Social Computing's Role in Internal Communications: It's Your Immune System Booster

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A few months ago, I asked "What Is the Role of Social Computing in Internal Communications". I had a conversation yesterday with J who had heard me speak at the IABC Seattle event on 2/25 and both my prep for that event and my conversation with J have helped me clarify my own answer to that question.

Following the IABC event J submitted a question on our Web site about some negative feedback that her client's company had received in response to some employee communication programs.

I had spoken at IABC about the fact that in the absence of an outlet for their frustrations, concerns or questions, employees will stew on them to a damaging degree. My advice was to "take the lid off the stew pot" by building more openness and transparency into your company communication strategy, including the use of social computing technology to engage a wider audience in a more dynamic and equitable exchange of information. Move your strategy from pronouncements to conversations, I said.

In talking with J, it became clear that she and her client are doing a lot of things right in addressing the negativity coming at them, but I think there's a chance here for them to seize the negativity and turn it into an opportunity for the company. Negative feedback hurts, but I believe that if you address the it properly - whether its external negativity from your customers or internal negativity from employees - you can actually create a positive return on negative feedback.

Social computing tools offer a chance to more easily, more quickly and more effectively address negative feedback, but keep them in perspective: social computing tools are just that - tools. They are tactics, not strategies. Solving a problem like the one J was describing starts with your company philosophy and your communication strategy. Once you have that squared away, then its time to determine where or how social computing tools fit.

For a communication challenge like the one J described, my advice is this:

1. First, keep the negativity in perspective. Remember what Abraham Lincoln said: "You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time." I know, negativity hurts, and it's easy to let negative feedback get blown out of proportion. Don't ignore it outright, but don't think you have to change your whole plan because a handful of vocal people didn't like it. Sometimes you can't change the answer, but you can change the sentiment toward the answer depending on whether or not you engage it. Therefore, see #2...
2. Acknowledge the feedback publicly and use it as an opportunity to explain the company values. Acknowledge the feedback and tell them you understand they're not happy with the answer: you can't change the answer but you can explain how you got to it. Expose your thinking. They see that your answer wasn't arbitrary; it's based on reasoning and a set of values you can articulate.
3. Do that engagement in a public forum, so it's not in a hidden channel, but you make it visible to the entire community. This is where social computing tools like social networks, a blog with comments or even just a discussion forum can have a dramatic impact. By making your response public and transparent and by establishing ways for the community to engage and interact with what you say, you create the conditions necessary for people in the community to pick up that message and carry it forward on your behalf. As a manager it's tremendously difficult to overcome the cynicism and skepticism that some people naturally have for management. It's an unfortunate truth of management that often people are skeptical of your motivations, they don't believe that your decisions are rooted in the best interests of the employees.

If your motivations are rooted in the best interests of the employees, you should make it clear how they are and you should make it clear not just on a one-to-one basis, but do it globally, openly, transparently. So that everyone can see it. Because if you can explain it in a way that other people will pick up the message for you (and give them the tools to do that) then the dynamic is no longer management vs employee, you change it to a peer-to-peer dynamic and you can leverage the word of mouth phenomenon that works in sales. In this example you just happen to be trying to sell a point of view. But it's harder for you to sell an idea than it is to have an employee's peer sell it to him: they trust their peers more than they trust you. Whether they should or not, that's just the way it goes.

So that's the way I think you can approach an instance like the one J described where an employee is questioning a decision: you can explain the values, do it publicly, and turn it into a message that the community can carry forward for you.

And that is where I think there's also a larger strategic communication opportunity in a situation like this, and one that social computing is uniquely suited to help you with.

If you begin a process of talking more openly about what your company values are - not in direct response to a complaint, but in general and over time -- and reveal how those values manifest themselves in the decisions the company makes, that kind of exposition about company values can inoculate you from future problems because you're teaching the employee population what your values are, how to speak about them and you're creating a situation where in the future if some negativity comes up in a conversation between one employee and another, there's an increased chance that the employee listening to the negativity will have the information and vocabulary to counter the negativity before it gains a foothold and begins doing damage.

Don't assume people know your company values. Be as transparent as you can stand to be in revealing them through words and actions. 

One caveat here, of course, is that you can't just talk about the company values; you also have to follow through and live them. You can't just tell the employees what your values are; you have to create ways for them to experience the values.

But if you can become consistent about delivering experiences consistent with your values, become transparent about explaining the values that your employees are experiencing, and turn your company communication strategy into one that emphasizes engagement and conversation supported by two-way social computing technologies, then through that process you can create what amounts to a company immune system. In your body, you have white blood cells that fight of the negative forces before they become destructive. A company is the same way: the negative forces are dissatisfaction, frustration, dissengagement. You can combat those by building an immune system that is made up of people who understand your values, believe in what you're doing and feel included in it. They will inoculate you against the negativity.

Transparency, open discussion of values, open engagement of employees in a social communication environment are all ways to build that company immune system.

Well, anyway, that's how I see it. What do you think?