William Buist

In previous articles for we have introduced and discussed social networks and how to tap into the resources they contain (Spring 2008) and how to build a following on-line (Summer 2008).

In that latter article we discussed the things that can be done to attract people to build your following, that is, the group of people who are interested in what you are doing. They are talking about it, with you, and amongst themselves, and to others who have not yet connected.

Here, then is the challenge, you’ve attracted people to get involved, but until you engage with each other they’re just spectators, watchers on a distant shore. From the charities point of view, without that engagement you can’t react to the information they hold and they won’t provide you with the support that you seek. When you do engage those things will start to happen, and that’s when things begin to get exciting.

Starting to Engage.

We discussed in the previous article that engaging followers in conversations that draw on their experience and skills, building a deeper and stronger relationship with them will help to ensure that they remain loyal to you over the longer term. We highlighted that followers are waiting for you to take action. In general they will not be proactive, so you must be. In general there will not volunteer information, knowledge, skills and experience, so you must ask for it. They will expect you to recognize the help that you have been given, so don’t forget to thank and support followers at every opportunity.

Let’s now go into more detail about how to do that.

When we look at how people search on-line for information they tend to either ask questions or search for keywords. They follow the most likely looking links and they read a small amount of what they find. Often, if those first few sentences and items don’t catch the eye they’ll return and re-do the search. If this is generally true then we only have a few moments to initiate the engagement, and once we have done so we have to make the engagement strong.

There is a risk that we think only of ‘sites’ here but this is equally true off-line a well as on-line.

The reasons to do this have been covered in other articles, but it’s worth re-iterating that those that are the most successful have supporters who become advocates, who talk about what the charity is doing, who bring it new donations and friends and help to ensure that resources are used in efficient and effective ways. Once the charity is being found, then people will get in touch on it’s website, on its own social network, (or it’s own presence in existing social networks), through the charities offices and their staff. In all these places we can engage with them, but they’ll also talk about us where they are talking already, and we may not know where those places are. We can engage with them here too.

The question we are really asking is when have brought people to the door, what will make those people stay?

What do others do?

A key part of engagement is interest, we all only stick with conversations that we find interesting, and this is just as true on line as it is off line. Websites that have succeeded in creating the buzz needed to truly engage include Wikipedia, the BBC and some social networking sites such as Facebook and Linked-in, but they have all approached the issue in a slightly different way.

Wikipedia is a mass collaboration masterpiece whose success has been driven through the actions of a readership that are also authors, proofreaders, correctors and readers. They have created a collectively written document, anyone can edit it, and so anyone can in theory damage it, but it is self-healing. Contributors can easily replace flawed content. People engage because the site meets an altruistic goal of many to help others through sharing their knowledge. This is shared purpose.

The BBC has a dynamic site that is written by many contributors within the BBC’s own resources, but the rapidly changing nature of the site and its ability to keep up with events mean it’s a regular port of call for visitors. They don’t just provide their own content though; they also have links to related material. A key factor here is that it’s now relatively easy to monitor and link to real time content through automation. The BBC does this well and so is seen as a content hub as well as a content source. This is shared knowledge.

Facebook takes a different approach again, most of its content is user generated and by allowing others to develop code that can be integrated in the site it’s created many different ‘widgets’ some with serious purpose, and some for fun. For visitors the experience is primarily social and often unexpected. The key learning here is that Facebook provides a place but it doesn’t define the conversations, it creates a real sense of shared experience.

Linked-in shows us a fourth way to engage, it provides users with an easy means to find and engage with other users, its become a place to find others to help with specific projects and work, and so, too, it has become a place to be found for specific projects and work. This is a form of common need.

These four routes to engagement highlight the principle routes that, I think, drive a desire to return, again and again, to the conversations and interactions. Shared purpose, shared knowledge, shared experience and common need are all contributory factors in creating, building and developing community.

Community is key.

Creating a community of supporters will bring advocacy and a much wider conversation about the charity itself, its aims and concerns, and bring conversations about how to better apply the limited resources available to bear on the issues that are faced.

Whilst on-line brings an immediacy and conversational approach to engaging with supporters it doesn’t change the nature of the conversations, and it removes much of the ability to control them. The most visited, most engaged people visit with a purpose and find like-minded conversationalists with whom to chat. The subjects inevitably wander from the initial aims, but the organisations that embrace that diversity tend to be more successful.

Communities also tend to have pioneers, who take the conversation out to the other places they are chattering, and so the word can spread, but organisations that also engage in other places than their own, become attractive to others to.

It is not just about finding people to contribute to you, but also about finding places where you can contribute to others.

When you decide to do this you start a journey, and it’ll take you to new places. You probably won’t stay on the route you planned, and you will be surprised by some events. The prize is a dramatically expanded base of supporters who will work with you to create the environment in which you prosper and grow; an environment more likely to meet and exceed your aims and goals faster than ever.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a consultancy specialising in improving team dynamics and performance. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

In the spring 2008 edition of Charities Management I discussed how to tap into the resources contained in social networks. I talked about creating a shared passion, about collaborative working, and about the conversations taking place between those that support charities and those that need the output from them.

If charities are to really engage the social networking revolution is taking place online in order to engage in conversations with those that seek to support them (and those benefiting from that support) then the skills required to create a following will be essential.

Creating a following.

Moving activity online creates an opportunity to reach a much larger audience than can be reached through face-to-face, local, or off paper advertising and promotion. Reaching a much larger audience, however, is not sufficient to create any significant change in the engagement with the charity. Engagement comes from a shared interest, not just in the activity of the charity, but, also, in other interests discussed in the conversations seeded by being in the same ‘space’ within the same following group. As people they’ll talk about their interests, not yours. They are there because at least on interest, in the charity and what it is doing, is common to the group.

