No, but I think it can make you more successful.
Yesterday, I was talking to our HR group -- an "all-hands" type of thing -- and I wandered into a few interesting areas that I thought important.
One of the things we're noticing on our platform is that people are becoming, well, better people.
You've Probably Never Heard Me Present
When I'm comfortable with the topic and the situation, one of the things I do well is "channel" -- I can dynamically improvise presentations. Much like a musician who improvises (BTW, I do that too), sometimes you end up in a very fascinating place -- if you're lucky.
I think the people at the Jive CAB got a flavor of this. They were probably expecting a rather formal, stiff presentation. It ended up being a "jam session" of sorts.
And, very often, in the act of doing this, I can occasionally hit on "new truths", which -- upon reflection -- were perfectly obvious. This was one of those experiences.
I was in front of the HR team, and I knew they were very much interested in ways in improving EMC's "human capital". Not so much quantitatively, but qualitatively. Simply put, they are trying to help us be better people in our lives and our careers.
And the connection between their goals and my goals just popped out.
IQ vs. EQ
If you read pop business books, you've probably stumbled across the concept of EQ -- your "emotional quotient", e.g. your ability to interact, collaborate, motivate and lead others.
Organizations are social organisms. And we've all known brilliant people who couldn't get along well with others, and suffered as a result.
One of the things we've recently realized is that we've created an "EQ training ground" for about 40,000 people who work at EMC.
New Leaders Emerge Faster
As people get comfortable with the environment, they're speaking up.
And, as they speak up, many of them are exhibiting clear leadership traits. Our online citizens respond well to this, which encourages even more leadership behavior.
Maybe these people were dynamic leaders in their own right before we saw them online, but the social environment is encouraging and amplifying leadership behavior in a very accelerated fashion.
Challenging Conventional Wisdom
As everyone knows, one of the fastest ways to shut down an original thought is for someone to say "we've always done it this way", or "we tried that before", or "it'll never happen".
EMC is not immune to this kind of thinking. But, for some strange reason, it has essentially disappeared from the discussions online.
The thread is more "how could we do this differently", or "here's what we learned the last time we tried this", or "maybe, just maybe, this could happen". A spirit of positive optimism has emerged, which has in turn infected most (but not all of the participants).
The more people use the platform, the more this behavior emerges. I've gone back and looked at early conversations from the same people, and I can see a definite positive, optimistic bias in people's mindsets.
Resolving Conflict In A Positive Way
In any large organization with strong-willed people, there is inevitable conflict. Conflict in itself is not a bad thing; it's how you handle it that really matters.
Guess what? Conflicts and differences of opinion emerge more quickly on this platform -- we don't have to wait for a meeting or a decision to understand the conflict. Everyone can weigh in quickly with different perspectives to build shared context rapidly -- remember, creating shared context is an important element of conflict resolution.
No one can easily "pull rank" or run a power play in an online environment. Maybe everyone doesn't agree with the eventual decision, but everyone had their say, and everyone understands why the decision was made the way it was.
And this happens in hours, not weeks.
Spontaneous Engagement
As a manager, I'd like my people to get out of the offices/cubicles, and get out and around across the organization. Reach out to other people, understand what they're doing, how you can help them, how they can help you.
For years and years I've encouraged people to do this. Few ever did. It was just too much work.
Well, it's happening, and I don't have to encourage them anymore. More and more of my conversations are "hey, I ran into so-and-so the other day, and you know what they're doing?" or "I met someone who had a problem, and I think I can help them ...".
On performance reviews, I tend to evaluate this behavior as very positive. But now, I'm starting to see that I can get it for essentially "free".
We're Having Fun
Having fun at work is a big deal, if you think about it. Some people attack the problem by trying to create "fun events" to balance the tedium.
I think we've done something different here. We've made work a bit more fun. We try to keep it lighthearted on the platform. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We crack jokes all the time.
People, naturally, respond in kind. Who said work can't be fun?
The Bottom Line
I told our HR team that our social environment is like a very interesting piece of audio equipment. It tends to filter out all the "bad noise", and encourage the "good sounds".
In terms of interaction, it minimizes negative behavioral tendencies, and encourages and rewards positive group behaviors.
I can see how people are essentially becoming better people the more they use the software, myself included.
Strange, isn't it?
So much software is sold on the basis of improving productivity, or solving specific business problems.
How about making people better people?
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