Not Overnight: The Way to become a Social Business is a Journey

The payoffs are significant: A 2012 report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that full implementation of social technologies — going beyond email to internal social media and collaboration tools — would raise the productivity of managers and professionals by as much as 25%. …

The key is “full implementation.” The 2014 Social Business Global Executive Study and Research Project by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte found that only 17% of respondents see themselves as having mature social business practices. …

What I see is that communication and collaboration technologies get installed — that is, purchased and made available to employees and sometimes contractors and customers, with perhaps some training provided — and then the effort stops. …

Companies can’t assume that because people use Facebook in their personal lives they understand how to leverage those skills into greater communication and collaboration at work. Facebook gives people a good background and starting point for social collaboration, but how the tools and practices will work best in a company needs to be an on-going negotiation.

via Are Companies Ready to Finally Kill Email? | MIT Sloan Management Review.

Not very surprising results. The way to become a Social Business – or perhaps we should call it Digital Business meanwhile? – is an exciting,  journey. It will not happen overnight. It needs commitment top-down, ongoing willingness to break down silos and to change, change management experience and what the author calls ongoing negotiations. This is, why it is extremely important not only to buy the best Social software – which I believe comes from my employer, although the author doesn’t mention it, which makes me concerned. You need to have a partner on board, which is able to help and coach during the Social Business journey. A company needs to develop its own Social Business Agenda together with a good sparring partner, ideally a partner, who is himself on the Social Business journey and has already made a lot of experiences.

But again: Stay tuned, stay committed. It takes time and then you can get the productivity benefits out of it!