Social Networks: Profitable Relationships?

Here's a great summary from Anne Bares of Compensation Force on how organizations are realizing that social networks properly engaged are fantastic ways to enhance competitive position. Leaders are moving from complete prohibition to cautious experimentation and some have proven that linkages to powerful individuals can indeed produce measurable incremental revenue per individual. Largely this will come from employees being better informed, having better insights into people, and closer interaction which positively impacts trust (which impacts everything).

Social networking is simply one form of knowledge management (KM) activities and is a complement to talent management (TM) work. Insights produced via KM practices and tools will be used at the organizational level (strategy, objectives, processes, products and services) as well as for individual capability development via TM programs. If you want your organization to be a high performing learning organization, start by exploring how individual, team, and cultural development currently occurs in your organization. Contrast that with how people stay abreast of current trends, customer preferences and needs, and competitor actions. KM work should always be contextual to your organization's mission, and your organizational culture needs to be considered before simply jumping into social networking.

I always coach people to consider four human elements before KM work: culture, especially barriers to knowledge sharing and teaching; awareness of others' existence, skills, and interests; trust of others' knowledge and of them as individuals; and accessibility, meaning ease of use to get this information or opportunities to socialize on the first three elements. You can build the best tools in the world but without the four human elements in place you're going to go nowhere fast. The pace of business and change is growing and change is happening faster than any time in human history. Leaders have to give up their old ways and challenge themselves and their organizations to be students of the world, constantly learning, teaching, and applying ideas in service of their customers. This is how to succeed in the new order!