Followers take an active interest in the activity of those that they are with in the group. They are seeking information, knowledge, and, they seek that, across a wide range of interests.

Imagine for a moment that you found a website which truly engaged to in a conversation. You decide that the website is sufficiently interesting to encourage you to return the next day. However, when you get there a conversation is identical to the day before. You come back again the next day, and the conversation is again the same. Soon you will no longer return, where you were once following you are now indifferent. Yet, to the website owner you may still appear to be following, after all, why would you undertake the effort to leave, when the transactional cost of staying is zero.

Followers talk about you.

People who have run across your online presence, and engaged with you, become followers, and who enjoy the time that they spend on your site will talk to others about it. That will attract others to come and visit your site and form their own opinions, deciding whether to follow you.

Incidentally the places where this may happen, may not be your main website, but it could be true free sites such as twitter (www.twitter.com) which allows you to post short pieces of information and collect a following who “watch” what you are saying. These short snippets of information can be automated from digital feeds (called RSS) from your site(s), and thus require little maintenance effort once the original operation has been set up.

A significant user of twitter is the BBC who to provide news, sports and other items and links to their main site as “tweets”. Other sites offering similar functionality exist there are also a number of sites offering services to aggregate and collect common information.

If you provide valuable material that is multidimensional, rather than focusing solely on your one main area of interest, then those that follow will find the information useful, will talk to their friends and invite them to join the group.

Now you have them, what can you do?

Whilst a large following is nice to see, unless you can leverage the opportunities from that group then there is little point in undertaking the effort to build the group in the first place. However, engaging the group in conversations, as I discussed in my previous article, allows you to be much more proactive in providing the services and support when it is most needed, and much more successful at ensuring that others understand how the support they gave is being utilised effectively.

Engaging followers in conversations that draw on their experience and skills, building a deeper and stronger relationship with them will help to ensure that they remain loyal to you over the longer term. Some of the followers will always be just followers, but others will become advocates for the work that you are undertaking. The more that you engage with your followers in a manner that resonates with them the more likely they are to advocate, perhaps even eulogise, what you do.

Followers are waiting for you to take action. In general they will not be proactive, so you must be. In general there will not volunteer information, knowledge, skills and experience, so you must ask for it. They will expect you to recognize the help that you have been given, so don’t forget to thank and support followers at every opportunity. If you do this well, they will not just reach out to you when you reach out to them, but they will reach out to their networks and spread your message further and faster than you could achieve by other means.

Your web site.

Although I’ve talked about using other freely available sites to collect a following, the central hub of your operations, your face online, remains your primary website. Having created a following through your activity online it becomes possible to integrate elements, of what the followers are talking about, into your main website. Any such activity makes your website more relevant to other followers. Relevance encourages interaction.

Progressively tools to enable you to search the conversations that your followers are having on their websites, their pages, their blogs, their conversations, and so on. Searching and filtering that data can provide you with significantly valuable insight about how to interact more effectively, more relevantly, with them, in future. This information provides you with context, feedback, and the opportunity to identify shared and common purpose.

Groups bound by common purpose sharing a journey together, will be significantly more effective than groups that are simply bound by common interest.

Conclusion.

Most, if not all, charities already have a significant following. That following comes in the form of supporters, people seeking to help you to collect the funds, support, and assistance that is required to provide the things that they enable the charity to deliver. Much of that following is probably already interacting online. Charities can’t afford not to be a part of that interaction, or the attention of their followers will drift to those that do.

By building an online following you build an opportunity to engage in your followers conversation, and then to influence it, to learn from it, to develop it and to enhance it.

By building an online following that is as passionate about what you do, and what you say, as you are, will enable you to extend your reach further and faster than if you simply seek to build a following to traditional, offline, methods.

Much of what I talked about may appear to be both a labour intensive and technically tricky, neither need be true. Existing tools are available either free or low-cost, and integration into your existing websites should be straightforward.

Sharing the passions, beliefs, vision and Mission with your following, and ensuring they align behind it, will enable your message to reach many more people on a much deeper level than was ever possible before.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a company which specialises in building trust in teams and communities. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

Ends

The success of any charitable organisation depends on its ability to engage its supporters and create a shared passion for the cause with them. Charities must look to find common collaborative ways of working that maximise the impact of donations and ensure that they have delivered the right things with the limited resources at their disposal. William Buist, director of Abelard Management Services explores how charities can capitalise on the growth of social networking and collaborative working by using tools now commonly found on the internet.

The social networking revolution

Over the past four or five years a significant change in the way that most people interact with their friends, colleagues and others in their wider networks has taken place.

The growth of sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) and Myspace (www.myspace.com) along with business networking sites like Ecademy (www.ecademy.com) has revolutionised the communication style of many people, allowing individuals to source knowledge and information from others – who are experts in their field. Is this relevant to charities?, Should they be engaging in the conversation?

I am not going to spend too much time here exploring the social networking revolution but its important to recognise that, increasingly, groups of people with a common interest are discussing aspects of business, social life, hobbies, and indeed, the work of charities. Engaging in those conversations allows a dialog to develop, helping with the understanding of perceptions as well as allowing communication flows to open up. Passionate people with a deep understanding tend to be the biggest advocates, with the widest reach.

Immediately after the Tsunami that affected a number of towns and villages including a significant part of Sri Lanka one of the networks which I belonged to was notified, extremely quickly, of the situation on the ground in Sri Lanka. A group of people who knew each other well and knew colleagues and friends living in Sri Lanka were able to provide targeted specific help to a particular community in a particular place affected by a tragedy that was very broad, and was able to do so both quickly and effectively.

Through a combination of conversations and feedback from those on the ground at the sites affected it was possible to ensure that communities did have access to resources sooner than those of the organised and governmental interventions that took place albeit only a few days later.

