Who should lead Enterprise 2.0 efforts within the Enterprise ?
Marcel de Ruiter asked "What corporate functions should lead in Enterprise 2.0?‘.
I left the following reply:
Having HR lead an Enterprise 2.0 initiative is probably the quickest way to consign it to irrelevance and indifference. HR typically has credibility in HR and benefits – and should be focusing on that. Attraction and retention are bonuses from E2.0 – not the core benefits.
An Enterprise 2.0 initiative (which sounds unwieldy, cumbersome and committee driven, and thus doomed to fail) has to be driven from need and controlled by the people it’s trying to serve – normally those at the sharp end of the business
Now this isn’t meant to denigrate HR – but most HR led systems I’ve seen (when I was at Mercer) are shining examples of bad usability, bad design, and ivory tower mentalities – causing employees to swear under their breath as they use click through flexible benefits systems. (This is true of most corporate driven IT systems).
So, not a good starting point to design something that should be people focused, nimble, adaptable and emergent.
[tags]HR, Enterprise 2.0, corporate, Web2.0, internal[/tags]
Comments
Dennis Howlett
Hate to say this, but your argument makes no logical sense. Ascribing attributes to a department carte blanche without recognizing what that same department is clearly gaining from its experiments with new technologies is prejudicial to the notion of change. As you should already know from history, change comes from the most unexpected sources. Also, this argument reinforces siloed thinking in a world where the thrust is x-departmental collaboration. If I was an HR person, I'd be offended.
anu
Denis, I don't think you've understood what I'm saying, and I'm not entirely clear what you're trying to say.
I have no problems with HR experimenting or being involved with E2.0 projects. In my 5 years with Mercer, the world's largest HR and benefits consultancy, I pushed for more HR involvment (or rather awareness at that time) in this new world.
However, having HR *lead* an initiative will not work in most companies. Take a look at the average HR or benefits portal, or flexible benefits site, or a learning management or annual review site, and you'll see why I believe that most HR divisions should focus on getting the online aspects of their core competencies correct before branching out.
My argument is that people with the need for E2.0 solutions should be leading this - not sure how you get to accuse me of siloed thinking based on that. People at the sharp end of the business - for example, actual consultants working in virtual cross - practice teams who understand, first hand, the barriers to collaboration, sharing, or just simple social bonding, that most organisations put in their way.
So - while I'm sorry that you think an HR person would be offended (although many HR people I know would probably agree that they have enough on their plate right now), I'd rather hear substantive examples of why HR would be the right part of a company to lead such an initiative.
Oh - and I'm actually not sure that a grand initiative would work anyway - as I'm sure you know as a recognised expert in all things corporate - most grand top-down initiatives end up delivering user-hostile systems,
Dennis Howlett
I believe I've understood only too well. Here's a start: "Having HR lead an Enterprise 2.0 initiative is probably the quickest way to consign it to irrelevance and indifference." - Terrific. If I'm an HR person deriving value from Facebook profiles as a way of driving talent management (which kinda impacts all departments) I'm going to be pretty offended by that blanket statement.
FWIW, I'm engaged on several v.large projects where the biggest issue is departmental thinking.
Oh - should have added, Enterprise 2.0 is a meaningless concept. As Jevon MacDonald succinctly nailed it: "From an economic point of view, Enterprise 2.0 does not exist."
anu
If you're an HR person deriving value from Facebook profiles as a way of driving talent management , then I salute you - you are too few and far between, and I look forward to reading about it.
But I'm speaking from what I've seen - all too often HR or KM get given fuzzy projects and are expected to make them work, when in most companies, HR is seen as (and often is) a transactional processing outfit. Sure - if you've got exceptional people in your HR team who get this stuff, then have away at it, but in the common case, this is not true.
And as to whether Enterprise 2.0 exists or not - I really don't care. The elements that underpin E2.0 do exist, and that's what I'm passionate about.
Dennis Howlett
There are documented examples. Check Thomas Otter or Jason Corsello. They're Irregular colleagues.
I suggest you might want to think more about HCM rather than HR which, I agree, tends to be transaction focused.
So here's the real issue. Folk like to wrap things up with a suitable moniker but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. The problem comes when trying to explain this to the business. Far easier to identify an issue and then apply the appropriate toolkit. BUT - the social tools we're currently talking about are problematic for business because middle managers in particular can't get their heads around the disruptive nature. Therefore, I prefer to persuade them that what we're really talking about is collaboration to help get things done. That makes sense to those who feel the most threatened because it should make them believe they will do a better, more visibly enhanced and rewarding job.
anu
Agree whole-heartedly with the need to engage middle-management and persuade them that this is beneficial rather than threatening - although there are some Corporate Yutzes who are going the feel threatened by the perceived loss of control whatever one says to them.
I did some searching on Jason Corsello's and Thomas Otter's writing for Facebook profile talent (I'm passingly familiar with both) and didn't see anything that I thought was a real world example - but it was a quick search so I'll check into this a bit more. I got the sense that it was more a case of how things *could* work in a more ideal situation.
And I'm not arguing that in an ideal world, HR (or if we want to redefine the original premise HCM) would not be a bad place to start up a company wide initiative - but in the current, and from what I've seen, most common case, HR concerns tend more towards data cleansing than social networking !
I guess really what we're converging towards and I'd hope you agree, that the best place to start from and / or lead, is with smart people who really get it, wherever they are situated, and then, as Euan would say "Get out of the way"!
Dennis Howlett
Yep on last point. I don't always agree with Euan though.