Tag Archives: engagement

Meetings are the symptom of bad organisation. Yes, but no, but maybe?

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20130414-191305.jpgFor anyone who works in a large organisation this will resonate. You can back it up with comments you might have heard over the years, like; “meetings suck the life-force out of me”, “that’s two hours of my life I will never get back” and “that was a big waste tax payers / shareholders money”.

Top tip for really dull meetings: pretend you have to visit the bathroom. Go and do some useful work, then return just before the end of the meeting. Nobody will have the courage to ask why you took so long.

Back to the full quote by Peter Drucker, “meetings are the symptom of bad organisation. The fewer meetings the better”.

The point seems to be that meetings represent a failure to properly plan and organise what you are doing. As a result you end up in meetings trying to fix things that haven’t worked. Ultimately if you have to spend time in meetings, you aren’t doing the things that really matter like: making products or delivering services.

There is plenty of research and figures to back up the idea that meetings are a problem. This paper by Romano & Nunamaker analyses a huge amount of the research written about meetings and presents some depressing findings:

  • Many reviews and surveys reveal that meetings dominate workers and managers time and yet are considered to be costly, unproductive and dissatisfying.
  •  The number of meetings and their duration has been steadily increasing.
  •  Studies of managers and knowledge workers reveal that they spend between 25%-80% of their time in meetings.
  • Self estimates of meeting productivity by managers in many different functional areas range from 33% – 47%.

I said it was depressing. Just imagine you are one of those knowledge workers or managers who spend 80% of their time in meetings, of which only 47% of that time is productive. That’s over 40% of your time in work, 2 days a week, doing something that is useless (and we worry about people wasting time on social media…….).

This lack of achievement and the frustration that goes with it has to have an impact upon your level of engagement and sense of job satisfaction. This paper by Rogelberg et al in Human Resource Management (March-April 2010) makes the link between overall job satisfaction and meeting satisfaction. It goes on to suggest that meeting satisfaction could be used as part of job satisfaction measures and employee engagement.

If you fancy a more in-depth look at this topic, and potential solutions, one of the co-authors of the paper, Joseph A. Allen runs the Centre for Meeting Effectiveness Lab  at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. There are some useful links on the page to work that the Lab is doing.

So, we need to ban all meetings! (Not quite yet……Rambo)

This could be one response to the ‘meetings problem’. As attractive as it might seem (to some people) it might actually make things worse. Meetings are very necessary for transparent decision making, relationship building and knowledge exchange. I’ve argued before that knowledge exchange is a social process  and meetings are a good place to achieve this. What we need is better meetings.

Having better meetings depends upon better process and people’s behaviour. Before any of this you need to be confident that you need the meeting in the first place, which links back to the Peter Drucker quote, “the fewer meetings the better”.

Meeting process and behaviours are two things I plan to write some posts about soon. In the meanwhile some more meeting quotes: (there are thousands on the web)

  • “A meeting is an interaction where the unwilling, selected from the uninformed, led by the unsuitable, to discuss the unnecessary, are required to write a report about the unimportant.” Kayser
  • “An employee who needs permission to buy a box of paperclips can spend tens of thousands of dollars worth of employee time on bad meetings.”

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Meetings are very necessary for many good reasons like; transparent decision making, relationship building and knowledge exchange.
  2. The numbers and duration of meetings for managers and knowledge workers is increasing.
  3. The costs of bad meetings in lost productivity and reduced staff satisfaction are huge. We need to have better meetings, starting now.

Picture Source: http://venturevillage.eu/make-meetings-effective. Some useful tips here on how to make meetings more effective.

20130414-191327.jpgAn old favourite.

Newsletter vrs Podcast, Who Wins? Remember, a paper newsletter can also keep you warm.

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20121216-140255.jpgMy father in law once told me about how managed the mountains of mail that landed on his desk as the Head of a large High School. One of his routines was to drop all of the newsletters neatly into a box with the intention of reading them at the end of term. Mostly they ended up on the bonfire, unread. This was pre recycling days but I don’t think much has changed.

