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November 03, 2008

Uncertain times call for giving up control: (Webcast Qs, part 3)

Last Wednesday I led a webcast on “Engaging Employees in Uncertain Times,” during which participants asked more than 50 questions—too many to cover in the time allotted. Here’s the third installment of answering those questions.

One of the strategies I suggested for engaging employees is to use Web 2.0 and/or social media. Employees are looking for connection and context, and tools like wikis, blogs, social networks and message boards provide both. Plus, I’ve found that when everything is in upheaval, you often have an opportunity to make big changes—management is more open to ideas that will make a difference.

Participants asked a lot of questions about wikis, which I’ll answer in tomorrow’s blog. They also asked questions about the lack of control that comes with social media:

• With more openness for audiences to contribute to online discussions, what is the best way to respond to misinformation without looking like a censor?

• How do you combat the risk of blogs ending up in the media?

• I’m puzzled by your suggestion to “let anyone answer” questions posed to a message board. (I suggested that instead of doing a traditional Q&A—where questions are submitted, a communicator finds out the answer, writes the response, gets it approved and then posts it—that participants try an online forum where anyone can ask and anyone can answer.) How do you control the quality of the answers and not merely fuel the rumor mill with bad information?

• What parameters/guidelines should companies put in place so that employees’ comments in blogs/wikis/message boards are appropriate—that they don’t become a place to simply vent negativity?

Here’s my answer: You’ve already lost control of communication, so you might as well go with it. You may think you have control, but you don’t. (Your senior management and legal department may think they have control, but they don’t, either.) Even if all your internal communication is packaged, spun, approved, and static, your employees are out there in the world, finding out unvarnished stuff about your company, making comments (anonymously) in message boards, connecting with each other through social media, and otherwise acting like communication is a contact sport.

Employees are well aware that they’re not the audience, they’re in the game. So why are you still treating them as if they are content to sit quietly in their seats, watching the CEO do all the talking?

It’s high time (especially during uncertain times) that we communicators change the definition of our role. We can no longer succeed by being only producers or packagers. To succeed in this Web 2.0 world, we need to facilitate communication, not simply create it.

That means sacrificing control in order to gain involvement. It means taking a risk in order to achieve authenticity. And it means trusting employees enough to encourage them to create, comment, rate and participate.

Is this scary? Yes, it is. Will the legal department kick and scream and throw themselves on the floor in protest? Probably.

But the reward—being able to engage employees—is worth the risk.

Posted by Alison Davis at November 3, 2008 03:01 PM