The Era Of Volunteerism?

Just a short excerpt from an upcoming document on the business and cultural aspects of enterprise social networking that came out of my field research project:

"When interviewees spoke of “culture”, their anecdotes revealed a spectrum of issues that influence the degree to which employees choose to participate in work-related activities. The role an employee has in a business activity compels him or her to perform a task and contribute certain information. However, the depth or richness of actions taken and information shared on a voluntary basis beyond what that role minimally demands can vary tremendously based on cultural influences.

A culture that causes employee’s to hold back what they know, or suppress their level of participation beyond the mechanics of their job, means workers are not engaged to their full capacity. Under such circumstances, workers may be reluctant to share their expertise with co-workers, or divulge what they know only within trusted social circles. Such a cultural atmosphere can thwart efforts to persuade people to connect, share, and build community in ways envisioned by social networking proponents. Social networking projects however are not the first organizational or IT strategy to identify overcoming unhealthy cultural barriers as a critical success factor. During its heyday, similar issues stymied knowledge management (KM) projects as well – and still do.

A common thread between social networking and KM that strategists should acknowledge is the principle that volunteered participation and resulting contributions are a daily decision employees make – and one that they essentially control." (emphasis added).

I've tried to distinguish in several of my E2.0 blog postings on the difference between "directed" and "volunteered" participation. Often, when people discuss communication, information sharing and collaboration, we lose sight that in most enterprises - people converse, share information and work together to some degree whether they like it or not - especially now (it's just nice to have a job). People's roles, duties - and sometimes continued employment - "direct" then to interact - especially if those activities are part of business processes or other structured activities.

For instance, working together to put out an RFP, or respond to an RFP, can be a highly collaborative endeavor. If you are assigned to that activity - you will work together. But people don't always do the best job they can, or should, in terms of collaborating with each other. People inside the team (or outside the team for that matter), may not fully contribute - even if they see, or are given, the opportunity. It might be for no other reason other than they simply chose not to fully engage and take action. Why? Do we just chalk it up to culture and give up because it cannot be changed? Note: I disagree with this viewpoint.

Ultimately, people still make choices on sharing what they know. How do we influence them (if possible) to make choices that directly help co-workers and indirectly help the organization overall when they are not compelled to do so by the structure of their role/task? How do you instill a sense of volunteerism (if that's even the right phrase)? We find ourselves shifting from tooling into the realm of attitude and behavior change (some might include culture change) which are better understood through the lens of psychology, sociology, etc. I agree with Kate that changing culture is difficult but not impossible. Enabling an environment where people are more willing to volunteer above that which they feel is necessary has been one of the intractable challenges faced by industrial-age organizations.

That seems to be the area where E2.0 attempts to address. I don't believe E2.0 applies to all types of communication, information sharing and collaboration. Some might disagree (which is fine) - but my understanding of E2.0 hinges on the term "emergent". Although McAfee phrases it as "use of emergent social software", I've always interpreted it (rightly or wrongly) as "emergent use of social software". The notion of emergence, participation, and volunteerism come together when you consider O'Reilly's thoughts on an "architecture of participation" and Snowden's thoughts on rendering knowledge "Knowledge ... cannot be conscripted".

Why is ROI so difficult when it comes to social networking and Enterprise 2.0? One core factor might be the intangible nature of the beast. How do you predict the ROI of something that hinges on your ability to deliver practices and systems that influence attitude and behavior - which, in turn, may/may not create better business outcomes or achieve some other organizational goal? In many of the E2.0 case studies being quoted lately it seems that the ROI numbers are based on looking back on a deployment of some kind - not predictions beforehand that later proved to be true. ROI is a little easier when done in the rear view mirror - but that might be the best we can do right now (perhaps stories are the new ROI and the people in them the new metrics).

Unfortunately, many project teams don't have that luxury and are confronted with predicting ROI (and the metrics use to gauge success) before they gain project approval or can expand out of a pilot stage and reach any type of critical mass that might generate the success stories. In any case, the main point of this post was to highlight the notion of volunteered participation. I veered off a bit into ROI but the two seem somewhat intertwined...

Comments

[Sreya Dutta]

Hi Mike, very very valid point raised and I had similar questions in mind while I was equally thrilled to think of the implementation of social learning in my organization. What if someone quotes my information and gets appreciated for it and I don't get the credit? Why should I contribute if people here are closed to my ideas? a lot of what ifs do come up. But what I think we're missing here is a social learning model that the management needs to design for their organization based on their culture and goals.

To motivate people to share knowledge management needs to come up with ways to reward employees for their contribution.

Thanks for sharing this!

Sreya

[David L. Gilmour]

Mike, your forthcoming document sounds interesting indeed. In serving as a CEO for more than a decade, I always felt it was my role to ensure the alignment between the organization's goals and the goals of individual employees using every tool at my disposal: setting the tone on culture, designing compensation systems, hiring people who were like minded, etc. When this is done well, and employees identify with the enterprise as a whole, they tend to be naturally responsive to others' requests - in your terminology, a kind of "soft" directed sharing.

I actually think that this is a better way to look at the problem than to equate information sharing with volunteerism, and ask for more of it in the culture. Knowledge Management got itself into trouble when it measured itself merely by how much it increased the amount of knowledge capture or sharing. That kind of soft ROI goal was easily attacked because they didn't tie back to business goals: from the CEO's perspective, sharing is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The good news is that greater levels of sharing and collaboration can make an enormous contribution to reducing costs and increasing revenues. When that is fully internalized by an enterprise, you don't need to rely on volunteerism, because even highly competitive employees interested only in their own success will realize that giving and receiving information is the best way to succeed.

Thanks for raising this.

Cheers,

David L. Gilmour
Senior Vice President
Collaboration Technology
Oracle Corporation

[Larry Irons]

Mike,

I read this post with a great deal of interest. In my opinion, much of the analysis given the topic of information sharing, especially by those considering E2.0, depends heavily on reciprocity and implicitly social capital to explain why employees initiate sharing to solve emergent problems rather than react to directions to share once a problem is officially recognized. I don't think this is volunteerism though. And in that sense I agree with David Gilmour.

However, I really do disagree with David's suggestion that the issue is solved by setting the tone on culture, designing compensation systems, and hiring people who are like minded. I'd suggest that approach gets any organization into groupthink territory over time.

What you are describing in this post strikes me as an example of the challenge faced by managers who understand the importance of producing organizational conditions conducive to gift giving. The influence of social psychology leads most social network analyses to focus on reciprocity as key to social capital. But a focus on reciprocity doesn't really provide much perspective on how to encourage employees to initiate information sharing without explicit direction.

I suggest that beneficence in relationships (giving something for nothing, with no obligation for a return) is how social capital gets started between two employees and reciprocity is what keeps social capital accumulating between those same employees. I actually did a chapter for a book a few years ago called “The Limits of Anytime, Anywhere Customer Support: Distributed Work and Home-Based Agents” laying out the point of view alluded to here.

Larry