WLP308: The Challenges of Building Digital Communities in Organisations
In today’s episode, Pilar talks to Rachel Happe, who is a consultant helping leaders in organisations to boost engagement.
Pilar met Rachel at the Social Now conference and you can find out more about the conference and knowledge management in an organisation in episode 297 with Ana Neves, the founder and organiser of Social Now.
When we land on the homepage of Rachel’s company website, Engaged Organisations, we are greeted with:
"Information and access have democratized. Organizations have not. The volume and speed of information have dramatically shifted power dynamics, increased friction, and escalated anxiety. Organizations have an unprecedented opportunity to transform by prioritizing community-centric cultures that boost trust, innovation, and engagement."
This statement filters out those individuals who are not interested in truly engaging their people and distributing power in the organisation. Rachel is interested in truly solving a problem, not just slapping on a solution: changing the power dynamics and the way in which we think about how we work.
The aim is for management and leadership to shift from having the answer and telling people what to do to managing the environment so people are empowered to make decisions. Some of the inspiration for Rachel’s work, like founding the Community Roundtable, came from the open source community. Even if there are outdated management practices that could get in the way, the right mindset can go a long way.
Much of Rachel’s work involves coaching at a micro level, as all sorts of things are involved in the change, including conversations with one another.
“Community management is the future of all management. ”
Rachel shares her personal story, which explains her fascination with power dynamics and why she’s ended up where she has professionally. (And listen out for a few predictions that came true !)
20.21 MINS
Rachel usually starts working with an organisation through a workshop to solve a problem, like an engagement problem or making the most out of their communities of practices, which are generating no value. Sometimes she trains the leaders, other she helps them build a strategy.
Most organisations want social learning from communities of practice. Some networks are not digitally enabled, and sharing happens mainly in meetings. In some organisations where knowledge is the product (eg services, research) there is a strong culture of subject matter expertise and ownership of “the truth”. This is a rigid hierarchical way of looking at things and you tend to lose innovation as people don’t tap into the wider range of experiences and knowledge.
Plus, for those new to the organisation, they are unlikely to learn from the subject matter expert, but the person who’s closer to them in their learning journey.
This is a challenge for organisations new to remote work, which are used to informal learning happening in the office - plus, how it plays out depends on culture.
Decision-makers have been taking relationships for granted because their nurturing happened implicitly in the office - but when you go remote, everything needs to be explicit. This might be one of the reasons that people end up having many meetings, because they’re missing the social connection.
Rachel Happe
So what does an organisation leveraging their online communities look like?
Rachel believes that the existing social network softwares don’t have the right governance structure. They should look like New York City, with well- defined areas, and the knowledge of how to get from one to another. Otherwise people can’t find what’s already there.
There is also the question of how communities find each other. While team chats are being used, those chats are not connected, so it’s difficult for teams to find each other online in an organisation and share knowledge. What’s also missing is teams to assess the technology and design different ways of working, instead of shifting what used to happen in the office onto the software.
Digital literacy is about understanding the architecture of technology and understanding what it enables you to do. It is about understanding the difference between MSTeams and Yammer, which are different places to connect and converse.
Is the slow development of digital communities in organisations due to the fact that few people are really embracing technology and understand how to improve collaboration? And is it due to the rigidity of the structure of some organisations?
41.40 MINS
Community management has been heavily affected by the explosion of social media - it formed the opinion of what connecting online means. After all, social network enterprises and other collaboration tools have been around for a while, but online communities in organisations haven’t really taken off.
While social media can lead to anxiety, online communities have a calm feel. But calm doesn’t trigger people as much as anxiety, This means that you need to create prompts and reasons for people to engage with the community.
On the technical side, you need to look at the UX, metrics, etc. The skill set that’s missing is the ability to bring people together and have constructive conversations about something that matters. Governance is better off when it’s orientated to behaviour, not content.
For the manager, it’s about finding ways for the team to have conversations that matter online, maybe asynchronously, not guiding the conversation but facilitating it.
Many also want to avoid difficult conversations online, leading to “artificial harmony” which is what some social media platforms encourage. This sometimes happens when Internal Communications looks after the space, just because of the kind of one-way communication they’re used to.
So, are mainstream organisations now ready to build online communities within their organisation?
It matters who owns the communities, which hasn’t been resolved yet. The conversation also has to move beyond what kind of tech is used: it’s about leadership, management and culture.
If you want to continue exploring this topic, check out Rachel’s blog post Building a Hybrid Workplace: How Communities Transform Work.
You can connect with Rachel on Twitter twitter.com/rhappe, or if you prefer a work-related series of tweets follow the Engaged Orgs account: @EngagedOrgs
You can also connect with Rachel Happe on LinkedIn.
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