image: flickr.com
Then maybe what you need is FollowUpThen. Just type in reminders to yourself, or others, and they’ll email you a reminder at the time and date that you specify. Best of all, it’s free!
HR GROWS A PAIR: Finally! HR Becomes An Employee Advocate
Bad-Ass Hack: HR Adopts, Champions and Tracks New Organizational Measure: “How easy is it for me to do great work?”: HR finally gets that the new collaborative tools are the operating system for talent in the 21st century. It finally gets that HR has been MIA when it comes to being a workforce advocate, and it’s time to grow a pair. HR’s early 21st century role is to make it a lot easier for everyone to do a lot more great work.
TM Staples
Yet, in reality (…of course, with the stellar exceptions that everyone cites…), HR is mainly a cost-cutting, reactive advocate for short-term changes, under-performing on the strategic needs of the C-suite, and a no-show when it comes to being an Employee Advocate. And when it comes to growing a pair: When was the last time you heard of an HR exec going toe-to-toe w/ a superior to push hard and relentlessly for his/her employee’s needs? Exactly.
How It Could Save Business’s Ass: The workforce needs to get shit done. Faster. Better. Smarter. Yeah, we all know that. But the way that most every company approaches this need keeps everyone working harder, not smarter. If HR actually stepped in as the workforce’s advocate and made it easier to do great work, most everyone would be working smarter.
In most every company, there are way too many barriers to doing great work.
According to the Jensen Group’s Search for a Simpler Way, among the biggest barriers:
• Usability and user-centered design of tools, processes: Only 27% Favorable
• Speed in addressing bottom-up needs: Only 21% Favorable
• Appropriate, effective use of each individual’s time: Only 12% Favorable
Only 12% favorable in how we use people’s time!?! Where is HR on this? Who is the employee’s advocate on this?
If the workforce had an advocate on these and similar issues, most of the barriers to MoreBetterFaster would be addressed. This is why the top of the list of Best Companies to Work For, are all adopting some variation of “How easy is it for me to do great work?” as a central corporate measure. Removing barriers to great work is the work of a great company.
Potential Downsides: HR execs, be forewared: If you grow a pair at a company that doesn’t appreciate that, you might actually have to find a better company to work for.
Suggestions for Getting Started:
1. Download Jensen’s Simpler Company Starter Kit
2. Use the Survey Tool to assess your own organization’s barriers to great work
3. Use Your Own Data to start a new conversation w/ C-Suite execs about making it easier to do great work
4. Kick Ass: Become a true Employee Advocate
• • • • • • • • • •
12 Bad-Ass Hacks: We’re publishing one-a-month throughout 2011. Got examples of Bad-Ass Hacks? Please tell us about them. We’d love to post yours!
There’s much buzz among the digerati about PewResearchCenter’s latest research findings on Gen Y: Millennials will make online sharing in networks a lifelong habit.
Important findings, yes. But not earth shattering in newness. Digital natives have been on this track for some time. What we found more intriguing was one quote buried among the me-too-ers in the report who all declared that digital natives will stay heavy digital users. (Duh?)
Image: Kwout.com
Searls: We have much left to work out. For example, take ‘terms of use.’ Sellers have them. Users do not — at least not ones that they control. Wouldn’t it be good if you could tell Facebook or Twitter (or any other company using your data) that these are the terms on which they will do business with you, that these are the ways you will share data with them, that these are the ways this data can be used, and that this is what will happen if they break faith with you? Trust me: user-controlled terms of use are coming. (Work is going on right now on this very subject at Harvard’s Berkman Center, both at its Law Lab and Project VRM.) Two current technical developments, ‘self-tracking’ and ‘personal informatics,’ are examples of ways that power is shifting from organizations to individuals – for the simple reason that individuals are the best points of integration for their own data, and the best points of origination for what gets done with that data. Digital natives will eventually become fully empowered by themselves, not by the organizations to which they belong, or the services they use. When that happens, they’ll probably be more careful and responsible than earlier generations, for the simpler reason that they will have the tools.