This is not to say that the work of the charities that followed on was less effective or less valuable, far from it,

I tell the story merely to highlight the speed and impact that social networking sites now have in crisis situations. The ability to be engaged in a conversation with people who have the knowledge and skills – who are experienced and experts in the issues faced, enable more effective and more targeted application of effort with limited resources.

Of course, for many charities, “crisis” is not the issue that they resolve, nor will it ever be. Does that mean that those charities do not need to engage in conversation with a wider audience? My sense is that whilst they do not have a requirement to do it, they could significantly benefit from doing so. Why? Because it enables each charity to really understand the passion of its supporters and ensures that they communicate the information their audience wants in a personal way. It builds knowledge and passion, and locks in shared experience to all.

The Charities Commission

The Charities Commission mission includes the following key phrases:

• enabling charities to maximise their impact
• encouraging innovation and effectiveness
• championing the public interest in charity.

The Charities Commission vision is for charities to work at the heart of society.

It is my belief that the heart of society is best reached through a mutually rewarding conversation between equals. Achieving that is where I believe the new tools create an opportunity that should not be missed.

Creating a shared passion

Many people engage with charities from the passion that they have for the things that the charity is involved with. They often provide funds and assistance in other forms over many months and years. For some their chosen charity is a lifelong companion and, like a marriage, the relationship needs nurture and reinforcement to grow. It happens because of a (shared) passionate belief in the work that the charity is undertaking.

Historically, the opportunity to engage in personal conversation (but with everyone) was both costly and time consuming. Today’s internet based world enables those conversations to be both self sustaining, cheap to initiate, and wide ranging in their extent. Conversations between large groups of people are taking place and the issues and passions of the individuals are gravitating to groups of like minded individuals, Charities have much to gain from being at the heart of those conversations, at the heart of (the on-line) society.

The provision and distribution of information about the work of the charity, their plans for the future, the impact of their work on others and on societies as a whole can all help to build the shared passion of both those involved with delivering the charities work and of those providing the resources for them to do so. Shared passion in itself may not create a dramatic change in the behaviour of those involved with the charity, but by increasing the level of knowledge and information, and increasing the effectiveness of those communications, enables others to assist in spreading the word.

Collaborative working

In many social networks, groups of individuals are now coming together under a shared banner, a common interest, a desire to collectively work to achieve a specific end.

Often those collaborative groups come together without a formal agreement or the need for contracts or principals of engagement. They come together simply to share their knowledge and experience and to help each other develop a stronger more robust result. Charities who engage with the groups of people who are interested in their work, be they people who donate, or those who implement the work of the charity, or those who are affected by the implementation of that work, enable a collaborative solution to be found that may be significantly better than that determined by one or other group in isolation.

Collective and collaborative working provides the opportunity for the experience of many to be applied to the problems of the few.

Money well spent?

When those who are donating to a charity consider the impact of the donation, they often seek a reassurance that their money will be well spent. Conversations, discussions and collaborative working with the supporters of the charity can help to ensure that the prioritisation of monies given and the applications of those monies is well considered and robust. In making choices about the use of resources within a charity (and that includes resources other than financial resources) it’s important for a wide range of possibilities to be considered.

There is a danger that charities (and indeed any organisation – be that a business or even an individual) will spend lots of time (and money) considering multiple options. The cost of indecision may even be higher than the cost of a poor decision, and in my experience it usually is. Making better decisions through accessing better information, quickly and at low cost is one key benefit of greater engagement.

The opportunity with social networking (and with the changes in the way that people are now working within them) is that expertise can be accessed on a voluntary basis and extremely quickly to enable a greater depth of understanding of the information and data that is available. Greater analysis of the opportunities and a greater collective decision making prowess can be developed at very little, or even no, cost.

Collectively we are more likely to do the right things with limited resources than we would do without that consultation.

Creating the environment

One concern that is often levied is that the requirements of new technology to build communities (to engage with many) will just use up significant resources and require a significant ongoing investment. That would be hard to justify against the aims and values of the charity itself.

Until quite recently I think that this would be seen as a fair concern, but over the last two or three years a number of platforms have emerged which enable collaborative working to develop in a more open and a much cheaper environment.

Wikipedia – A collaborative runaway.

Perhaps one of the biggest examples of collaborative working is Wikipedia which has grown from small beginnings to a massive collaborative document encompassing much of the knowledge of the entire human race. In fact, it is now developing in multiple languages and across an ever wider sphere of subject.

It demonstrates how documentation can be developed collaboratively and with accuracy that tends to improve continually over time. Don Tapstock in a book called Wikinomics describes the development of Wikipedia and other similar mass collaboration efforts using the internet and concludes that we are in an “age of participation”. I agree with him.

Extending this analogy to charities enables us to consider whether the analysis of their operation and the application of the resources in a similar manner by volunteers with a shared passion would enable charities to improve their efficiency and effectiveness faster than by any other means.

Conclusion

The ability to exchange knowledge has created an environment in which collaboration with a mass audience is becoming the norm. Charities, by the nature of their operation, are likely to engage in this arena, sooner or later, the question is whether they should engage in now, or whether, for those who have not yet done so, it is already happening in the social networks without their knowledge.

Having been involved with social networking for a number of years I have learnt that it is inherently the power of the people in the network, enabled by the technology, to collaborate in new and efficient ways that has freed individuals to both give and receive of their knowledge in a way that lifts all of them. By engaging with all of the stakeholders of the charity, the passions, beliefs, vision and mission of those charities will ultimately reach many more people on a much deeper level than was ever possible before.

Ends

(1,716 words)

William Buist, director of Abelard Management Services explains his top ten tips on how to make the most from Social Networking

1. Pick your site
There are lots of networking sites, so chose one that fits with you. You need to spend time in the network so be sure you feel comfortable and enjoy what you see and will feel comfortable contributing and being involved.

