Know your Nucleus
Every organization has a nucleus. The single core competency around which the ecosystem revolves. Often tied to an organizations mission statement, this is the one area of the organization that everyone rallies around, that is the first line item in the ops review, and where the beefiest budgets exist. The spotlight shines here.
Some examples….
- Intel is known for engineering complex chips – its R&D and Supplier Management that keeps its ahead of its competitors
- At Bloomberg, every single employee is compensated on sales. Every sales reps progress to quota is openly published
- At Walmart, its cost cutting to improve operational efficiency and pass savings to customers
- Nike is all about R&D and Brand
- Zappos rules its market via insane customer service.
- Even Cisco, a networking gear manufacturer, believes that it’s the connections it makes that’s more powerful than the software and hardware that enables it.
You get my point.
Enterprise Social initiatives are a tough one because they 
often get forced fit to problems. The business and technology landscape for most functional areas are clear: Sales and Marketing look to the best thinking in CRM, Procurement looks to understand how to optimize with supply chain management solutions. Even e-commerce, the love child of broadband and the dot com boom landed in the hands of revenue generating functions.
Not the case when it comes to enterprise social and collaborative efforts. We often tend to think that HR or Employee Comms or IT needs to control this if we want the maximum number of users to be well…..social. Or because they have a birds eye view of the employee base.
Hardly a good business objective if you think about it. All you often get are more people who don’t know why they should leave their ERP, CRM, CMS, BI screens to come to the shiny new digital water cooler.
Yes, the more people on your enterprise social network, the better. That’s how you get the best minds who know the end customers needs (customers themselves, service agents, partners and sales and marketing) to talk to those who know all the ingredients that go into your products (employees, suppliers, logistics). And multiple constituencies need to be involved, kept abreast, asked for communication assist and of course active participation.
But those areas, whilst critical to success over time, may not represent where the energy of the organization lies during the 9-5 hustle.
No refuting the fact that the more people participating the better, and that you need a business roadmap and a platform that goes wide and can accommodate planned and unplanned network effects. And no doubt, IT, HR and Employee comms can be instrumental in the eventual execution. If done correctly, these programs will become utilities, ultimately.
But know whether that’s where you really need to start to build a healthy, purpose driven collaborative fabric. Avoid hype around nebulous end goals such as engagement and productivity and you’ll ensure that you don’t fall on the wrong side of this argument.
Instead, identify the set of activities (and surround your self with the people and expertise that know enough to enrichen the business activity) that are most central to keeping your competitors at bay and will make sure you’re thumping your chest during the next earnings call. And build from there.
Know your nucleus.