The power is shifting from organizations…Gen Y has the tools and desire and reasons to become fully empowered by themselves.
That’s why we see hacking work as such a major force: Power…Control…Risk…those are the real issues. And that these digital natives have back-of-the-hand knowledge of how to use their tools for completely new outcomes. We ain’t seen nothing yet!
Watch this entire video to see how…
(If you wish, ignore the product/service plug at the end…Focus on the IDEA within the video. Tell STORIES!)
http://www.slideshare.net/stateoftheart/is-powerpoint-a-media-4617126
Robert Harrison spent about $700 on parts from hardware stores and a used Canon camera he purchased on eBay, and now NASA is calling him to figure out he he did it.
With the camera, a radio transmitter, GPS locator, insulation and a high altitude balloon, Harrison has been taking pictures that previously, only NASA and those who own super-expensive, rocket-launched satellites could take…from 22 miles above the earth’s surface. For more, see his Icarus Project or click on photo below for his images on Flickr.
Now, if this guy can hack space… (OK, technically, not outer space, which begins at around 60 miles, but still…) …for a few hundred bucks and a set-up that’s very MacGyver-ish, you can certainly hack that stupid performance management system you’ve been handed, or that email system you’re stuck with, or that reporting tool you’re supposed to use. Right?!
According to a recent study by IBM (also see video below), leaders “get” that the way we are all working now doesn’t work — 98% of CEOs surveyed said they need to restructure the way their organizations work — and they “get” the way it SHOULD be structured….
• We need to include a broader set of “workers,” not just employees, but also suppliers, customers, freelancers and more…
• That we all need to be integrated into a more cohesive whole…
• That, currently, 5.3 hours per employee per week are wasted due to inefficient processes (We would triple or quadruple that number, at least! But, for now, let’s not quibble…everybody agrees that there’s a lot of waste the way things are being done now)…
• That, currently, it’s too hard for employees to find and get what they need to do their job
• That restructuring needs to stop limiting flexibility and destroying empowerment
• That people need to be much more engaged in their work
• and much more…
OK, we all get it: Leaders need to take charge of this and change the way work work. But this plea has basically gone unanswered for decades now. Do you have decades more to wait for leaders to not just “get it,” but to shift into “just do it” mode? Didn’t think so.
If your leadership team is not, right now, building and rolling out new ways of working that are far more user (workforce) centered than anything you’ve experienced before, then they are leaving you with only two choices:
1. Be a victim until they eventually get around to the necessary restructuring
2. Start hacking your work so that you can finally do your best
You know which choice we think you should make…And not just for your own sake: For the sake of your company, your customers, your family…For everyone’s sake, it’s time to start hacking your work.
(Open on suburban kitchen, Wife and Husband arguing…)
Wife: New Shimmer is a floor wax!
Husband: No, new Shimmer is a dessert topping!
Wife: It’s a floor wax!
Husband: It’s a dessert topping!
Wife: It’s a floor wax, I’m telling you!
Husband: It’s a dessert topping, you cow!
Spokesman: (Rushing in…) Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is both a floor wax AND a dessert topping! Here, I’ll spray some on your mop and some on your butterscotch pudding. (Husband eats while Wife mops)
Husband: Mmmmm, tastes terrific!
Wife: And just look at that shine!
Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd were both right, but it took spokesman Chevy Chase to calm them down and get them affectionately smooching by the end of the skit.
In real life and in the world of business, there’s rarely a surprise announcer to mediate between hackers who are right and non-hackers who are also right.
Come Together! Both Sides Are Still Right. In Hacking Work, we revealed that the real problem surrounding all hacks is that people with different views aren’t talking to each other. And that only those discussions that examine the potential good created by hacking, as well as the potential downsides, will create a common, sustainable and enforceable code of ethics. Hacking work is both a floor wax AND a whipped topping!