2. Build a good profile
Your profile is what people will make a first impression from, and things like a picture need to be relatively up to date and show you as you are. In your profile don’t just talk about one or two things, you need to show yourself as others find you. Social networking is about trust, so be honest. .

3. Become a connector.
As you get to know people you’ll be able to connect them with others that you know. As they learn about you, the connections will start to be made to you by others too. Great connectors tend to be sought out.

4. Write to be read (and that means knowing your audience)
When you write in a social network about 10 times as many people read what you write as comment directly, yet readers will talk about what they read to others. Headlines sell newspapers and bring readers to your content too; content should stand out in a quick glance.

5. Keep to what you know and be yourself
When you write about what you know you demonstrate your expertise, doing that in your own style helps to ensure that people recognise your expertise in the same way when they meet you.

6. Help others and learn from them
When you can help someone who is seeking advice and guidance in your area of expertise you demonstrate that you are the expert in that field, and attract others to you, when you see others helping you learn about their expertise.

7. Ask better questions
Even if you understand a subject really well asking questions elicits a conversation in which everyone learns, whereas articles that make statements tend only to be read. Stretch your knowledge by questioning other experts and the better the question the more engagement you’ll see

8. Do what you control.
You can’t force others to do what you need, but you can choose to do what they need, Whatever your goals from Social Networking other people can’t help you unless you help them to choose to do so. Set goals for what you do in the network, not for what you want from it.

9. Learn from everything, and be bold..
Social networking is a new phenomenon and many people are now engaged, Lot’s is being tested and tried out, so look for opportunities to incorporate the things you see others doing into what you do and don’t be afraid to experiment.

10. Take your time
Social Networking doesn’t change one basic ground rule. Relationships take time and visibility, trust and trade come from spending the time to make them happen.

Ends

The ability to communicate via email has led organisations to believe that they can communicate effectively with a much wider group of people, and much faster. But all too often ease of use, and speed, lead to organisations becoming less capable of creating and maintaining the right context for the conversation with the audience. So how can you ensure that your internal communications across a virtual team are effective? As a specialist in building community spirit in teams, William Buist highlights the common pitfalls in virtual communication programmes and explains how to engage people in conversation that guarantees higher success.

Organisations are progressively working with suppliers, customers and staff who are distributed across various locations and opportunities for an entire project team to meet and discuss matters is becoming less frequent. As a result of tools which allow instant communication, team members lose the benefit of receiving visual and oral feedback during the conversation to enable them to check understanding about the perception of the message received.

The challenge with any form of communication is, of course, ensuring that it is both understood, in the manner of which it was intended, and perceived in the context that was intended too. This can be achieved by engaging people in the conversation from the onset and managing risk by focusing people to work the right way at the right time.

Engaging people in a conversation

In order to be sure that the understanding of an issue, or the needs of a project team are clear, communication must be two way and feedback is essential. Validation of the perception of individuals is just as important as often the feedback itself can be misunderstood.

Misunderstandings between individuals who are well known and liked by each other are much more speedily resolved than those between strangers – who often fail to even reach a resolution at all. The same is true in business teams, so one of the key areas to help ensure misunderstandings are minimised and resolved quickly is to ensure that team members know each other well and, as far as is possible, like and respect each other too.

CASE STUDY: MANAGING CHANGE

In the financial services sector a requirement arose for all the companies in a particular market to make simultaneous changes in their infrastructure to meet regulatory reporting requirements imposed by the government.

A virtual team with representation from organisations within the market, the organisations implementing the change, trade associations integrating the feedback from those organisations and the government bodies themselves, along with a number of associated organisations needed to be co-ordinated and managed. Engaging all of these different bodies in a common conversation to ensure a universally understood project goal would have been a challenge at the best of times.

It wasn’t enough for the conversation just to take place on an adhoc basis; they needed to be co-ordinated and garnered in a framework that enabled the right things to be discussed at the right time.

to facilitate meeting and discussing not just the project but areas of individual interest, understanding personal goals and how those aligned with the organisational goals for each individual in the team, and creating an environment in which those goals were aligned were all critical success factors in bringing this collective delivery to fruition.

In fact, throughout that project one of the key things that people commented about was not the level of communication, or, indeed, the quality of it, rather it was about the level of collaboration between members of different organisations whose only reason to collaborate was the relationship that they had with each other, and with those involved at the centre of the project.

The central team was tiny, its primary role was only to facilitate the relationships to enable the conversations to take place, and to ensure that when those conversations took place that they took place with a purpose and in a frame work that enabled the right discussions to take place. When things went wrong, rather than blaming people, they drew on the relationships to resolve the issue.

The techniques used to do this are now becoming much more widely known.

Don Tapscott (Wikinomics 2006) talks about four principles of mass collaboration, Openness, Peering, Sharing, and Acting Globally, and these elements are key to building a team that uses communication as the glue to enable mass collaboration. In that sense ‘global’ does not have to be interpreted in a geographic sense, rather it can be seen as the widest possible extent for your team.

Risk Management

Another of the key areas of any conversation within an organisation that is designed to facilitate the delivery of a project or resolve an issue is that the future events are inherently linked to elements of risk and uncertainty.

Misunderstandings cause the wrong things to be done, lack of experience or skills cause the right things to be done in the wrong way and an uncertainty of direction or strategy can lead people to feel unwilling to do a task which does not appear to be aligned to a central goal.

Taking those three things together, a conversation that helps people to understand what to do at the right time and how to do it in the right way and demonstrating to them the alignment to their own personal and the organisational goals can dramatically reduce risk by focusing people on the work in the right way at the right time.

