I can’t speak for you, but in my company, there’s the constant debate about tools and behaviors. The leadership says we need to change behaviors, but the users usually say that we need better tools. Who’s right? They both are of course. While each point of view has merit, neither works independently without the other. It is by providing easy to use tools in a delicate balance of introducing and demonstrating new behaviors that Enterprise 2.0 really takes off.
Let’s take the typical IT View and only introduce a tool. Commonly called “Build it and they will come” model. Will they really come? Sometimes yes, more often no. People generally don’t have the time in their schedules to experiment on new platforms and figure out how to integrate them into their daily work-flow and still meet the demands of the corporate world.
On the other hand, let’s take introducing new behaviors. I was part of a global team last year that wanted desperately to collaborate with each other. As a matter of fact, we were formed to solve some of the collaboration challenges in the company. We were using all the tools available to us in the enterprise to share files and thoughts. The tools were cumbersome, not user-friendly and required more work than dropping a file in e-mail and sending it to everyone. We were all frustrated and realized quickly that having a desire to collaborate is not enough.
It is only when you have easy to use tools combined with people who want to do things differently that you achieve the balance of Yin and Yang and can propel collaboration to the next level. Even with things in balance, you still need to show people the way, you cannot expect people to just “get” the significance of the delicate balance you’ve created.
As in life, Enterprise 2.0 requires balance. – Namaste
Comments are closed.