As we studied thousands of hacking case studies for Hacking Work, we found four basic kinds of hackers:
image: scifiwire.com
2. Imagineers. These dreamers also see better ways of doing things and are willing to tackle the big problems, but rarely go solo. Most often they hack by building sizable networks or taking their ideas viral. There’s safety within numbers and wisdom within the crowd! A common hack in this area is for a team to rebuild any tool or process to be more user-centered, and to lobby for its use throughout the company. Both Pioneers and Imagineers adhere to classic hacking philosophies: Learn by taking things apart and making them better; Information is best when shared with all, completely transparently
3. Craftsmen. This is where most work hacks occur. These are the people who do workmanlike hacks to solve everyday problems. From redesigning tools and processes to bypassing a lousy boss or a stupid procedure, these hacks keep the wheels of business from falling off. Craftsmen may do their hacks explicitly or supportively, but their hacks address our biggest day-to-day challenges.
4. Tweakers. This group creates relatively minor hacks — tweaks and changes around the fringes of work and one-time efforts — but when you add up their combined efforts, they make a big difference in keeping businesses running and people employed
In Hacking Work, we detail how workers are using YouTube to get through to their execs when those same execs play SeeNothing, HearNothing, DoNothing. YouTube as a powerful tool to get through to these is now creating a surge in Flash Mobs.
A great overview of Flash Mobs for workplace change was written by HR guru Michael Vandervort. Check it out. Also check out the following…
In this TEDx talk Jonathan Fields talks about how to turn fear from a source of anxiety and paralysis into fuel for action and achievement. That’s what makes his talk — filled with 9/11 tragedies and entrepreneurship and more — super-relevant to hacking. “This is my one chance…We don’t get do-overs. Do I rise above my fears and anxiety?” The answer for Jonathan was a resounding “Yes.” Is that your answer too?
Getting beyond fear is about the new questions we need to ask and the answers we need to discover around: 1. Fear of Failure 2. Fear of Being Judged 3. Fear of Success.
Will you rise above your fears about breaking away from how things are “supposed to be done” to begin benevolently hacking? Will you begin a new path of success through forbidden innovation?
EMPLOYEE AS ENTREPRENEUR: Work both sides of the street.
Bad-Ass Hack: Leverage your company’s throwaway IP and create your own startup. We all know your company is bleeding great ideas like a leaky bucket — mop some of that up and go make some money! If they won’t, why shouldn’t you? It’ll either open up a whole new market for the company to crawl over to later (giving them an opportunity to buy their idea back from you for a gazillion dollars), or help them die a little quicker.
For example…
• Maybe they’re locked in to a specific way of recording expenses, but your innovation (or one you’ve seen) could save each employee many hours, and still leave an appropriate paper trail. There’s a business opportunity here! Combine procedural smarts w/ a software programmer and you have a Silicon-Valley-type startup.
• Maybe your boss is one helluva gatekeeper, and your team has great ideas that keep going nowhere. There’s a business opportunity here! PowerPoint or videotape the ideas and send them to ten people above your boss. If your ideas are any good, they’ll go viral and the slap on the wrist you’ll receive will be worth it.
• Maybe your company is so locked into a specific process and specific tool (…let’s say it only works on the workstations you’re forced to use…), but you see a way to do it ten times faster by tweaking the process or tool (…let’s say by adapting it all for iPhones…). There’s a business opportunity here! Pull your team together w/ an app developer and with a minimal investment of time and money, you idea could be the next Big Thing!
What Makes It Bad-Ass: Most corporate culture is designed to prevent innovation and cross-market leaps in exchange for guaranted quality and replicability. Taking ideas they keep abandoning and delivering them to market brings more value to everyone — especially you!
How It Could Save Business’s Ass: Companies need to innovate or die. The quicker they grapple with this and start maximizing value in line with customer’s evolving needs the more successful they will be. Abandoned IP should be used by those with the courage to do so; this forces corporations to be leaner and more responsive. Survival of the fittest, baby!
