Can You Be Too Connected?

Over the years, our organization, SVI, has launched thousands of social networking studies to measure the connectedness of leaders inside and outside of organizations. We wanted to understand how one’s connections to others, or their networks, impede or enable one’s success. Do the most successful leaders have the most contacts? Do the most trusted leaders have the most friends? If I have more Facebook or Twitter friends than someone else, am I more likeable?

With the rise of social networking and the new emphasis our businesses have put on community involvement, it seems like we’ve elevated the importance of our connectedness to others. But is this a good thing? What does our research have to say?

After receiving almost 10,000 survey responses, we’ve discovered that there is no such thing as a standard ideal network. Different situations call for different relational dynamics. We did learn, however, that you can be too connected. Studies have shown that having too many connections impede our productivity. In this instance, our connections become the priority, not our performance. Additionally, too many connections can impede the level of trust others have in us. After all, isn’t it hard to trust the dinner party “glad hander”? You know these people. They are at every community event shaking hands with everyone they come in eye contact with.

For the champion, building relationships is different. What matters to the champion is not the quantity of their relationships, but rather the quality of them. And like our research shows, someone who’s not overly connected or networked has the time to invest in others and build a deeper level of trust with a precious few. Our research shows that the top performers in a business aren’t the most connected. In fact, these top performers typically drive the middle of the road when it comes to their network strength. The difference is, however, that these top performers are the most trusted regardless of their network size.

Below are a few ways to build trust within your networks:

Invest in others by listening first and showing real concern. Seek to know their agenda or needs before you share yours.
Be willing to be a little more transparent or vulnerable than usual. Share more of yourself with others in the truest way. Don’t project something you’re not.
Always operate with a cooperative mindset, pushing your self-serving agenda aside for the sake of a win-win outcome.
Don’t be afraid to share your emotions. Allow others to see your passion. It will ignite theirs and they will appreciate you for it.

I’m spending time discussing this at the upcoming Northwest Arkansas Economic Summit coming up on November 11th.  I hope to capture your thoughts on this topic prior to the event.  Please leave a comment on this post.

If you are near Northwest Arkansas on November 11th, I invite you to come to the summit. There is more information about how to take part in this summit at their website.

Onward!

Tags: champion, connect, connected, connecting, network, networking, organizational, OrganizationalChampions, professional, relationships, social

Social Technology is Not the Enemy of HR

Here’s the understatement of the year…we live in a digital world. This digital world connects everyone who wishes to participate. And if you’re not participating, then you’re not contributing to the progression of society.

For quite sometime, I’ve bashed my own industry for not participating. HR has been a late adopter of innovative technologies that build learning communities and create valuable connections. But it seems the tide is turning, and finally, HR is starting to build a digital prowess beyond pure compliance and benefits applications. Now, it seems, HR is finally starting to see the value of these online learning communities and integrated employee life-cycle solutions.While I commend our industry for its recent progress, we’re still so 2006. Check out this article.

For HR, the digital awareness and knowledge gap still exists and it’s significant. It seems the big digital dilemma now is in employee value vs. productivity loss brought about by social technologies. Social technologies scare HR. Why? Because since the beginning, HR operates under control and comply policy and HR loses control in these social environments. So Facebook, Twitter and other social technologies get turned off for concerned, conservative, traditional companies.

But through these social technologies HR has a tremendous opportunity to become more valuable than your PR department, your marketing team, and even your sales team by making a fundamental shift from control and comply to connect and engage. This shift will elevate HR’s impact by making it more relevant to the bottom line than ever before. Let me explain.

Today, everyone is the media. Every one of your employees has a voice, and that single voice can be carbon copied around the world within seconds – your PR department wishes it had such power. You can choose to use this to your advantage or to your detriment.

Your sales team can work relentlessly to build customer relationships. Your marketing team can spend lots of money building your brand. Your PR team can work tirelessly trying to protect your reputation. And all of their efforts can be destroyed overnight by one disgruntled employee who will share her experience with the world whether you control social technologies or not. HR’s focus should not be on trying to limit the voice of your employees (impossible), but rather, to create engaged employees who love their organization and share it with the world. Social technologies allow engaged employees to carry the company banner to everyone they are connected to.

Your employees are the one’s building brand loyalty with consumers today. Advocate groups aren’t limited to consumers anymore. Now advocate groups include producers (employees) and consumers conversing together in real time. In these social communities of producers and consumers, authentic conversations happen, feedback is quickly shared, and so are solutions. Customer service reaches an all-time high because consumers have a direct line of communication with the producers. When the direct line exists, trust exists and a competitive advantage of speed can be captured because the producer-consumer conversation is happening dynamically. Consumer-producer connections create better companies, better products.

It’s time for our industry to embrace today’s open and collaborative global business environment by enabling engaged producers to participate with consumers through social technologies. Below are a few points to consider.