This week I encountered several people who enthusiastically described how they were going to ‘change the world’ by sending newsletters (I’m exaggerating a bit, not like me I know). The point is that their passion for the cause, energy and commitment were not in doubt. Sadly though I felt their enthusiasm it was a bit unrealistic and miss-directed. Haven’t we been down the well trodden ‘let’s send out a newsletter and change the world’ path many times before?  Just to illustrate here are a few learning points from the week.

There are apps to automatically remove newsletters.  I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but there are. Unroll.me is an app that does this under the banner ‘End Email Overload’. Here is a description of how Sarah Kessler reduced 271 subscriptions to 17 and packaged had them into a single email using unroll.me

The underlying motivation seems to be that most newsletter subscriptions are a nuisance that should be removed from your email inbox. Something newsletter editors might want to think about?

Prevention is better than cure.  There are plenty of people advocating the ‘just say no’ approach. If you search online for information on how to deal with email overload it’s not long before you encounter advice telling you not to sign up for email newsletters in the first place and un-subscribe from any you currently receive.

The emailcharter.org has got some very helpful advice on how to prevent email overload, focused upon individuals taking responsibility for their actions. When it comes to newsletters I particularly like their ‘Join Our Mailing List’ button. This has a note next to it saying “Don’t Click This! “  Go and click it and see what happens

Newsletters seem to have acquired the status of ‘problem’. Something that clogs up your inbox which you’ll never ever read.

Paper newsletters don’t get treated any better. Saturday morning at home is time to sort through the week’s post. This week generated six newsletters that went directly from package to recycling bin without passing through the brain. OK, there were some things like the ‘Greyhound Rescue Shelter News’, but you get the point.

The carefully crafted design, eloquently written content and cost of printing don’t count for much if the newsletter closely follows the junk mail into the recycling bin (I think I might actually take more in if I were glancing at them before throwing them onto the bonfire…..?).

Good News, there is another way…….Podcasts.  While I was engaged in my Saturday morning chores I had a podcast playing.  This was the disruptive social care podcast from Shirley Ayres and Stuart Arnott. Listening to Shirley, Stuart and their guests is one my most useful learning experiences (it’s like Radio 4, but better….).

This podcast is in a completely different league to newsletters and as it happens the guest this week picked up on the point. Richard Humphries, Senior Research Fellow at The Kings Fund made a comment along the lines of….  ‘the social care sector produces lots of outputs, reports, papers etc which he struggles to keep up with. However, he always finds time to listen to the podcast which provides a fresh perspective’ I think that pretty much says it all.

Do have a listen to the disruptive social care podcast for yourself, it’s a great example of how to share knowledge. Even if social care isn’t your main area of interest, it’s surprising what you can learn.

So, what’s the PONT?

  • Knowledge exchange is a complicated area where multiple channels of communication are possible. Knowing what works for your target audience is essential.
  • The trusty old newsletters (paper or digital) do get treated a bit like spam or junk mail. Something editors need to recognise.
  • Podcasts offer a fresh perspective which is very engaging for many people. The time will come when they are the ‘standard approach’ that the newsletter used to be.

Guilt Free Continuous Improvement with Cardboard and Sticky Tape

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Good News! I’ve found a way of not feeling guilty about ‘over’ enjoying myself during the sort of team building events where I have to build the Eiffel Tower out of cardboard, pipe cleaners and sticky tape. Many people will have participated in similar exercises (with variable degrees of enthusiasm) but I suspect that most will be left wondering, “What on earth did that have to do with work?” Well, I’ve found a real world application which is tried and tested, high impact and ‘return on investment proofed’, continuous improvement (CI) technique.

I saw it during an IdeasUK network visit to a manufacturing company where it was presented as part of their CI approach. It involved Lean Process re-design and lots of cardboard and sticky tape. This is what I learned.

