Posts tagged business relationships


“Digital natives” will need special care in the workplace

Aug 11th

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portrait black 2006I’m thrilled to have my friend Gil Crosby contribute to this series on social media and the workplace. Gil is a leading organizational development consultant, author and teacher. He and his father, Robert, the founder of Crosby & Associates, are among the most influential teachers in my life. Here’s what Gil has to say:

Technology has always done so. Although we’re accustomed to them now, the telephone, television, and automobile each created radical changes in society. Mark wrote of a time when our primary neural development came through “intense socialization with family members and friends, physical activity and interacting with nature in some way,” yet all of these technologies also eroded the same patterns of socialization, and were lamented (for good reason) by the “older generation” of their times.

Implications for management

Some believe our emerging wired culture is leading to a global increase in ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and I tend to agree. I particularly worry about the impact of increased ADD on leadership, as the tendency to jump from one initiative to another without ever getting the preceding implementation right is already a plague in modern organizations.

Again, these tendencies didn’t start with the latest wave of innovation. But the effects do seem to be sinking deeper. In my work with young engineers I find they are consistently bored, have a low tolerance for authority figures (like many adults but with even less perspective they quickly conclude that the problem is that “the boss is an idiot”), will simply “drop out of the game” without weighing the long term consequences, and will try to communicate electronically especially if there is any discomfort or conflict involved.

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Managing Generation Zombie

Aug 10th

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Consider:

  • The average teen in America texts nearly 1,500 times a month and 15,000/month is not unheard of (that’s 500 messages per day!).
  • Kids under the age of 20 spend a total of 3 billion minutes on Facebook every DAY.
  • The average teen now spends an average of six hours a day in front of a computer, TV or video game.

Screen-based stimulation has become the primary source of socialization and entertainment among teens and increasingly younger children. Just a generation ago, socialization occurred when a child was playing with friends, kicking a ball, or playing “house” (or if you go way back, I guess they played “cave”). Are we re-wiring an entire generation? And what does that mean for recruiting, managing, and retaining the workforce of the future?

The social media zombie?
An individual’s fundamental neural framework is nearly complete by the time they are 15 years old. Everything a child experiences forms neural pathways, and the most-used pathways become critical aspects of their personality and the foundation of how they interact as adults. Before the days of screen-based entertainment (most of human history!), the strongest pathways were naturally formed by intense socialization with family members and friends, physical activity and interacting with nature through play and work.

With so many children spending MOST of their time in front of keyboards and flashing screens, a new framework, “the social media brain” is emerging and it is not going to be all good.

A disregard for consequence
New research claims social network sites risk infantilizing the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize, and a shaky sense of identity. That does not sound like the model employee.

The author of the study said the rapid-fire reward of video games and text messaging could be a cause of the three-fold rise in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) over the past 10 years and warned against “a marked preference for the here-and-now, where the immediacy of an experience trumps any regard for the consequences.” She says the behaviors exhibted toward digital media are similar to compulsive gambling, eating and addictions.

Hey, they’ll grow out of it, right? Wrong. The neural frameworks set-up by this incessant conditioning will determine behavior patterns into adulthood … and into the workplace.

What does this mean for companies?
All of this research points to a real challenge for business: many young people entering the workforce over the next 10 years may severely lack critical life skills such as an ability to interpret non-verbal behaviors, holding sustained conversations, and dealing with face-to-face conflict. How will the workplace adjust? I see it happening in several ways:

1) Companies will have to offer new levels of emotional intelligence training to new workers.

2) The work environment will conform to the new workers, creating jobs and work situations with constant stimuation, short bursts of work and a focus on individual contribution.

3) Universities will recognize the need for an emotional intelligence curriculum and differentiate their offerings based on this need.

There’s no going back. These are the realities of the new workplace. So as you think this through, what other business opportunities and challenges will occur as traditional company cultures collide with Generation Zombie? Do you see it already happening?

Tomorrow, noted organizational development authority Gil Crosby will offer his insights on this topic in a guest blog.

