Command and Control is Over

"Social media . . . was born out of a culture that was almost diametrically opposed from command and control. Its basis of power is the distributed end user, [not] the centralized author of the software."

With distributed power in the hands of all users, interactions become one-to-one, not one-to-many. The same is true in organizations who want to thrive in the social media world – creating environments which are open and based on trust means not every tweet requires approval, and employees have much greater say in how their work is defined and implemented. The authors are careful to say that this isn’t a free-for-all – targets and metrics are still required – but the days of annual strategy meetings and power from the top need to be set aside in favour of dynamic organizational structures, perpetual planning and greater involvement from employees in defining how work is done.

“We need to create organizations that people are eager to join . . . where people will invest the same kind of energy, time and passion, quite frankly, that they put into interacting through social media.”

So where do we begin? How do we tackle this daunting prospect of completely revolutionizing the way we work?

Allow Leaders to Be Human

"Social media is teaching us that building relationships means sharing some of our true selves."

Past models of leadership encourage leaders to be inspirational, but many have interpreted this as a need to convey almost unrealistic images of power, strength and invincibility.  Organizations would be far better off being able to openly talk about failure and how to recover from it, than trying to maintain a perfect front.

Social leadership requires a willingness to be vulnerable, because taking risks involves failure, and learning from those failures can only happen if we openly acknowledge and discuss what happened.

Be Open, Trustworthy, Generative, and Courageous

"Organizations need candour the way the heart needs oxygen."

Being open, trustworthy, generative (or capable for perpetual production) and courageous – these elements are chosen by the authors as critical components for social leaders because they believe they are the highest aspirational components of what it means to be human, as well as being “at the heart of the unbelievable growth of social media.”

These four tenants are further defined by the authors in their “Trellis for Humanizing

Organizations”, which are then applied across culture, process and organizational behaviours.

The four elements translate into specific changes within organizations. For example, the authors talk about increasing access to information through data sharing and strategic conversations at all levels, as well as moving to dynamic, perpetual planning cycles, with processes that have broader employee input. The authors encourage us to be transparent in how these ideas are developed and incorporated into project plans for implementation.  Employees don’t expect every idea to be implemented, but want to understand and influence how those decisions are made.

The book also discusses the importance of building true learning organizations – where personal growth and development is expected and nurtured, again where failure is acknowledged and openly discussed, both in terms of encouraging risk taking as well as making iterative changes to enhance the organization and its outcomes.