  1. As part of their CI approach the organisation routinely reviewed each of their processes. A dedicated team supported local teams to carry out a review of what they did daily and develop improved new processes.
  2. The review started with some data collection and process mapping. There were lots of familiar CI tools used; observe the process, eliminate waste, identify improvements etc. Plenty of flipcharts with process maps and actions were produced, all good solid CI activity.
  3. Now the good bit. The team then created a scale model of their ideal process, using cardboard and sticky tape.  This was fantastic to see and walk through. The team included the smallest detail to ensure the process worked for them. Who better to do this sort of process design than the people who actually know how it works.
  4. The next stage was to build a working prototype and test it for a month. To illustrate the value of this stage I was given an example of how things changed between cardboard scale model and the final construction. A 6 foot plus team member had been on holiday during the cardboard mock-up stage and their place had been taken by someone significantly shorter. The impact of the difference in height became obvious during the prototype stage and adjustments were made. Problem solved.
  5. Finally the process is fixed and routine manufacturing resumes until the next scheduled process review, or some other trigger.

Obviously there is a lot more fine detail involved in this CI activity than outlined here. What I wanted to emphasise was the impact of building the full-scale model using cardboard and sticky tape.

In many improvement activities it is quite common for people to jump straight from good idea to full-scale implementation. The cardboard model is helpful in a number of ways:

  • It allows for a pause to ask the really challenging questions, “Does this really work?” This is potentially less confrontational and more productive than reviewing someone’s ideas written down on paper;
  • It allows people to interact and develop the solutions as they build the model. Better solutions are allowed to emerge as ideas are tested and refined;
  • It engages the people who really know the process;
  • It’s more realistic team building than recreating a French Architectural Icon on a training course; and
  • It’s really good fun.

I know some people may say “…but this is manufacturing, this approach would never work in public service delivery (we are different, we are special)”  All I would say is, why not have a go, cardboard and sticky tape are for life, not just for team building.

So what’s the PONT?

  1. Fully involving the people who do the job in the design of the process they operate is the most effective means of achieving continuous improvement.
  2. Prototyping /scale models are great ways of involving people and testing new ideas.
  3. There is a purpose behind many of the things we do on training courses and team building; we just need to understand what it is and bring them back into work a bit more often.

Picture source: Thanks for the use of the cardboard Eiffel Tower image. http://nycmakesmyheartbeat.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img_2355.jpg?w=480

This picture shows how far you could take this approach…. there are a surprising number of ‘cardboard office’ images on the internet.

Dysfunctional organisations can turn a good person bad.

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You may have heard the proverb “if you sup with the devil you need a (very) long spoon”. The idea is that if you mix with bad people you should be careful not to be influenced by them and start behaving badly yourself. It’s a very old sentiment that was mentioned as far back as 1386 in Chaucer’s ‘The Squires Tale’.

This week I got a modern, evidence based example of this aspect of human behavior at a Leadership & Management Wales (LMW) seminar.

“Management behaving badly” was presented by Professor Ralph Fevre of Cardiff University on the findings of a huge piece of research work into ill-treatment at work. The report ‘Insight into ill-treatment in the workplace: patterns, causes and solutions’ summarises the research which involved almost 4000 interviews. The report is well worth reading for anyone interested in HR, employee engagement, organisational development or just being a more effective manager or leader. A few points I took from the seminar:

Problems

  • Small organisations tend to have less of a problem with ill-treatment;
  • Bigger organisations have a higher level of ill-treatment despite ‘proper’ policies (Dignity at work etc) and HR Departments which are supposed to prevent ill-treatment;
  • Many policies and subsequent interventions, to deal with ill-treatment, don’t seem to be effective;
  • Manager against subordinate was the most common form of ill-treatment; and
  • Managers themselves are highly likely to suffer ill-treatment.

Some solutions

  • Manage the managers. Supporting managers to develop their people skills is an essential part of treating people properly, and getting the most out of them. It’s disappointing that the archetype of the technical expert with poor people skills, promoted to a managerial position who then causes havoc was mentioned several times during the session. The evidence suggests that there are still plenty of them out there (have a look at the report case studies).
  • Manage sickness absence properly. The evidence points towards the inappropriate application of sickness absence policies, particularly against people with serious conditions. Implement the policies properly and fairly (train managers to do this), and you prevent some of the ill-treatment.

