Global Collaboration: Fact or Fiction?
(This post also available on AIIM’s ERM Community blog.)
Recently at Doculabs, we’ve seen a jump in consulting engagements focused on enabling collaboration on a global basis. In addition to their geographic diversity, global organizations face some unique challenges: inconsistent processes, different regulations, and usually a broad portfolio of tools used to accomplish similar functions.
But the most significant challenge is cultural, particularly when the client is trying to enable collaboration. Simply put, collaboration requires contributors and consumers. We know that often only a small subset of individuals are active contributors to forums such as wikis, blogs, and other knowledgebases, but when that number drops to below 1 or 2 percent, you’ve got a problem. The same is true with expertise profiles. Sure, the IT folks can load all of the “address book” information from the HR system, but when the contextual information remains blank – such as skills, areas of interest, project participation history – you’ve got the same problem.
A funny thing happened at one of our global clients in the consumer goods industry. We were asked to diagnose why there was such low adoption of an expertise portal that had been functional for over a year. We took a sampling of 300 people from a broad range of functions and departments. Less than 15 percent had taken the time to complete their individual profiles on the expertise portal. We then checked on LinkedIn, and found that just over 30 percent of THESE SAME INDIVIDUALS had very rich descriptions of their backgrounds available in the public cloud for the rest of the world to see.
So what motivates someone to invest the time on the public forum, while not on the internal corporate system? Heck, why not just abandon the internal expertise portal project and just use LinkedIn? At least you’d have some background material on 30 percent of the users!
Back to culture. In many organizations, our “personal equity” comes from WHO we know, rather than WHAT we know. For example, your manager asks you about historical quality metrics for a product released in 1995. You respond, “I know, we can ask Tony in the service department; he used to work in engineering around that time.” Bingo, that’s why they pay you the big bucks. Tony does the same, often referring people to you when asked about your discipline. Self-preservation.
Can we codify this sequence of events and replace this process with a system? Sure we can, but what’s broken? Nothing, for the individuals involved. As individuals, we have no motivation to change. Yet as a collective organization, there are many benefits. This example is even more applicable in cultures outside North America, where social networking ties are very strong and take years to foster – which has clear implications for the global organization.
On the positive side, many individuals around the globe are excited about working with peers from other cultures and geographies. The new enabling tools make the prospect of collaboration even more achievable. Clearly, finding the right use cases with motivated contributors is critical. It is also prudent to prioritize geographies where acceptance is likely and where social networks are formed more dynamically.
Ultimately, few of us know how global systems like these in the collaboration space are going to shake out. But the consumer-led innovation occurring in the public domain offers many insightful clues for corporate initiatives, and deserves a closer look on the part of corporations looking to make use of collaboration tools on a global basis.
Fact or fiction? I think it is both. As you pointed out, most of the challenge is cultural. We have come a long way in terms of tools, technology and even in appreciation for the value of global collaboration. Yet too often organizations ignore the key element of culture and its impact. There are many cultural influences that we cannot control or transform; however there are many pervasive cultural influences organizations can transform that will ignite the interest and momentum critical to the success of global collaboration.
I propose five key disciplines that are required for organizations to break down traditional barriers and create the required pathways to transform their culture. Passionate employee engagement, purposeful business strategy, customer experience values, partnership depth and transparency and exceptional corporate practices. I speak of these in more detail in my blog “Celebrate the Age of Transparency”. In summary, organizations need to invest in their culture, walk the talk and develop employees that act like owners and clients that trust them. It all boils down to the creating experiences that breed value, trust and loyalty. There is a growing appreciation for Customer Experience Management as a core practice which will have a positive impact on organizational cultures. This movement will aid in creating the required environment for global collaboration to be successful.
Cultural transformation is not a one-time effort, this is a life-long commitment and our powerful tools and technology are waiting for us to catch up.
One final note, some failed efforts have nothing to do with culture, as you pointed out with the example of the expertise portal. Of course I do not know the details but it seems like a wasted investment, why did they not choose to leverage what has been done very effectively by LinkedIn? Proper initial due diligence probably could have prevented that one, maybe it could have been prevented if they had engaged you before they got started.
Thanks for the great provocative post!