The effect of taking down barriers

As part of a governance committee at the bank for which I am doing work, I've had the chance recently to talk with a number of other institutions to see what they think about the idea of pulling down the walls that stop internal individuals working with each other to generate value, perhaps in a synergistic way that goes beyond the individual roles. 

My argument is one that drives a substantial cultural shift: let us assume in the first instance that our people are wanting to do the right thing, and then manage what they can't do by exception, rather than the other way around. Initially,  we've been looking at the tools we use to let our people collaborate and publish information.

Today, that is mostly on their hard disks and in their brains. I was wondering what the effect might be if we made it possible for them to publish anything internally, and let the wisdom of crowds decide what content is useful and what is not.

Most of the banks I've talked to in preparing to argue this position have been somewhat less than enthusiastic about this idea. What, they've wanted to know, will you do about management of all that content? How will your users know if something is authoritative or not? What if someone says something negative internally?  And from those with the specific responsibility for internal communications, there were objections to the fact that in such an environment, anyone would  be able to put out a message.

These are all valid objections, of course. But it is probably also true that such objections are signs of thinking that is locked in a command and control mentality.

Why, actually, do we need to manage the content? Storage is cheap. Search, (at least when properly done) can help you find the signal amongst the noise. Unmanaged content exists all over our businesses today anyway, so why not make it available?

Just what is the definition of authoritative? Is something authoritative because it comes from a particular source, or because it has demonstrated value in its own right? We expect our users to make that kind of decision every time they use the public Internet, so is it too much to suppose they are unable to do so when they browse internal web sites?

And, actually, is it such a bad thing if individuals can say negative things to a particular internal audience? Surely the ability to be negative in a constructive way adds to internal dialogue.

Those in the communications field (that I was able to speak to) have a natural aversion to this. They are all for increased dialogue, as long as they control the message. A natural and important function, of course, but a shift in the way we think about things could be important. Why control every message?

Despite all that, however, it is certainly true that there are regulatory and compliance issues with some of this. There are things you have to publish which must be authoritative and managed. But that's what content management systems are for.

One thing stood out for me most in the interviews I conducted. Those banks that hadn't enacted a policy of providing new collaboration and publishing tools for their staff had them in place anyway. Staff, empowered to collaborate and innovate freely on the public Internet, were seeking similar facilities internally. When they didn't find them, they went ahead and got them for themselves. I've found signs of that happening here at Lloyds TSB already also.

Colin and others have made the point previously that the Internet is disruptive and we must rethink the way we operate our business from a customer perspective. I'd make a further point. The Internet is disruptive, and our people expect us to rethink the way we use them. The empowerment that the Internet has brought them outside the firewall, is now demanded within as well.

Comments

[Mike Schoeffler]

James -

Could not agree more about the importance of wikis for the bank:
http://profitdesk.com/content/2006/08/07/a-giant-step-towords-flawless-execution/

As a matter of practicality, wikis need maintainers - people to correct erroneous information, bad organization, inconsistent formatting, etc. In any sizable community (wikipedia, Lloyds, etc.), people with these skills will feel compelled to keep everything tidy.

It takes a little while to develop these people - probably as long as it takes for the content to coalesce into a recognizable coherent format.

You may be able to win over some naysayers by volunteering (yourself or a member of staff) to maintain until others fill the gap. Just make it obvious that you will be releasing the strings and the community will take it from there.

[Colin Henderson]

I would add the concepts contained in the 1999 Cluetrain Manifesto (free online) remain applicable, and support your valid beiefs.

"Markets are conversations". Networked employees, plus networked customers, carrying on conversations amongst each other and with each other.

[Robbie Wright]

Great post! I can't agree more with your thoughts. I'm in the particualr boat where the CU isn't providing the tools needed to accomplish this, so we're finding creative ways to do it ourselves.

One major hurdle for us is getting people to "let go". We have manual owners that are responsible for getting our SOPs updated and the thought of letting anyone tweak them scares the owners to death. Any thoughts on how to overcome some of their concerns, besides locking down the page???

[John Januszczak]

This reminds me a little bit about a podcast on the wisdom of crowds (search for it on ITConversations.com - a great resource BTW).

I am actually amazed at what is possible when the traditional command and control structures are removed: Wikipedia and open source software are examples that come to mind. There are even examples of cities doing away with traffic signs and achieving great results! I think Mike is right though, there is "infrastructure" of some sort required to pull it off. Open source software, for example, is not necessarily a free for all or anarchy (and either is the Wikipedia for that matter).

[Julian]

An interesting output from Wikimania 2006 supports your experience too:

http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/among_the_wikimaniacs/

"Ross Mayfield said that in four years of building wikis for corporations Socialtext has seen precisely 0 trolls and 0 instances of vandalism. I was astonished by this and polled the entire room. No one reported even a single instance of counterproductive behavior on the wiki."

London Wiki Wednesday last week was full of tales of people whose grass roots wikis were hugely more effective and lower cost than formal internal enterprise content management systems. It seems that where there are wikis, there is a wildfire of collaboration through increased direct communication.