One finding did stand out for me. This was the importance of the overall culture of an organisation. It was summed up as, “if you have a dysfunctional organisation the levels of ill-treatment will be greater”. This issue around culture is linked to the issue of managers   being the source of ill-treatment against staff, and being the subject of ill-treatment themselves.  It seems like a case study of behavior begets behavior and an example of a ‘vicious circle’ that arises from ill-treatment from (and to) customers and service users. The role of leadership in addressing such a culture and reversing ill-treatment is fundamental, which is probably why LMW put on the seminar. Good choice.

Linking back to the idea at the top of this post….do be careful where you choose to work. If it’s a dysfunctional organisation where ill-treatment is commonplace there is a chance you’ll be on the receiving end of it. I wouldn’t want to crush anyone’s hope and desire to change organisations (or the world) but do be aware that “if you sup with the devil you need a very long spoon”.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Ill-treatment of staff does happen in organisations, but is more likely in big compared to small organisations (see the is 150 the magic number post).
  2. If you are a manager, you are likely to receive, as well as, dish out ill-treatment.
  3. Organisational culture has a huge influence on ill-treatment, as well as you, so be careful who you sup with.

Sticking it to the Man! Painted Sparrows on Alcatraz and Disengaged Employees.

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Apologies to any birdwatchers that recognise this as a Painted Bunting, and not a common brown sparrow that has been ‘jazzed up’ by an Alcatraz inmate.

I read about the Alcatraz painted sparrows in a book by former inmate Darwin Coon. Back in the 1960s the Alcatraz prisoners creatively used their painting equipment on the local brown sparrows they had captured. The ‘pimped’ sparrows were then released back into the wild.

This was relatively harmless fun, until the Alcatraz ‘colony of exotic birds’ caught the attention of the press and local branch of the Audubon Society (similar to the British RSPB).  On the ensuing field trip to Alcatraz the hoax was exposed, with considerable embarrassment for the authorities and retribution for the prisoners.

Darwin Coon cites this as one of the examples of ‘sticking it to the man’ he experienced during his many years of incarceration. The idea struck a chord with me. Over the years I’ve encountered many people who claim to be ‘sticking it to the man’. Frequently this is at work and appears to have a lot to do with employee disengagement.

The Urban Dictionary (a great resource for decoding my kids conversations) defines ‘stick it to the man’ as, “to perform an act of vandalism or general civil disobedience in order to oppose the power of the man”. You might now ask, “who is The Man?”

The Man is a slightly nebulous concept that can be both positive and negative. For ‘stick it to’ purposes ‘The Man’ is a very powerful and shadowy corporation or government body that is acting oppressively and ‘keeping us down’. It’s not possible to actually identify ‘The Man’, which brings me to the link with employee disengagement.

On occasions I’ve heard people complain about ‘Them’ as being the cause of their problems in work. When questioned on who ‘Them’ are they give a vague explanation, generally pointed in the direction of ‘people at the top’. They might as well be talking about ‘The Man’.  It’s disappointing how much effort some of these people then put into ‘sticking it to the man’ and dragging down an organisation. I’ve heard this behavior referred to as ‘organisational terrorism’ or plain old meetings sabotage. I’m sure many of us will know of an individual who is working hard, ‘sticking it to the man’ in their workplace.

If you fancy practical advice on ‘sticking it to the man’ have a look at this video. As a parody it’s great, but it does make think, “what is the point?” At the end of the day, acts of vandalism or disobedience against The Man (persons unknown and unseen) are ultimately pointless.

Returning to disengaged employees its worth thinking about what can be done about it. One suggestion I heard is to make ‘The Man’ more visible. Apparently it is far easier to justify being negative towards the unknown or unseen than it is to someone who you recognise, and who knows your name. There may be a lesson here for leaders and managers to be more visible and get to know their employees. Maybe then there wouldn’t be a ‘Them’ or ‘The Man’ to ‘stick it to’?

