Recent Trends in Social Learning and Implications for Leadership

Many of us may wonder if the recent trend in social networking and learning is a fad that’s going to deepen further or fade away! Though social learning is no new thing but given the context and meaning with the widespread reach of networking tools, it’s being hotly debated. Many of the old-guard organizations (read GE and IBM among others) along with their more contemporary and networked peers are embracing enterprise social use. However, even a greater number of corporates and their leaders are staunch nay-sayers!

A recent global survey^# of 10000 respondents from 38 countries by Microsoft does throw open very interesting observations and key learning on enterprise social use. It provides a certain roadmap for today’s leadership in organizations.

 Let’s sample a couple of observations made by these information workers and what these mean for the leaders of today?

      Impact on Productivity: These respondents felt that use of social tools have improved their productivity at work. Most notable observations were from China, India, Turkey, Mexico and Russia. Their mean % respondents who agreed (70% of all) on ‘greatly to somewhat increased’ productivity outstrip the average of 46%

      Social tools at work resulted in higher order collaboration among the employees.

Despite the above upsides that the respondents opined, there were some critical concerns when it comes to organizational perception of social tools at workplace.

§  Disclosure of sensitive information:  While in Japan where social tools are not as widely used, respondents claim that their employers have a lower fear of disclosure. In contrast, in India where social tools are relatively more encouraged by employers, survey reveals that employees often get into trouble for using these tools at work.

§  Workplace distractions: Respondents claim their employers view such tools as workplace distraction.

§  Concerns with workplace productivity: Respondents claimed that their employers view enterprise social tools having productivity impact than influencing efficiency at workplace.

Given these somewhat apparent concerns, let’s critically analyze what they mean and how the glass

can be viewed as half-filled rather than half-empty. Various socio-economic and political developments have established beyond doubt the power of social tools such as Facebook, Twitter and their clans. Who can forget Arab spring and Occupy Wall Street so easily?

·         Revealing organizational proprietary information is a sensitive matter, however, such behavior is more of an attitudinal and values issue rather than an outcome of use of social networking. Moreover, a disgruntled employee has possibly many other avenues to affect such damage.

·         Organizations across the globe face sub-optimal employee engagement and productivity through various workplace behaviors such as gossiping, politicking and absenteeism among many others. Informal chats and water-cooler discussions are major learning sources and help shape organizational culture and help change management initiatives.

·         Studies and surveys have established the role of social tools at workplace in fostering collaboration and innovation. These platforms harness the power of collective intelligence and help unlock tacit knowledge that might be residing in employees head.

Business Application                                                        

Rise of social networking tools has been transformational in many ways and this trend is going to intensify further. Smart and suave organizations are already reaping benefits with these innovations. In this backdrop, organizational leadership is assuming a new format. As author and founder of Altimeter Group, Charlene Li claims in her book ‘Open Leadership’ that social technology can transform the way leaders lead their organizations.

The key is to educate your employees on technology, use and certain codes of behavior rather than regulating these tools. A tentative road map in adopting enterprise social tools might look as under

·         Engage and Educate your employees regarding right use of such platforms

·         Create Champions in your organizations who will take the initiative and create the critical mass and momentum for your initiatives

·         Start small, Scale up

·         Integrate with mainstream learning platforms to drive sustainability of interventions

·         Showcase early wins!

As Gartner projected that by 2018, almost half the organizations will have Facebook like enterprise tools, such a disruptive change is demanding a new leadership approach that’s more open on collaboration and collective intelligence.

(^# Source: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/download/presskits/enterprisesocial/docs/ESCResearchSum)