Sidestep formal structures for effective change (from David Tebbut's blog)

Many companies like to think they understand all about business processes and change management. They spend fortunes on consultancy, design, structures, processes, training, roll out and management, then wonder why they don't get the results they expected. So they have another go...
Well, maybe things aren't quite that bad, but I bet you can think of plenty of examples of 'change initiatives' that just don't get the buy-in of the grass-roots people who are supposed to implement them. Part of the problem is that they quite often try to appeal to reason. They use PowerPoints with lots of bullet points to try to hook the intellect and forget the emotional dimension. Maybe they think there's no room for emotion in their business.
But why do people go to work generally? Especially so-called 'white collar' workers. It's for the satisfaction of doing a job well and for recognition and this doesn't just mean in the pay packet. Not a good motivator at the best of times.
Part of the problem is that we've become accustomed to treating business as a mechanistic process. And a predictable one at that. Do this, force it through these process pipes, and consistent results will pop out the other end. In truth, many of the most important business processes are chaotic. Think of sales and marketing, for example. Untidy real life gets in the way. Reality has little to do with the org chart and formal processes and much more to do with endless workarounds and informal communications.
Yes, of course some processes or workflows do what they're supposed to. Regulations have to be followed and suchlike. But these are a bit like the unconscious processes of the human body. We can walk down the street while we pump blood, breathe and digest our food. But our attention is on the interesting conversation with the person walking with us.
So it is in business, the interesting stuff and the stuff that is likely to do the business most good in the future is probably the stuff that lies outside the fundamental formal systems of the organisation.
Leandro Herrero has written a most interesting book on how organisations can bring about change by acknowledging that all is not what it seems in the body corporate. He alights on the fact that, alongside the 'organigramme', lives a communication network in which all employees and business partners participate to a greater or lesser degree. Some people are highly connected, others only slightly. These are the strong ties and weak ties beloved of social network analysts. His book is called Viral Change.

Continue reading in David's Blog

Change, activism, technology, REAL communication, WOW!

This is magnificient in all counts. http://www.girleffect.org. Visually, conceptually, social activism! I wish I could create something similar to project VIRAL CHANGE and keep communicating what it is and does!

Crowd surfing

This is a good book: Crowd Surfing by Martin Thomas and David Brain.

This is the Amazon’s description: The way people buy has gone through a massive revolution in recent years: thanks to blogs, review sites and chat rooms, we no longer have to rely on what a company says about its products and services we can read what our fellow consumers think about what they've bought, and make our own decisions bearing those views in minds. The result? Empowered customers who know exactly what they want and who can now explore many ways to get it. Many companies, however, just won't accept that things have changed and haven't adjusted their marketing efforts to match. In Crowd Surfing, David Brain and Martin Thomas explain what marketers, advertisers and brand specialists need to do to communicate with today's savvier consumers. They include case studies of successes and failures from the business world and beyond, and interview leaders such as Michael Dell and Sebastian Coe to help illustrate their points.

See a review of the book and an interview with David, president of of Edelman and co-author.

Edelman’s trust barometer is a good supporting tool to understand the source of trust in organisations and the significance of the peer-to-peer influence that we use in Viral Change™