You’ll find gazillions of examples of this approach throughout the history of capitalism. Here’s just one: Chris Pearson created Thesis, a WordPress theme used by top bloggers from an idea he had while working at a software store. He discovered a customer need that was going unmet by the store, and he delivered it without the need for a store.
Potential Downsides to Avoid: Don’t go to jail: corporate IP theft is no joke and those big companies have got some badass lawyers. We are not advocating stealing corporate IP like trade secrets. Focus only on the throwaways, the stupidly wasted ideas that you have a paper trail to evidence availability for.
Getting Started:
• Pay close attention to when you say something like “but that’s freaking brilliant! What do you mean marketing didn’t approve it?”
• Write that idea down. Over time you’ll start noticing this happening more and more, and at some point one of those ideas will be too damn good to ignore.
• Create plausable deniability (anonymously posting it on the internet is always helpful) and write up a business plan.
• Optimally, get it developed in your spare time and line up an investor before your company even knows you’re doing it. Then you can quit and have cash to run with!
• • • • • • • • • •
12 Bad-Ass Hacks: We’re publishing one-a-month throughout 2011. Got examples of Bad-Ass Hacks? Please tell us about them. We’d love to post yours
In this TEDx talk Chris Guillebeau talks about “writing your own permission slip.” That’s what makes his talk — filled with crocs, killer whales, and his volunteer work in Africa — super-relevant to hacking.
Benevolent hacking requires each hacker to face your fears and write your own permission slip to take the leap into forbidden innovation. As Chris says “at some point, if you’re going to overcome your fears, you have to come up on the stage…you have to become a believer and not a cynic. At some point you have to step forward.”
As he concludes, “A lot of us live our lives out of fear of what other people think. We’re waiting for someone to give us permission to live our lives.”
Write your own permission slip! Give yourself permission to hack the problems and barriers that are preventing you from doing your best.
As we studied all our interviews and findings, we began forming what we drafted as the Hacking Work Manifesto. Here is an early draft of how we saw the Manifesto…
1. The design of work sucks.
2. You know more about how to redesign work than you think you do, and certainly more than many bosses.
3. Your hacked fixes are critical to your success, your customer’s satisfaction, your company’s success, and critical to saving business from itself.
4. Nobody’s evil here. No company or leader is intentionally doing bad stuff to you. And you are doing good if you hack benevolently.
5. The Bad Guy is business’s infrastructure — the tools, processes, procedures, structures you use to get work done. They’re not keeping up with you. They’re destroying your productivity.
6. Business infrastructure is still mostly corporate-centered meaning it’s designed mostly to help the company succeed, but not necessarily for your success. You need user-centered tools — designed around a lot more of your work needs.
7. Great news! For the first time since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the tools we use to organize people, ideas, information, money and work are no longer exclusively controlled by our employers. You now have access to tools that are as good or better than what your company provides. This fundamentally changes the rules of the game: how you work, how you’re managed, your work contract — everything.
8. For the first time, you have the ability to completely sever your own productivity from how the company wants things done. That’s big! If you customize your work tools to meet more of your needs, you have a lot more control over your future. And you increase what you can do for your customers and your boss.
9. Benevolent hackers are reinventing personal productivity. They rework tools and processes so they work for everyone. They ensure that the system works for you, not just the other way around. And they want you to join them.
10. Hackers are among today’s most insightful and best-performing workers, managers and leaders. They ensure that business succeeds despite itself. Benevolent hackers are business’s biggest unsung heroes.
Let’s turn this over to the wisdom of the crowd… What would you keep? What would you rewrite? What did we forget? What is perfect as is? Let’s take this draft to a new place together.
In this powerful TEDTalk, posted just one day after it was given at TEDGlobal in July, 2010, Matt Ridley exposes the “secret of what’s happening in the world…. The [secret] is exchange…The habit of exchanging one thing for another [is] a unique human feature…” The more that individuals exchange, the better they get at their work and the more they save each other time. Trade of goods and benefits is a critical part of what makes us human.
