The Groundswell Inside Your Company
The previous posts about Groundswell have all fallen under the perspective of finding, communicating with and keeping customers. It’s one of the biggest aspects of a business; you can’t have a business without them. But what about the inside of your business?
It can follow suit the same way in some of the same methods. You can create a wiki/community for your employees or you can even use apps like WhatsApp to communicate with them. Yes, customers are important but so are the family of people with you to bring success. It all comes down to one thing: “promote a listening culture” (Bernoff & Li, 2011, p.244-245).
This isn’t going to be the same type of post I’ve been making for the past few months. I’m not going to reiterate the benefits of using Twitter or a wiki. This is all about the main point of chapter 12 in Groundswell.
The Listening Culture
For one aspect of a listening culture, it’s not enough to just hear your employees. You have to listen and, like leadership, you have to show it. It’s why leaders are constantly involved with projects and the running of the business on all levels. It shows you care and also enacts a listening culture within your organization. Employees will work harder and better when they know they’re listened to.
Next, you should encourage participation with incentives. You employees feel they have a lot on the line when they get involved and it’s important to try and invoke this participation in a safe manner and NOT one from force. Not just from your example but also from what they can get from it. For example, a company called Razorfish introduced a wiki for their employees that didn’t reqiure participation but only encouraged it if they wanted to. The employees took a chance and learned that they can not only be more productive but also learn from other teams by connecting and having an input on various topics (Bernoff & Li, 2011, p.246-247).
The last, but certainly not least, aspect towards building this culture is to find and encourage the rebels. This can be scary because it means taking a risk. I’m not going to say you’re not going to fail because that’s just a fact for a business and our lives in general. The rebels of an organization can see things that should change. By encouraging this thinking you can encourage moving forward and innovating with your organization by prompting listening considering what these people have to say. They’re not bad employees if they have an idea on something that can change. They’re innovators that should be listened to.
A Dash of Web Development
Being a freelancer is a very individual based job. You work for yourself with, likely, no one under you. It’s why the concept of Groundswell on the internal community doesn’t necessarily work here. The message however does.
Listen to your clients with their concerns and their ideas. It helps establish an even footing and understanding from both your client and your perspective as the developer. It promotes a healthy relationship between you and them and should not be disregarded; not even for a minute.
SOURCES
Bernoff, J., Li, C. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies (expanded and revised edition). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing
[Unsplash]. (2014, May 2). Business Meeting [Photo]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/office-meeting-business-partners-336368/
Special Note
Well, this is it. The final required blog of my social media class this semester. To be honest, I don’t know if I will continue to blog past this point. It would definitely be a good idea, as seen in the past posts, but I don’t think this is my style. I really like writing, I really do but I feel like I’d rather do something more interactive and personal. This is fine but not a lot of fun and that’s something I need when keeping my motivation and producing my best work. It’s why web development works for me; it’s always fun to do.
In case this is the last post, I hope I was able to bring some kind of insight or a good read for you. Thank you so much for your time!
– Nick