational experience with your brand is what influences your brands “social marker“. The social web is an “ecosystem” that enables conversations to spread like wildfire and the more conversations the more attention the conversations create.

If your brand is a positive “social marker”, within this ecosystem, you will have a competitive advantage on the other hand if your brand is a negative social marker well just think about the implications.

Is Social Markers creating a Shift?

Theo Papadakis wrote a post which first appeared in the 2nd Online Customer Engagement Survey Report, and his ending comment states “The first questions for would be customer-engagers should not be “what technology should we deploy?”, nor “how can we engage our audience?”, but instead: “What is it that our customers are currently doing, where are they doing it and what do they want to achieve.” And guess what – the best person to ask is … your customer.”

While agreeing with the context of Mr. Papadakis post the train may have already left the station. The train we’re referring to is a shift in control from the brands desire to engage the customer to the customer taking control over the engagement.

Today business relies on CRM products designed to facilitate customer needs into a framework designed by the supplier. It is like telling your spouse or children “I want your feedback but only within this context”. The feedback system is not designed to listen rather to control the context into “frames” the supplier thinks are important to us rather than “open conversations” that are important to us, the customer. Most corporations would consider the thought of having “open conversations” with a large audience of customers a nightmare of uncontrollable cost. When they consider the “technological tools” of the social web they think of it as tools to control and manage, the customer.

The flaw in this thinking is that people would rather simply be heard than managed. Managing and acting on the intelligence gained from conversations is a much more effective way of building stronger relations. The outcomes should scream “I heard you” and subsequent actions should demonstrate that we’ve changed or learned something as a result of what we heard. Automated conversations are not real conversations.

The Old Methods Have Failed The New is in Control

People are now empowered to influence brands by the reach and influence of conversations, one to one to millions. These conversations are becoming social markers. Frustrated by brand promises not fulfilled, old sales and marketing tactics, dysfunctional corporate cultures, the people are speaking out and are managing, creating and influencing markets. Instead of businesses managing customer, customers will influence how businesses are managed.

Which method are you prepared for? The old or the new?

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.comBusinesses are shaped and built around markets, existing or created. Whether the proposition is a product or service, for a business to survive it has to have a market that wants or needs its product or service.Business follows different methods to build and deliver to the masses. Creating market differential aimed at specific markets is the means for creating market movement. Think of the Apple IPhone as an example of creating and delivering market differential and thus movement.

What and Where are the Markets?

A market is a social structure for exchange of rights, which enables people, firms and products to be evaluated and priced. A market allows buyers and sellers to discover information and carry out a voluntary exchange of goods or services. It is one of the two key institutions for organizing trade. In everyday usage, the word “market” may also refer to the location where goods and services are traded, or in other words, the marketplace of transactions.

Business is a Web of Conversational Transactions

A conversational transaction is an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between separate entities or individuals. These conversations often involve the exchange of items of value, such as information, introductions, knowledge, services and sometimes money. These conversational transactions evolve into relationships based on an affinity defined between two parties then thousands of individuals collectively forming a “swarm” of transactional conversations centric to affinities.

These collective relationships then form into markets being defined by the “collective parties engaging in conversations“. Think about how customers thrilled or disappointed with a new product or service converse with others thus creating a web of conversations that influence others. Think about employees disappointed with employers and the influence the subsequent conversations have when promulgated into the marketplace of people. The marketplace is where the conversation are occurring, the conversational transactions are the influence on the marketplace, any marketplace, your marketplace.

The Social Web is the Marketplace of Conversations

The social web is the new marketplace fueled by conversations and relationships formed at the intersection of people and technology. Web 1.0 was about delivering information. Web 2.0 is about enabling conversations which in turn create transactions. Thus the appropriate label of the “social web”.

Doc Searls book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, and on his blog often and regularly he refers to three categories of activity which are fueled and enabled by the power of the web. These are: transactions, conversations and relationships. Doc writes “In too many markets the mix of the three is warped and strained. Too much of the conversation is insincere, preachy, hollow or otherwise bullshit. And the current methods used by businesses pollutes both conversation and relationship.”

“Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed,” Some of Doc’s key points are:

• These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
• As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
• People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
• There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
• What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.
• Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
• In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.

The Social Web of Business

Business is about markets, methods and masses. The markets are the relationships, people. The methods are about the conversation and the masses is about the reach of the transactions. To win in the relationship economy a business must have solid market relations, honest, open and frank conversations which in turn fuel the transactions, results.