The point…as it relates to hacking work:
As Ridley says: “We all know a little bit, but none of us knows the whole…. What’s relevant is how well people are communicating their ideas and how well they’re cooperating…. Through the bottom-up world that we’ve created, where not just the elites, but everybody is able to have their ideas and have them meet and mate, we are surely accelerating the rate of innovation.”
Your role in this hacking work sexual experience:
To have your bottom-up ideas meet and mate with all the other bottom-ideas and accelerate the rate of innovation.
Go…Have sex! Have fun having sex!
In this TEDx talk, Raymond Price, Chair of Human Behavior in the College of Engineering at University of Illinois, discusses his in-depth research on people that create breakthrough new products. Price begins telling the tale of one innovator who created a product that was worth about $1.5 billion per year….
“As [this innovator] told us the story about how he created that product…he said ‘And then I was in a termination discussion with my manager, and he forbid me to work on this product that turned out to be a multi-billion dollar product…’ We said, well, that has to be an anomaly…Then it turns out almost half the people we talked to were in termination discussions. We realized: something more was going on here.”
These people focused on finding the right kinds of problems, not the problems they were assigned to work on. They delivered forbidden innovation.
The key take-away from Price’s talk is that there are HUGE amounts of innovations as well as customer needs that are buried by corporate dictates. How to resolve this? 1. Learn quick 2. Dive deep, (through self-direction) find the REAL truth that few others are seeing. 3. Create to solve that problem. 4. Deliver results. 5. Never wait for others to champion the solution for you…become its best promoter!
That is benevolent hacking at its finest.
As we studied all our interviews and findings, we traded notes back-and-forth on what we heard from benevolent hackers. Here is a 2009 draft of how we made sense of things then…
Problem:
The world is changing faster than business is willing to cope.
Solution:
Individuals collectively hack the fuck out of businesses to bootstrap them into relevancy.
Problem:
Large organizations want to control access to certain types of information in order to maintain quality control, keep their dirty laundry hidden, etc. Unfortunately, that’s no longer possible. Everything is networked; phones, homes, our wallets and, soon, everything else. Along with this massive connectivity and information collection infrastructure, information about anything is readily available. Want to connect with the industry leader in a field you know nothing about? Email her. Need to figure out how to bootstrap into a new skill? Watch a dozen videos, walk through a hundred how-to’s, get advice from a million experts. Perhaps more frighteningly, want to find out what your competition is up to? Google hack their documents, track their decision-makers on Facebook, or aggregate the comment streams from all their employees off Twitter and sort them by keyword to find emerging trends – it’s all out there, available for anyone who wants it to gather and analyze.
Solution:
Big organizations can communicate honestly and openly with their customers and constituencies and those individuals will put in countless hours to support and represent them. Resisting the crowd is simply misanthropic.
Problem:
Innovation is no longer invention, but collage – access is free, knowledge is cheap, and ability is everything. In this new world of meritocracy rules companies cannot keep up – they suck at meritocracies; that’s why the term beaurocracy exists! Instead, it’s on you to keep the ball rolling – hackers know how to build meritocracies quickly, and where necessary in secret.
Solution:
Companies that don’t learn to leverage this will get eaten from within. Those that leverage it will eat their competition alive.
Problem:
Large organizations used to be necessary to facilitate information access, consensus, and communication. Now all that is free and instant.
Solution:
Hackers let systems evolve to address problems as they arise. Creating an ecology of problem solving will enable companies to organically, flexibly, and aggressively respond to issues. Or, they can have their continued devaluation drive their assets to bankruptcy.
Problem:
Radical transparency is increasingly the only choice – people are inferring and aggregating data points by the millions, meaning that not only are individuals vulnerable, but large organizations are immensely much more so.