Business leaders are gradually changing the approach that they take in terms of directing the work that is required to be done. Successful leaders are engaging and building relationships with their staff in a much more open and transparent way and progressively conversations are taking place not just between people in the office but also using online tools such as instant messaging, telephone, text message, Skype and Social Networks. Conversations can continue in all of those forms, and in, whichever is most appropriate at the time.

Risk management through regular communication (conversation) and constant feedback is likely to lead to significantly lower and better managed risk but in addition the visibility of those risks will be much higher. Just that they are being talked about, keeps the risk in people’s minds.

The conversation reminds people to keep their eyes open and look for the problem. Talking about what could happen and what is happening enables you to see a much better picture from a risk management point of view.

CASE STUDY: REDUCING MISUNDERSTANDING TO MINIMISE RISK

Using the same Financial Services Sector example, conversations took place with the suppliers on a regular basis to ensure a clear understanding of their progress and the issues that they were facing. When an issue did arise where there was a lack of understanding, the depth and trust in the network that was available to both the supplier and the co-ordinating organisations at the centre enabled them to have fast conversations to resolve the misunderstandings. The development never progressed far down the wrong road.

Of course there were occasions when misunderstandings passed unnoticed for some time however, the uncertainty and the strength of their relationship to the centre enabled them to raise the issues without fear of being seen as either trouble making or unwilling to support the main project.

Again the common goal, the understanding of the individual’s goals and the way that the interactions between the organisations were working through strong and developing relationships enabled trust to be built quickly and maintained even in the most difficult times.

One question to ask the internal team in any organisation (to assess their readiness for building relationships of this kind) is how well they know their clients, suppliers and peers at a social level, how they understand their needs, aims and concerns, rather than simply the business matters.

The opportunity for big wins is significant. The opportunities to make a dramatic advance over competitors, to become the supplier of choice to your clients, because you engage with them in a way which they like and respect and because they have a relationship with you which means choosing a different supplier over you is much harder.

It’s not simply a matter of changing supplier; it’s now also a matter of building a new relationship from scratch. It’s no longer merely a matter of cost but also one of time and effort and those factors enable you to both gain new, and maintain, existing relationships in an ever stronger communications environment that builds strength and trusts over time in an increasingly important way.

Ends

As a UK recession looms, many boardrooms around the country are under significant pressure to continue ‘business as usual’. But whatever the reality of the impact of the changes in the world economy on the current revenue and profitability of the business, the boardroom is responsible for predicting change and planning for it. Business specialist William Buist delves into the world of the relationships between executives and the Board, exploring the meaning of team spirit, indentifying the warning signs to look out for and explaining why some tension in the team is actually a good thing!

The latest news suggests that the economy is now shrinking. Directors know they don’t have long and they need to be ready. The challenge then is how they operate as a team, not when things are going well, but when things are stressful, and when they are failing. The team spirit will be tested and if it’s not strong, it will begin to breakdown. Team spirit is a phrase used frequently in business but seldom is its meaning really understood and its potential harnessed.

What does team spirit mean?

It’s Esprit du Corp, the spirit of the body (of people) that allows the group to act in a common way, protecting each other and looking out for and helping where it’s needed to get the results that the team wants.

When it is strong the team is strong and when people ask members of the team a question they get a consistent answer. The team works on most things collaboratively and mistakes get resolved without rancour.

When it is weak there is loss of clarity. The team works on many things, few of them in a collaborative way, and the resulting mistakes simply annoy and cause more tension between the team.

What creates team spirit?

A key aspect of team spirit is common purpose. When the board has a clear vision which all of the members support, then they have a common understanding of the direction the business needs to take.

When their own goals and ambitions as individuals are also aligned to those goals then the passion of the individual to achieve their own aims brings results for the business too.

Is that always a good thing?

High team spirit is often associated with an over optimistic expectation evaluation of the impact of risk (it won’t be as bad as it could be) and unrealistic assessment of the likelihood risks arising in the first place. Risk Management requires a focus on the negative, and great team spirit focuses on the positive.

One problem that can arise is that if the Board is too aligned, they might stop asking questions about the goals of the business, mainly because strong team spirit can lead to ‘group think’ and loss of challenge. When external change arises it’s sometimes missed because the common purpose and team spirit means the focus is on delivering what is needed, rather than managing risk.

There is a big risk for good corporate governance in that too, because governance is closely related to risk management…

But the converse isn’t much better either. A focus on risk management becomes paralysing to delivery as members of a board have little or no team spirit as here people see risk in everything and are keen to get their defence in first.

As each member looks out for their own interests they tend not to see risks materialising in other areas and so fail to provide the support the other directors need, when they need it. Each member focuses on their own needs and whilst they might seek to do things that do advance the business, they are likely to focus on different parts of the company vision. The impression left is of far too many projects pulling resources in very different ways.

What should the Chief Executives do?

Clearly the balance of team spirit is important, too much and there are risks of “group think” and over enthusiastic focus on delivery and loss of focus on governance and challenge. Too little and there are risks of stagnation and focus on divisional rather than corporate goals.

The need for some friction, allied to great team spirit means that Chief Executives need to be able to improve the common, shared spirit within the group, whilst also leading through a time of friction. It’s hard, or impossible, for one person to both lead people on a common journey, and provide the friction that keeps challenge levels sufficiently high.

If team spirit is too low, then the causes of that need to be identified. Team spirit is strongest when all the relationships between the individuals in the team are strong and build on foundations of mutual appreciation from knowing each other well, liking each other and trusting each other.

The Chief Executive or the Chairman can facilitate those relationships over time by understanding the individuals well, by listening to their concerns and acting to lubricate the interactions between members. Their clear understanding of the overall vision and goals of the business mean that, as leaders of the group, they can develop common goals with the individuals. Matchmaking the help each team member needs and creating an environment in which they can perform, and be seen to perform, means that working together is more effective than working alone. Synergy is a watchword.

