5 Ways Social Media Can Enhance Your Change Initiative

Time sink? Shiny new tool? Change accelerator?

Social media can be all three. Those who dismiss it just as a shiny new tool that sucks time do so at their peril. Why? First, of all, organizations are becoming more communal, thanks to social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Chatter are changing how we communicate and interact with each other, inside and outside of the workplace.

Many employees, especially the digital natives, expect to communicate electronically with their co-workers. Just watch them text, post, or send instant messages. And if their employer doesn’t provide a sanctioned tool, they’ll use their smart phones, either company-issued or personal.

These electronic expectations have an impact on those of us implementing change initiatives inside organizations. We need to view social media as our friend, not foe, when considering what communication channels to use.

Here are five ways social media can help you with your change initiative.

1. Improved clarity. Being clear about what you’re doing and where you’re going is the essence of any business strategy, especially change. You’ve got to be able to articulate it to yourself before you can start to explain it to others. If you can define what you’re doing in 140 characters—the length of a basic Twitter message— you’re on your way to achieving clarity—assuming others understand what you’re saying. (Just as with any communication, it helps to test to make sure your message is being received.)

2. More transparency. When you’re clear, you’re able to have a more open and honest relationship—that is be more transparent— with employees and other constituents because they know what’s going on. And when you’re communicating directly either face-to-face or through tools such as Twitter, Instant Messaging, or texting, you’re interacting directly without filters. You’ll be able to build street cred with employee audiences that often trust their peers for information over authority figures.

3. Greater inclusiveness. With social media, it’s easy to involve more people in more time zones compared to other communication methods. You can build a platform of participation and invite more people into the conversation, which has multiple advantages. More people can ask questions as well as weigh in with their opinions. You’ll also hear a richer diversity of voices, which can influence you. After all effective communication is a reciprocal action.

4. Increased speed. The immediacy of social media gives the message—and the change initiative— a sense of urgency. It’s happening NOW (or within the past few hours). The message and the initiative don’t feel dated like a newsletter, report, or other static communication. If you combine the timeliness with a clear message and a strong call to action, you improve your chances of breaking through the information clutter, getting people’s attention, and motivating them to act. This is key for any change initiative that requires a change in behavior.

5. Real-time data. Built into the technology of most social media tools is a strong search engine. So you’ve got the ability to collect rich data about what people are saying—in real time. By analyzing that, you can fine-tune your change approach, including refining your messages, adapting your interventions, and testing new tactics.

When you embrace social media as an effective change agent, you can reap the benefits of greater clarity, stronger unity, and improved agility. In turn, these three people factors help accelerate strategy execution in your organization, according to the authors of Strategic Speed: Mobilize People, Accelerate Execution

Plus, you’re engaging with employees, which helps them keep focused on all of your key priorities, not just your current change initiative. Just make sure you’re staying focused too. After all, neuroscientist Brian Knutson is wondering whether the survival of the fittest now means the survival of the most focused. With the Internet and all of its interesting interruptions, we have so many temptations for our time.

So what’s your favorite time sink app? Oops. I should be asking: What’s your experience with social media and organizational change? Also, please join me in Orlando May 1 -4 at the global ACMP (Association of Change Management Professionals) conference. The keynoters are John Kotter, Admiral Thad Allen, and Daryl Conner. I’m speaking on “Tweet This: Leveraging social media for organizational change.”

About Liz

Liz Guthridge of Connect Consulting Group works with leaders to influence employees to get on board with change. She helps leaders gain clarity around change so they can share their vision, explain their goals, and clearly articulate their “ask” of their team members, peers, and other employees who often don’t work for them.

Liz has years of experience turning change initiatives from exercises in frustration to success stories, including counseling leaders on how to build their credibility. Liz also is an early adopter of social media, successfully using it in her own business as well as advising her clients and their workforces on how to maximize its effectiveness. As a change consultant to salesforce.com, she’s been using Chatter since the company launched it in early 2010.

You can email Liz at liz.guthridge@connectconsultinggroup.com, text her at 510.918.5322, or follow her at www.twitter.com/lizguthridge. She also blogs at www.connectconsultinggroup.com/category/blog

Viewpoint: Resistance to Change

I was recently asked, “What is the single biggest reason people resist change?” Of course, my opinion is not intended to be the definitive final answer. In fact, the best I can hope for are your challenges to my assumptions and opinion liberties. I do hope you have other perceptions, and your responses are both welcomed and encouraged.

For me, understanding the resistance to change is certainly much easier than removing the root cause and components to meaningful, sustainable and continuous change. I believe at the simplest level, fear is the single largest impediment to any form of real change. Our culture has largely been built on the reward/punishment system where mistakes are not tolerated, and in corporate America especially, the consequences can be dramatic, life and career altering.

Organizations ask for change, but punish (loosely translated) failure. It is the classic “carrot and stick” metaphor. People fear the stick over the benefit of the carrot. When individuals perceive they have more to loose than gain in a changing environment, they will resist when possible. Choosing instead, to cling to their perceptual safe zone. The fear of the unknown has been woven into the very fabric of our culture and professional DNA. Simply put, when fear is present, innovation is not. Change is a steep, uphill climb.

So if fear is the problem, what does that mean to managers of change? I would postulate that fear is at the starting gate of change. And, until that gate is unlocked and satisficed to align with the removal of fear and installation of safety, transformational change does not have a realistic chance at achieving long term success.

What is needed is a complete overhaul of corporate culture (albeit, an unrealistic idea). A culture that celebrates mistakes and turns them into learning opportunities becomes opportunistic and gains immensely and continuously. This concept is easier to integrate in a start-up environment, since “fearless” can be baked into the founding culture. Older, larger organizations will have a difficult time switching gears to varying degrees, and some organizations will never be able to make this level of fundamental change. So what is the solution to fear resolution?

A culture and environment accepting failure as a part of the success process is going to produce much stronger results. Maybe we call it “positive failure” to assist in its adoptability and improve its stickiness. The element of failure as a critical element to success, reminds me of a company called IDEO and its Director, David Kelly. One of his quotes resonates with me to my very core, “Fail often, in order to succeed earlier”. In other words, the faster you fail, the faster you can succeed. IDEO is one example of a fearless culture where failure is encouraged, expected and rewarded.

For anyone managing change, whether practicing from the soft sciences or simply a manager tasked with change, I would encourage you to take a look at IDEO for a perspective a good distance from our norms. You can view a terrific video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M66ZU2PCIcM

Opinion ends here. I look forward to your feedback, additional discussion and perspectives on the topic.
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 Jeff is currently the Principal Consultant at iBridged Consulting, a sales and sell-through performance management consulting firm. He has of two decades of executive sales leadership experience leading people and companies to reach goals previously thought to be unattainable. Working with and for brand name companies like Apple, HP, Xerox, Microsoft and many others, Jeff understands the complexity and strategic nature of the tools, systems and processes necessary to improve sell-through in any organization.


Jeff serves on the Board of Directors at Bay Area Organization Development Network, leading the organizations' communication strategy and implementation. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and is currently completing a Masters of Science in Organization Development at the University of San Francisco.