Solution:
Hackers are going to parade your dirty laundry whether you like it or not. Own it. If you’re not embarrassed and are willing to be accountable then you’ve made yourself into both a bad target and an entity worth respect. The world is shrinking into a village, and like any village you’re better off behaving honorably than trying to hide your nasty habits.
Problem:
Because technology innovation is a radical and social phenomena we’re now seeing that top-down decision making is far too slow to keep up with the new opportunities that pop up every hour.
Solution:
Individuals are now more equal than ever before across the hierarchical landscape – your ability to connect with a client or act on a new opportunity is only a click away. The only thing stopping you is your boss’ approval – which can only come too late. That’s what being a hacker is all about; figuring out when it’s the right time to break the rules for the good of everyone, even at the cost of the hierarchy.
Problem:
As the decision making shifts from your boss’ boss’ boss to you and everyone else, the onus is on you to make good choices. In a world where information is free and access is ubiquitous, the ability to excel no longer means being able to act effectively against constraints.
Solution:
Creativity, insight, and the ability to think outside the norm are the best indicators of success, and those don’t come through study or the daily grind. In a word, passion = success. So what do you do now? In the long term, you need to make the choice between loving what you do and being good at it, and disliking what you do and being replaced. But to get there, and in the short term, you need to start hacking work.
WE’VE REFINED OUR THINKING since then, but those were the beginnings of what ending up in Hacking Work. Your thoughts?
I began my previous career as an art major in college. That means a) Anyplace I go always includes trips to museums, and b) I truly get the reason that photographs of most art are no-no’s… Degradation is a real threat. Paintings and fabrics must be protected. So even though a couple of years ago I got yelled at for raising my (no-flash) camera up to take a picture of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, I understood why. And I wouldn’t have dared snuck a shot when I saw The Last Supper in Milan, or ancient scrolls in Guangzhou, China, or medieval tapestries in Sweden, Scotland or France.
David: Shot illegally
David'n'Bill: Legally
It seemed to me to be an arbitrary silly rule. One that turned me and hundreds of others during my last visit, into on-the-sly law-breakers…because, of course, we couldn’t leave without our photo of David’s butt and more.
Josh and I call for everyone to hack their work simply because no one can afford to be tied to the locked-in procedures and practices of their employer. Not even those who help supply all the bad guys with their tools of the trade. Case in point…
photo: tomdiaz.files
In Africa, AK-47s can bought for as little as $12. That’s how it got the nickname “The African Credit Card,” as in don’t leave home without it. It’s also a weapon of choice for many terrorists, drug dealers, and gangsters.
So why bankruptcy? It’s all about globalization and technological change. Technology and the global manufacturing marketplace means that imitation AK-47s can be made good as the original, but at a fraction of the price.
But just like in all capitalist markets, if employees have to get laid off, the head honcho can still come out of everything fine and making more money than ever. Mr. Kalashnikov has branched out. He now sells vodka. For more on the history this weapon and the demise of its manufacturer, see the commentary by CNN’s Fareed Zarkaria.
Not Me: But Like Me!
I will be completely vulnerable and transparent here in order to hopefully help some who are still in the closet to embrace their inner hacker:
• Houdini Hack: I grew up in the WonderBread burbs. As soon as I began walking, Mom knew I’d be safe in our yard, but she couldn’t watch me every second. Solution: Harness me and attach the harness to stake in the ground. I could run in circles but couldn’t go anywhere. Hack: No security system could hold little Billy! Figured out how to get out of the harness (harness stayed with clothes which I shed) and ran down the street buck-naked and very happy!