If team spirit and collaboration is strong, then tension and friction can be developed through creating additional competition in to the team, through extending targets and goals, extending and changing the vision, or through the introduction of external influences and external audits and consultancy. Independence provides a review that can check that risk management and corporate governance are properly undertaken and protects the organisation from a loss of team spirit, there is, after all an external agent in the issues under review.

In many ways the key role of the leaders of an organisation can be summed up as the responsibility to ensure that the senior team has great team spirit allied to sufficient challenge and review to ensure they focus on the right things at the right time. It’s a fine balance and one that can be disturbed by many things, the skilled leader works continually to keep the balance right.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a company which specialises in building trust in teams and communities. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

Ends

When a child is born it starts an independent life, but is wholly dependent on its parents for many years, until it reaches the teenage years, where it seeks to shake off dependency and demonstrate its own independence. Soon enough though teenagers see the need for others and start to build relationships and interdependence with (rather than on) others by creating families, joining communities etc. This in an example of the human ecosystem.

When we talk about corporations (derived from a latin word – ‘Corpus’ meaning body) we allow through our laws for businesses to enter into contracts on the same basis as we would with an individual. Perhaps we should not be surprised that businesses too start life as highly dependent on others, and that they find independence as they grow, and then, in their own ecosystems, find the fellow businesses that will support them. They form synergistic groups and businesses become interdependent in an ecosystem comprising the markets, staff, suppliers, customers, associates, shareholders and partners with common fellowship, travelling on a shared journey.

The importance of the ecosystem for businesses.

No business can be an expert in all areas of its chosen markets. Expertise is earned over years of experience and the application of skills learned throughout our working lives. That then becomes complicated because the markets themselves, suppliers products and services and customers needs, all change around you. One way for businesses to meet these changing needs is to be large, and employ experts in many areas whilst learning and adapting to the changes through experience gained by servicing multiple clients. Being large enough and successful enough, means being an ecosystem in your own right.

Systems are introduced in organisations to support a common way of working and there is control over entry to, and exit from the organisation. Those are features of any ‘ecosystem’.

Most big businesses weren’t always big, they came to be that way by working hard and using expertise in the right places at the right time. When small, the areas of expertise that a single business can cover is limited by the expertise that exist within it, unless, of course, they exist with a collaborative group who can support each other and provide the expertise required at the right time.

Moving from independence to interdependence.

It’s worth thinking about the things that facilitate interdependence and then consider what lubricates the movement towards interdependence. Interdependence in the context of collaborating businesses means that each business is stronger because of the collaborations. The relationships that exist between the businesses allow all of them to act as if they were one, rather than many. In my own business, Abelard Management Services Limited, a number of interdependent partners collaborate to deliver to our clients.

As a group of independent businesses we could just compete with each other to deliver the same outcomes for each client. Each business would bring its expertise to bear and deliver to the best of its abilities, but by collaborating each task has the best expert from the group focused on delivery. That’s a better result for all the clients and that means more referrals and more repeat business in the group as a whole.

Building awareness.

Before any business would be prepared to partner with another and entrust their brand to others who are not subject to the stringencies of employment contracts, it’s almost inevitable that a relationship between the people involved will need to developed in order for them to deeply trust each other.

Nothing can happen until people are aware of you. Only by building awareness can we hope that others will get to know us and start the journey to trust, and partnership and trading. Most won’t stay with us for the whole journey, but none of the people who fail to start will be there at the end!

Building awareness is about being visible, within your chosen spheres, in your market and in the network of people that you know. Awareness of you attracts potential collaborators to get in touch and start conversations. Here is where you find the synergies, the overlaps and common ground, in the products and services that you have.

In my business a client who needed to tender for a supplier (as part of a project) where we could easily support them with elements of it led us to partner with another business for other elements of it. Their skills were a great complement to ours, neither of us could have supported the whole project as well individually as we did together, although either of us could have done it alone. As a result of our collaboration, we were awarded two other larger projects from that same client.

Developing community.

There is a point in the development of any business when it trusts its environment, and is prepared to reach out to others to start to form the relationships. Demonstrating a desire to work with others who may distrust your motives is hard, but being true to the end goal of mutual support and seeking the opportunities to work as a team will soon bring the rewards. The ecosystem evolves into existence, it doesn’t suddenly appear. Some will lead the way, others will follow looking for tried and tested results before they join in, and some will lag behind. That too is human nature.

The need for care and preparation.

All of that sounds like it’s a wonderful world where there is less need to undertake the usual checks that you would do in business, and over time that may be true, when trust is really strong. Until them, though, it’s worth retaining all the usual business controls such as due diligence, contractual agreements and clear financial structures.

When businesses work together the financial arrangements are often less clear. In our group we consider not just the costs of delivering the product, but the costs of Marketing and sales and the costs of operating the businesses themselves, where the costs of credit lie and who carries the risks. These aren’t simple questions and shouldn’t be left on trust. They need agreement and understanding if the ecosystem is to blossom, for without that level of understanding distrust can soon grow.

Government has developed the environment that allows these ecosystems to blossom, although that may be inadvertent. Changes in legislation to protect employees is pushing microbusinesses to learn to work in supportive, collaborative ecosystems without the need to employ others.

The Small business ecosystem is growing up

Now, our business could not survive in its current form without the ecosystem in which it operates, we’d fail to develop and grow as fast as we are and we’d fail to deliver the service we now can. Small dependent businesses have learned their skills and gained experience as independent organisations are now seeking others and collaborating in new ways. Their interdependence, whilst still adolescent, hides the truth of 21^st century organisations, not one or few, but many working with each other as one.