The Relationship Economy is about people, one to one to millions, transacting in the form of conversations but openly, honestly and at velocities never before experienced. These transactions enable new relationships to be formed with a global reach and formed within what we have come to call the social web.

These conversations are about anything, everything, anybody and everybody. These conversations are nonstop able, fluid, frank and with no hierarchy of control, they are free and without constraint. This represents a movement of markets and unless business understands the methods they will loose the masses and the subsequent transactions.

It is that simple yet hard for business to grasp considering the current state of mind. “It” requires a different mindset, a focus on human factors and understanding the value of “real” conversations.

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

“You’ll have ten minutes to explain the virtual world of social networks.” That was the instructions from a global corporation who asked us to dial into the proverbial Monday morning executive meeting and discuss social networks.So how does one educate business executives about the value of conversational relationships with a ten minute limit set on the conversation? You can’t!In another example, a Fortune 500 company had engaged us to research their specific niche market as it relates to what the market was doing with social networks and what opportunities could they pursue to create market differential as well as improve customer and employee satisfaction.

Upon finishing the research we began to write the report and send drafts to the appointed project manager within the company. Our first draft was ten pages long. The appointed project managers first response was “we have a rule around here and that is our executives will not read anything longer than two pages.” The essence of the message was “we don’t need to know why and how to do something rather simply tell us what to do and do so quickly.”

Does the “how and why” impact what the final results will be?

Many, if not all, employees of any corporation will relate to the two examples above. Pressed by deadlines and an abundance of task businesses thirst for the “one minute answers” and then when the answers are implemented but do not produce the expected results the blame game begins. Subsequently “pointing fingers at who is to blame” becomes a cultural norm when the “what” answers contained in the two page summaries or ten minute presentations do not produce expected results.

Dr. Charles (Kalev) Ehin, Professor of Management Emeritus and the former Dean of the Gore School of Business at Westminster College writes: ” Have you ever wondered how things actually get accomplished in most organizations despite all the obstacles continuously encountered by the people who perform the day-to-day activities? I’m sure you have unless, of course, you are one of those rare individuals who is independently wealthy and has never worked for someone else. Not surprisingly, all of us have our own individual theories about why businesses survive in spite of the seemingly unworkable systems and processes they frequently employ. Just in case you may have, for a moment, forgotten what those obstacles are let me list just a few of the most common:”

• Unclear goals and objectives
• Ambiguous or unexplained policies and procedures
• Unrealistic deadlines and budgets
• Pressure to do more with less
• Lack of cooperation and teamwork
• Poor and uninspiring leadership
• Lack of open communications and trust

“Can you imagine what gains in wealth, creativity, and social responsibility could be realized if enterprises discovered how to leverage the hidden but powerful attributes that allow firms to make a profit in spite of these barriers? The possibilities are boundless. And think as well about how much more successful mergers and change initiatives in general would be if they could tap into these attributes. Essentially, my focus will be on the nature of the emergent systems or informal networks present in all social entities and what leaders must do to “allow” the tremendous energy and creativity inherent in these systems to support the overall organizational vision and objectives.”

Successful Social Networks are more about the How and Why

The innate power of relationships is the learning element that we adults seem to have forgotten. Part of the element of learning is conversational and without taking time to have a conversation learning is being limited. Half of a conversational process is listening and maybe it is the most important part. If business leaders don’t have time to listen or engage in conversations how will they learn the inherent power of social networks?

I have a five year old son whose constant response to any conversation is “why” which is indicative of human natures desire to learn. Even when you respond to his first “why” he’ll naturally follow up with another “why” until he thinks he’s gained an understanding of the subject matter being discussed. Ironically when he thinks he truly understands something he’ll be the first to correct his father in future conversations relative to whatever he thinks he now understands. Sound familiar?

Business thinking and subsequent institutional behavior has created deficits in learning capacities and capabilities. Finding quick answers to market movements, short term profit pressures and institutional maladies is a repetitive process that robs peoples ability to learn the how and why. Do business leaders really think they have learned enough to simply ask for what without understanding why and how? If we truly found time to have conversations with employees, suppliers and customers what would we learn?

A ten minute presentation or a two page summary may not be enough to understand the power behind a major social movement. Are we so connected to business that our relationships have become disconnected?