• Anti-Authority Hack: Senior year in high school. Figured out how to hack the Principal’s office to fund Senior Cut Day (snuck in and helped myself to in-house printing facilities…[this was in the print-only Stone Age]…distributed Cut Day plan and instrux to all seniors) as well as how to announce it (secret “let’s do it” phrase embedded in the morning’s announcements)
• “Sure, I Know How to Count to Ten” Hack: Senior year in high school. Parents allowed me to host a party in our finished basement (which was also my bedroom). They also permitted me to supply ten cases of beer for the party. I purchased 60. Hid the remainder in the garage. Somehow the ten-case pile in the basement never dropped below five cases…Hmmmm. How did that happen? Hack: Miraculous restocking, I guess. Charged a few bucks admission, but supplied free beer to all. Had a couple hundred kids attend in waves throughout the night. Even after having to pay for a new bed, which scores of kids were jumping on and spilling beer on, I made several hundred dollars of profit.
More of my own inner-hacker admissions in future posts.
For now: What are your earliest experiences with hacking? Please share!
EMPLOYEE TOOLKIT: Network Maps
Bad-Ass Hack: Every employee in the company gets their own open-source network maps showing, (for example):
• How their ideas spread throughout the company — or languished and went nowhere (and the map would clearly indicate with whom the idea dead-ended)
• Who is using information that they supplied to solve key business problems
• Who is in each network and how networks used information differently
• How their network was interconnected with others
• The connections between their work activities and the company’s top strategic priorities
• The connections between courses/development assignments and customer satisfaction rankings
• etc.
While the company still maintains control of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and other performance management tools, these network maps serve as speed-freak self-assessments, self-improvements and more among teams and individuals
What Makes This Hack Bad-Ass: These kind of maps and technologies are NOT new or controversial. We’ve all seen them already: To demonstrate what drives global health trends; To visualize your own Facebook or Twitter network; Even to visualize the 9/11 terrorists’ network. And for over a decade, University of Virginia professor Rob Cross has been studying how companies like Microsoft, Pfizer and T. Rowe Price use social networks to discover informal “crowd-sourced” leaders within their organizations.
map: mediarevolutions.org
What makes this a bad-ass hack is turning the power to analyze what was previously hidden and to make completely new decisions over to EVERYONE — Instead of how institutions still maintain command-and-control over who does what, why, when and how. Power to the the people…right on.
With this hack, every individual could see the effectiveness (or lack of…) and use (or lack of..) of their ideas, presentations, efforts, and personal development.
How It Could Save Business’s Ass: Instead of waiting for yearly 360° performance reviews to change the course of individual efforts, each individual could be making their own daily decisions based on real-time feedback and transparent data. Finally, everyone who works for the company could be the best they can be without waiting for The Man to slap them on the wrist or give them their eventual high-fives.
All executives understand this, and want this kind of analysis…for themselves. Saving business’s sorry ass means equipping the masses with the same kind of decision-making tools that the execs have.
Potential Downsides to Avoid: Of course there are downsides. The three biggest are: 1. Unfocused empowerment and decision-making — individuals start making too-independent decisions and reaching erroneous conclusions. 2. Addiction to the data-game. Some individual’s could invest too heavily in massaging and studying their maps instead of actually getting their work done. (Same addiction suffered by many of today’s senior execs.) 3. If not properly managed, the new maps could be the new Wikileaks — plans and data that (maybe) should have remained confidential could get out.
Getting Started: One ideal approach would be for C-suite execs to build these powerful tools for the masses.
Will it happen that way? Don’t hold your breath waiting. Most corner-office dwellers remain stuck in the Stone Age. According to a recent IBM Chief Human Resource Officer Study “fewer than 23 percent of employees use social networking or collaborative technologies to preserve critical knowledge.” And next to none of those are leveraging network maps as described above.
Instead: If you’re interested in speeding up that process from the bottom up, begin with data and networks within your sphere of influence, and use open-source and cheap technologies such as SourceForge, Mugshot, Elgg, iPoint, NetMiner, or InFlow.
Also bone up on the background behind social networks so you can use the tools properly.
• • • • • • • • • •
12 Bad-Ass Hacks: We’re publishing one-a-month throughout 2011. Got examples of Bad-Ass Hacks? Please tell us about them. We’d love to post yours!