These changes are fundamental and radical, embracing it is critical and yet this new business ecosystem will evolve further and faster than most are prepared for. Looking back, in just a few short years I suspect most will wonder how we managed to survive today.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a consultancy specialising in improving team dynamics and performance. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

Ends

What could the classic movie Braveheart possibly have in common with issues facing modern small businesses? Well, in just three words, William Wallace was able to identify a common identity that bound the hearts of hundreds of men in the battlefield and captured their passion and desire to succeed. But how can this be translated into business? Team performance specialist William Buist explains why small businesses can maximise collaborative opportunities simply through defining the common interest that links customers suppliers and staff, if they can communicate it in a manner that creates shared passion.

Building collaboration in business: Who is involved in your business?

When businesses look at their operation, their products and services, and their culture and ethos, they often underestimate the real extent of what makes them great.

Customers are a business’s life blood and it’s their willingness to part with their money to buy our products and services that allow us to trade and build the business up. It is worth remembering though that our businesses, are also customers of our suppliers. What businesses get from their suppliers is the ability to add value to the their customers. Of course, that continues up the supply chain to supplier’s suppliers and down to customer’s customers.

Sometimes the person supplying the supplier is critical to our ability to deliver for our customers and likewise, sometimes it is our customer’s customer that is reliant on us. We may not know that, but if we did, it could change our priorities.

In Braveheart, on the Battlefield, William Wallace rode to stand in front of a group of Nobles seeking to negotiate and ordinary folk seeking to survive. Ok, perhaps not the same relationships as in business, but you can see the same effect.

Who should collaborate?

When we seek to determine who should be with us in business, it is often hard to identify the individuals and businesses that really matter. It’s good business practice to examine your profitable lines, to understand where the money comes from and where it goes. Cost conscious businesses seek to negotiate down input costs but doing so in a non-collaborative manner can lead to suppliers reducing quality or withdrawing supply.

Collaborative approaches with suppliers who understand the impact of change across the widest picture can enable businesses and suppliers to find the right solutions for both.

Collaborative approaches with customers helps to ensure that your businesses adapts along with changing customer needs and provides more market intelligence. Collaborative customers tend to be advocates and feel part of the ‘family’, and with this comes more loyalty.

In Braveheart, William Wallace understood this. He needed to get all the parties in the battle working together, for there were indeed ‘too many’ well armoured men in the opposing forces.

What’s the common identity?

What Wallace did was create an immediate common identity that applied to all the men on the field of battle. ‘Sons of Scotland’ gave them a peg to hang their identity on. The reaction in each of the men was that Wallace ‘is talking to me’ and so each individual listened.

In business, can you identify the common identity that you have with those around you in your business? Does the language you use in your marketing and sales material talk at your market, or embrace them? When you answer the phone are you talking to a member of your businesses collaborative team or (just) responding to a supplier or customer?

Wallace’s three words achieve that, but to do it in 3 words is hard. In 1976 Frank Muir accepted the Rectorship of St Andrews’ University. In a moving speech he discarded his notes and talked about seeing the whole town from one of the high points in the town. Opening his arms he said ‘This is my university’. His context was clearly one of joining the assembled throng as an equal and his success as Rector was assured immediately. So, are you creating a common identity for your team?

Where are you going?

A common identity is all well and good but all it does is put you together, To actually move forward together requires a mission, a purpose and a direction. Businesses that create a common understanding of their intention tend to get support from their suppliers and customers.

When Virgin entered the transatlantic airline business they made clear what they hoped to achieve in relation to standards of service and cost, much of which wasn’t deliverable on day one. And in Braveheart, Wallace use a similar tactic, Firstly he recognised a common feature of his team by saying ‘I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny’ and confirming that they were all free men.

He addressed current concerns (‘Run and you may live’) but painted a picture of a future which required action today to deliver. His statement of ‘… and looking back, many years from would you trade all the days from that day to this for one chance…’ (and the key point here that this is the moment by repetition) ‘… just one chance… …to tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they can never take our freedom’ takes the group into their passion, the belief of freedom, the need to take action now, and the binding force of collaboration.

In business we can paint an equivalent of what we are doing, and what we aim to do in a similar way, by painting a picture of the future we can have together. What are the common features, in your collaborative group, that you can draw on? What is their equivalence of the fight against tyranny?

If you can express your goals in a way that builds on the passions of those around you, that aligns those passions in a common goal and presents a journey that can be shared it will help your business to be resilient to the trials that lie ahead.

What happens If you don’t bring your partners with you?

Many battles in history failed because, ultimately, the team wasn’t passionately aligned behind the goal. But bringing the team with you doesn’t mean painting a picture of milk and honey though…

In Braveheart, Wallace didn’t shy away from talking of the risk of death. In another example, Churchill told his countrymen that he had nothing to offer but ‘Blood, Toils, Tears, and Sweat’ (a phrase first used by Theodore Roosevelt in 1897) at the start of the Battle of Britain. These honest, realistic, assessments and a clear belief that the right result will prevail, collect supporters from the ranks of the sceptical far more readily than over optimistic portrayals of possible futures.

When our suppliers don’t share our passions we are just a supply of money to them. When the going gets tough for us their willingness to help is limited and their attention is probably with those whom have built a shared passion with them. Sir Stuart Rose understood this well as when Marks and Spencer fell from grace, his job was not to resolve the issues overnight, but to rebuild the ‘contract’ that Marks and Spencer had built over many years with its customers for value and quality.

Our customers will have no loyalty with us if there isn’t a shared journey, if they can’t see that we are as passionate about them and their needs as they are.

The picture we paint of where we are going sends many messages, and the more that we can align the message with the passions we have, the more we can bring our suppliers and customers on board the more likely we are to be successful. Finding the powerful phrases that bind groups behind a common identity and a common journey will bind your business, your advocates, your suppliers and your customers into a collaborative group that will deliver more, faster and more reliably, than working just as a company that happens to buy from suppliers and sell to customers.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a consultancy specialising in improving team dynamics and performance. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

Ends

In an increasingly web-enabled society, a variety of mediums are being used in tandem by businesses looking to develop a new wave of community spirit amongst its stakeholders. Business specialist William Buist argues that the main challenge facing organisations is how to do this well and in a manner, which adds value to the community, and the business, for mutual benefit.