1. Value: Engage your employees – connect with each employee as an individual by understanding their strengths, their dreams and their unique value.
2. Fit: Connect your employees to your mission – align the dreams and unique skills and experiences of each employee with your mission.
3. Benefit: Build a community of consumer-producer advocates – open social technology tools for engaged employees to build trust with your customers.

Onward!

Tags: community, connecting, consumers, facebook, HR, human, innovation, resources, social, stakeholders, twitter

MotherLetter.com is on a Mission

Seth is a successful attorney in one of the leading law firms in the South. Needless to say, he is busy, and his work is important. Seth had a friend who traded a comfortable life and career in the United States for a benevolent cause in Southeast Africa, helping teach impoverished and disease-stricken communities how to farm and, thus, restoring health to these communities. For years, Seth promised to visit his friend and experience the cause. For years, he put it off because of his busy work schedule. But not last year. He finally made time to spend eight days in Southeast Africa with his friend.

And he was changed forever.

Upon his return, Seth and I had dinner with our wives to hear about the adventures in Africa. During dinner, it was easy to see that Seth was not the same. This professional attorney whose job it is to play it cool couldn’t get through the appetizer without breaking down as he told story after story of his experience with the Africans. He gained new perspectives and insights. His views on life were richer and more profound.

Today, through his experience, Seth is a man on a mission. Seth, as a gift to his wife – Amber, began a movement called MotherLetter, an online community for people to share amazing and personal stories of their moms and their mommy experiences. This movement is taking off and connecting moms and their stories all over the world.

Now Seth and Amber are allowing the MotherLetter movement to fight malaria through Compassion International’s malaria intervention fund. I encourage you to get involved in the MotherLetter movement and to help fight malaria by going to www.motherletter.com. Onward!

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If Seth Haines’ story is inspiring to you, Champ him at www.ChampEm.com.

Tags: africa, africans, amber, attorney, champem, champion, haines, help, helping, letter, mission, mom, mommy, mother, motherletter, movement, responsibility, Seth, social, stories, story

Why Championship Companies Follow Walmart’s Lead

Recent business conversations with leaders have been telling of our times. Fear is increasing in corporate cultures, only the safest options are pursued, and it’s back to the basics for most. Businesses seem to be slowly treading closer to commodity models once again – standard, transactional business as usual.

These companies are following the breadcrumbs to the mouth of the hungry wolf. If they don’t wake up, they’ll be eaten.

That’s why my admiration goes to championship companies. I describe championship companies as those who exude three characteristics:

Agility – a strong hunger and aptitude for change
Vision – able to imagine new possibilities and execute towards them
Culture – committed employees, who personally align with their work, respect and develop others, and share ideas openly and often

I work with many companies, but none of them display these three characteristics quite like Walmart. This may surprise you, but I’ve seen this company transform over the last five years and it’s nothing short of amazing. Walmart, as an organization, has a soul. This company is mission-minded and bold.

Walmart doesn’t experience change; it hunts it down through continuous restructuring. It doesn’t just envision opportunities, it disrupts precious business models. Walmart doesn’t just talk culture, it embraces the unique contribution of every individual.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a significant tragedy for New Orleans and the entire U.S. It was also a tragedy for Walmart. Over 30 of its store operations had been shut down and over 10,000 of its Associates displaced. Even more, Walmart saw the suffering in the communities where the Associates lived. When the community hurts, so does the community Walmart store. Walmart immediately went into crisis management roll. But this time, Walmart went further. Walmart donated millions of dollars and provided helpful services to thousands of people.

This was no flash in the pan effort for Walmart. Experiencing the calamity of Hurricane Katrina impacted former Walmart CEO, Lee Scott, personally as he walked the devastation and worked side by side with Walmart Associates to lend a helping hand. So much so, that on October 2005, Lee delivered a bold speech to Walmart Associates at Walmart’s annual kick off meeting. Bold, because the speech was the beginning of a departure from Walmart’s honored “Every Day Low Prices” practices. Below is an excerpt from that speech.

Katrina asked this critical question, and I want to ask it of you: What would it take for Walmart to be that company, at our best, all the time? What if we used our size and resources to make this country and this earth an even better place for all of us: customers, Associates, our children, and generations unborn? What would that mean? Could we do it? Is this consistent with our business model? What if the very things that many people criticize us for – our size and reach – became a trusted friend and ally to all, just as it did in Katrina?

Walmart is walking the talk. And it’s paying out. Walmart has added 100 new product lines and saved millions of dollars in store operations through their sustainability and diversity efforts. “It’s smart business” says Doug McMillon, CEO of Sam’s Club. “This is business in the 21^st Century. Being a successful business AND a good corporate citizen.”

Walmart’s heritage is respect for the individual, strive for excellence, and serve the customer. But the top global company also understands that its heritage, though timeless, must be made relevant to the times; and therefore, Walmart’s heritage is masterfully being expressed to ever-changing customer needs. And because of it, even today the brand is growing stronger around the globe.

Image Credit: NASA

Tags: championship, Katrina, responsibility, social, Walmart