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Social Media’s Economy of Giving

Aug 6th

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In the first article in this four-part series, I defined the three elements that contribute to business benefits through social media:
Connections + Meaningful Content + Authentic Helpfulness = Business Benefits.
In this final article, we’ll examine the difficult issue of Authentic Helpfulness.
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

This famous quote pretty much writes this article for me. It perfectly represents the helping spirit that oils the engine of social media every day.
For me, this final element takes on a spiritual quality. I’m convinced there is a social media “economy of giving” that provides untold benefits. You may never know when or how, but true kindness will find its own reward, first in your heart and eventually, through the returned kindness of others.
We are on the cusp of a unique era! We are the only generation in history to have free, instantaneous, global communication. What will you do with this gift? Will you use it to hawk porn and get-rich quick schemes? Or, will you reach for something as great as this moment? How will you use social media to listen, care, respond, and find some small way to help your connections through their daily struggles?

You, my friend, have been blessed in many special ways. Perhaps it’s your talent, your experience, your heart, your ability to listen or make people laugh … maybe it’s even your pain. All of these have the potential to comfort, teach, inspire … and draw people closer to you.

It takes courage to be authentic. Sometimes I fail in the face of a harsh and critical world. I’m afraid of being misunderstood, unintentionally hurting somebody, or leaving myself open to scolding criticism when I write something provocative or bold. I strive to be transparent — when I’m happy or sad or angry, you’ll probably know it. But emotions, especially in written form, can be misunderstood, too.
But I know “authentic” is what I have to be — and what YOU have to be — to form a meaningful connection in a digital world. Authentic helpfulness earns loyalty, respect and friendship.
This concludes the series on C + MC + AH = Business Benefits, but I’m sure these important concepts will be re-visited constantly. What does authentic helpfulness mean to you? How does the whole formula land on you?
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Building meaningful business connections through social media

Aug 4th

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This is the second in a series exploring the keys to achieving business benefits in social media:

Connections + Meaningful Content + Authentic Helpfulness = Business Benefits.
Now, we’re going to dive into each element to build a strategy for YOUR social media success! Today we start with CONNECTIONS.
Think of the social media landscape as a garden … being planted in a desert! To get something to grow, you need to plant a LOT of seeds, which are your connections. Then you’re going to water those connections with meaningful content and authentic helpfulness, which I will cover in subsequent articles.
I’ll give you seven delicious ingredients for the business connection recipe, but before I do, I’d like you to consider two things 1) What is the profile of your best customers, and 2) Where are they likely to be hanging out? If you can answer those questions, your quest for great business connections will be so much more successful! Here are two resources to help you out (click links)
CUSTOMER PROFILING
FINDING YOUR CUSTOMER “TRUCKSTOP”
OK, let’s mix up a fresh batch of social media business connections:
1) The Advanced Search feature on Linked-In is your best connection-finding buddy. You can find high-potential connections by location, company, industry, even business title. Offer to link with these people as a first step toward building your targeted audience.
2) Participate in Linked-in groups and forums. What better way to build relationships than to get involved with online groups of like-minded professionals? So many people sign up for Linked-In and forget about it. Get your skin in the game and actively ENGAGE new connections. A new national contract of mine began with a lady who liked my answers on Linked-In!
3) Find online journals related to your industry. Look for comments that interest you. In the comment section, note who is there – their comments often point readers to their Twitter name, Facebook or Linked-In page. Connect to them. Engage.
4) Use Twellow to find targeted industry connections who are actively involved in Twitter. There is a related app on this site that you can use to search people by state or city, which is so important if you are a small business serving a targeted geographic area.
5) Steal contacts from your competitors. If you can find your competitors on social media channels, you can also find their links and followers. This is public information for all to see and so it is perfectly acceptable. P.S. They can do the same thing to you!
6) Use http://my.peoplebrowsr.com/ to do high-powered searches for relevant Twitter users by just about any demographic category you can think of.
7) Have you participated in Twitter “discussions” on subjects related to your area of interest? These discussions are demarcated with a hashtag (#) so you can search for the term and follow the trail of the discussion, whether you are following the people or not. Here’s an example. In the search field in the right hand column of Twitter, I searched for #SMROI because I want to find people who are talking about social media and ROI. I will see a timeline of the discussion and all the people who are participating. Follow them!

There are hundreds of ways to build targeted contacts but these are a few ideas that have worked for me and my clients. What is working for you? Please share in the comment section below.

This article is part of a series on creating business benefits through social media. Other posts:
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