The word ‘Community’ first appeared in the 14^th century and is derived from the Latin communitas meaning ‘Fellowship’ and/or communis meaning ‘common, public, general, shared by all or many’. When thinking about specialist communities, I like to refer to community as ‘Common Fellowship’.

But before we can talk about how to create value, we need to decide how to define and measure it. Value is derived not just from the direct contribution, but also from the value members bring to the community; through their knowledge, skills, experience and, from their interactions in their own business and personal networks.

As a common fellowship, a community contains two elements: (1) the people in the community and their networks, and (2) what they bring to it. So community value is a combination of both network value and content value – contacts and content.

Contacts and Content

In a large community of many, perhaps millions of members – you can reach out and make contact with very talented people. The chances are that someone in the community is perfectly suited to helping with a current issue, but finding them is hard. Wouldn’t it be better if they were already seeking you out?

Those seeking to create and build communities need to design the environment in which it operates, in a way that encourages and supports and helps members easily apply the right approach to the community. Common fellowship only appears when it is easy to build strong relationships.

When you meet people, you have just one opportunity to sell your goods or services. When they like you, when they want to help you, then they’ll talk about you to others and your opportunities are magnified. When you are THE expert – the referral becomes automatic. People stop thinking about the other people they know who could help, because they know the expert.

When the relationship is strong, you really aren’t talking just to an individual but also to all the people they know. Communities that build relationships leverage success through those relationships, in the network; they create “Network Value”.

Creating Network Value

People tend to buy products and services from people whom they trust. They trust what their friends tell them, so to build network value you need to find a way to get people that you don’t know talking about your products and services to people that trust them. Your network reach is critical.

I define the real value of your network as the extent to which people who don’t know you, are talking about you, to other people whom you don’t know.

Content Value

This is why publishing is really important. There are “lurkers” who really don’t actively participate by writing. Probably, 90% of your readership will never actively engage, making it hard for you to gauge the value you are giving, yet many will be advocates and supporters.

That creates a driver for people to write and add to the community’s content value, whilst reading the material attracts new people to connect with the author and increases the overall network value too.

Of course, a community carries risk. Bad news spreads as fast as, or faster than, good news and mistakes can be seen in the transparency of a closely connected community.

If you are creating a community, then the value people get from the knowledge in the community has to be greater than the costs of giving and the risks of providing content must be less than risk of not doing so.

Critical Mass

To make it self-sustaining, you need a critical mass of members, activity must be frequent and successful. Typically, online, the contribution rate in terms of adding content is recognised as around 10 to 1, and at well designed offline meetings you can expect attendance at up to 50% of the membership.

To get business you need to give business and for that to work in a dynamic way, contributors need to see success as well as referring opportunities too. The visibility of that to all is key.

Induction and ongoing training and support is key to initiate the behaviours that develop community ‘spirit’ too, as this helps new members to overcome a natural reluctance to participate in the early weeks of membership.

So, i’d suggest that to get the mix right, critical mass is between 100 and 200 active and committed people.

It’s not enough just to get the members through; you also need to retain them and develop the community over time through continual engagement. After all, the community has to adapt as each new member joins, their skills and networks need to add to the community value.

Embracing change

So you should expect change; indeed I think it is critical to embrace it, use it, and indeed leverage it. From a community owner point of view, there is increasing pressure to develop and enhance the functionality of the environment in which the community operates.

That’s best done in a strategic transparent framework known to the community, even developed with them. Without a guiding vision, there is no direction, and rudderless communities wither and die.

Communities change as the vision develops. For a community owner, the key thing is to remember to whom you appeal. It’s not enough to know what they want today, it’s important also to know where they are likely to want to go.

A community cannot be all things to all people though, and once you empower your community to comment on the community it won’t be long before you realise that the community is a community of experts who won’t hesitate to tell you what to do. That requires diplomacy and patience to manage well. Some have described that as a task akin to herding cats.

Ends

At a recent conference Mark Zuckerberg, the 23 year old boss of Facebook was talking to 250 or so “middle aged” advertising executives about the new ways that Facebook envisaged advertising developing. His thoughts are indeed interesting. “For the last 100 years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be part of the conversation”.

That phrase – ‘Part of the conversation’ caught my eye. What does it mean to you?

If advertisers are going to be part of the conversation, will we let them in? What would make us do so? and once they are in the conversation how can they add value to that conversation, or are they there just to extract value through sales? If so, will it be a short term visit to the conversation?

Advertisers engaging with a community in a social networking environment create an interesting new way of presenting old products and services. We know on Ecademy, that overt promoting products on services ‘in the conversation’ (as opposed to where it is expected in Marketplace) has a strongly negative effect if handled badly but that building relationships, “joining in the conversation”, can create an opportunity to build advocacy and brand awareness very fast. The trick for most of us is to find the opinion leader within the community. When we influence their opinion they influence others opinion on our behalf. Good or bad.

But social networking creates an opportunity for advertisers to eavesdrop a conversation as well as take part in it. That creates a difficulty for all of us, in that, the things that we communicate about are seen by those who are silent. Silent but not inactive. They are reading and assimilating the knowledge they gain in order to be able to better position their products and services for us. That’s no bad thing, for, if we are approached for the things we need, at the time we need them, with a product or service that meets that need, and is good value then none of us will complain.

The question is can they be good enough at acquiring this skill?

William Buist, Director of Abelard Management Services, specialising in rapidly improving the trust and community spirit in teams and groups.

Ends