What say you?

Featured post by Jay Deragon from LinkToYourWorld.com

Based on the ebb and flow of the social web in 2007 this new year promises to bring more disruption facilitated by the cascading conversations of individuals, one to one to millions. We are likely to experience significant adoption of the social web by businesses representing every market segment and industry.

The force that fuels significant growth will be the “noise” created by cascading conversations at velocities never imagined or experienced. Conversations are markets and unless businesses learn to engage they will loose their market positions, some slowly and some overnight.

A cascading conversation is a consecutive series of organic conversations which often proceed via social networks, one to one to millions. It allows the conversational synthesis of topics from a single user’s creation to spread at the click of a mouse and with no geographical boundaries or other limitations as to who chooses to engage in the conversation or who is touched or influenced by the cascading affect.

The cascading conversation contains many functional streams that take part in the conversation’s transformation one at the time. Often another cascading conversation is generated from a previous conversation. The social web accelerates cascading reactions from conversations due to the dynamics of one to one to millions conversing about anything and everything, including businesses.

Cascading conversations carry an idea forward in ever-broadening circles. The very nature of cascading conversation implies, “the conversation creates the results.” The social web creates the medium to engage thousands…then millions…of people. These people create conversations centric to topics of interest and issues of affinity with others who have migrated to groups–commonly known as swarms.

The Social Web: A Conversation-driven Process

The social web created a two way conversation between people. At first its appeal attracted the younger generation looking to be heard and wanting to converse. Now more and more adults are finding satisfaction from the conversational web. Whether engaging for personal or professional reasons, adults are finding the creativity of the social web and the dynamics of virtual relationship appealing. The subsequent cascading conversations have fueled global conversations about business, politics, causes, opportunities, knowledge and any other thing which one would classify as adult conversational topics. People are connecting in the virtual world and finding ways to help one another, including finding jobs, finding friends or finding stimulating conversations.

What is the effect of these conversations on businesses?

The essence of any business is primarily about conversations. Business leaders spend most of their time engaged in communication. Whether face-to-face with their teams and customers or alone in their offices dealing with memos and e-mails, these are all conversations about the business—its brands, strategies and effectiveness. At its simplest, the role of leaders is to have the right conversations with the right people in the most effective and efficient manner.

However, experience has shown that conversations can also be the cause of many organizational ills. Individual conversations may poorly engage the work-force; fail to reflect reality; fail to focus and align people; and stifle individual and business transformation. A common failure of business conversations is they can be one sided and lacking a learning exchange. Business success is simple: increasing or accelerating the organization’s effectiveness requires changing the organizational conversation. Cascading conversations can accelerate business transformation whether planned or not.

Cascading Conversations Can Transform Markets

Markets have historically relied on traditional media to carry their messages to the masses. Using multiple forms of media, businesses have tried to reach consumers with advertising messages aimed at getting consumer attention through product or service appealing images. Consumers have been surrounded by messages appealing to the human senses, needs and desires.

Slick advertising campaigns, sponsorships and a host of other media techniques have been used to create affinity and attract consumers. These methods have been used for years and advances in technology and media have simply increased the creativity of the messages and the means. Conversations between people have become the media and the cascading effect is gaining power and momentum. Businesses are just now beginning to pay attention.

Some businesses are following the social web because that is where the people are migrating. IBM has developed social networks for businesses. The likes of Wells Fargo, American Express, Bank of America and Nationwide Insurance to name a few have recently engaged in using the tools of social media to reach their customers. Many businesses either do not know what the social web is or they have underestimated it and discounted it as a fad. However the wave of cascading conversations will grow at exponential rates throughout 2008 and the collective voices of the people will only get louder. Businesses will follow the noise even if business leaders do not understand how to engage in conversations.

The new business leaders of tomorrow will understand the value of conversations and subsequently we will then begin to see the evolution of a new dynamic called social commerce. Today these are just ripples in the ocean of the social web. Tomorrow these ripples could create a wave of change again at velocities never before imagined or experienced.

Substantial issues regarding the effect of cascading conversations need to be considered going forward.

Are your people having the right conversations? Are business leaders focused on the impact of cascading conversations? Could business be more effective at conducting or leveraging cascading conversations? Are business leaders listening? Will business be transformed or will it lead the transformation?

What say you?

Jay Deragon

www.relationship-economy.com