Change! Change! How not to approach Enterprise 2.0

I stumbled on this gem from Euan Semple labeled: The secret to success with Enterprise 2.0 …

Euan comments:

Don’t try to get your powerful people to behave differently – they have everything to lose. Don’t try to improve your existing processes – you will be seen to be breaking something.

He does a far more succinct job of making a point about behavior and change than I did in this recent post about:  Social Web Design: Respond to human behavior. Don’t fight it.

Whether you’re a practitioner or a consultant, ‘Change’ is a word that should be treated as scarce currency when approaching business transformation. In my work on performance acceleration in the context of employees and business partners (pre and post social), I’ve seen that you get to change very few things, the least of which is basic human behavior. Nor should you want to shove ‘change’ down everyone’s throats. And the successful execution of any transformation effort will have had considered this very carefully and with discipline.

Update: Stowe Boyd has a good take on this on the Enterprise 2.0 conference blog.

Written on: 09-13-09 · Written by: Sameer Patel · Comments

This entry is filed under Enterprise 2.0.

  • There's a very important point about change : sense. Change is always easier (what does not always means easy...) when things make sense for the concerned people. But very few project take this into account, maybe because it takes time, it makes people think about things they don't want to....

    Convince and reassure people is important but is not enough if there is not a clear sense.

    Just try to wonder "what makes sense in people's daily life in the workplace" and maybe you'll find a lot of important things to improve E2.0 adoption.
  • wise words, as always Bertrand
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