First read this: Implementing Collaborative Software – No Problem
Next, read this:
Jason,
Excellent summary and I couldn’t agree more. In my experience, item #3 was the failure point. Change management at the leadership level was far more difficult (in fact, it ended up terminal) than training the front lines to contribute best practices commonly/collaboratively.
In retrospect, here is what I think I observed. Leaders work long and hard to climb the ranks of corporate cronyism, and it usually isn’t mastery of job skills that get them there. As such, nothing is a greater threat to middle/upper management (the original implement for identifying and developing improvements) than abdicating control of genius generated by the lesser ranked to a collaborative system. Tell me if you’ve ever heard this, “I pay you to work, not think. Now get back to work.”
If acknowledged, well in advance, that any aspect of democratization is a potential threat to the structure of traditional corporate dictatorships, strategists can draft a strong plan for overcoming the resistance that has its roots in ignorance and fear. One incentive for managers/supervisors that I found was best received was reduced work load. In essence, if an employee complained that a change needed to be made to such and such, the retort could be “let me show you how you can fix that,” instead of “okay, I’ll put that on my list of things to do.”
Again, great write-up. The content here is king – but still democratic, a powerful combination.
Brian
By way of follow up, I first investigated their capabilities when shopping for an internal enterprise search. What I found blew me away. The comprehensive intelligence encompassed in their search methods, combined with their ability to make the best results so obvious, puts Google searches to shame. Here’s a vid with the highlights.
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