Back on Alcatraz ‘The Man’ (The Warden) was pretty obvious and the regime was oppressive by design. I think ‘sticking it to the man’ by jazzing up a few sparrows wasn’t that bad (animal rights permitting) after all, according to Darwin Coon the alternatives could be much worse.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Disengaged employees (like prisoners) can be incredibly resourceful and creative in acts of ‘sticking it to the man’.
  2. Distant, aloof, disconnected or disengaged managers can create a sense of ‘them over there’ or ‘The Man’, where acts of ‘sticking it to’ become much easier to justify.
  3. Look out for painted sparrows in your organisation (small acts of rebellion). They may a sign of something bigger under the surface.

Photo source: Painted Bunting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Painted_Bunting_by_Dan_Pancamo.jpg

Opportunity in Adversity. Glass Half Full Thinking at Arriva Trains Wales (@ArrivaTW)

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Here’s quick follow up to the post about Arriva Trains Wales and their journey to improved customer service.

Last week saw another blip on the tracks. On Tuesday morning damaged signaling cable caused significant disruption. I know because I was due to meet people who were stuck at Newport (and I picked it up through Twitter).

It was interesting to observe that those people making use of Twitter (following the various train companies and Twitter hash tags #) were far better informed (and less stressed) than those who weren’t, but that’s another story……

What has grabbed my attention is the request ATW put out on Twitter for feedback on how communication worked during the disruption.  I think this approach is interesting in a number of ways. My observations:

  • You have been horribly delayed in your journey (not actually ATW’s fault), but they have tried their best to communicate with you while it was happening;
  • They have been honest and open about the limitations of their current communication  methods (no live tweeting on the disruption, see picture below);
  • But they do care about how they communicate with you, so they are asking how things worked on Tuesday so that they can make things better;
  • Sending this ‘how can we get better’ message takes some the heat out of the situation (in my opinion);
  • Gathering feedback in a structured manner while the issue is still live should capture information that is ‘fresh in the mind’, so it’s probably more accurate;
  • In my view, this is better than something six months down the track when a generic customer service questionnaire asks a potentially vague question about ‘communication during disruption’; and.
  • How good is your memory of the communication aspects of the event likely to be in 2 weeks time, let alone 6 months? This (almost) real-time feedback has got to be more useful.

I really like what ATW are trying to do here. It’s a good attempt at trying to engage with service users through Twitter as part of the improvement journey. Even though it was a difficult situation they have seen an opportunity to try and make things better. Real ‘glass half full’ thinking, nice one ATW.

I wonder if any other public service providers might have a go at something like this?

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. During disruption, service users really appreciate knowing what’s going on. Twitter offers an opportunity to do that.
  2. Being open and honest about your limitations and asking for information on ‘how do we improve’ is a good way of engaging service users.
  3. Gathering feedback while the situation is still ‘fresh in the mind’ should provide information which is more accurate than a survey months later.

Open and honest communication with @_LaurenCook_. Followed by a few screen shots of the survey. A wide range of communication channels available. I count 12!

Engaged or actively disengaged employees. Where do you focus energy?

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Here is a guest post from my good friend Ena Lloyd. A better biog will follow once I get some decent internet connection in Tuscany. Thanks Ena…..

I also attended the IdeasUk Employee Engagement network meeting, hosted by the Wales Audit Office in Cardiff, where it was great to meet colleagues not only from the Welsh Public Sector, but also the Voluntary and Private Sector who I fully intend to meet up with again to exchange some ideas.  There was great buzz on the day, particularly at the end of the workshops. All three workshops  were very engaging (pardon the pun but true!), very different, and were hosted by:-

They represent very different parts of the UK business but they all had two key themes running through their workshops:-

1.      Keep it simple; and

2.      You have to continually evolve to keep staff engaged.

What I also took away from all three workshops was that all three organisation had re-launched their staff engagement schemes several times since its initial launch and most importantly, that it’s OK to do this.  In fact, it’s essential for a number of reasons, namely, staff turnover, advancement of new technology and also to simply remind staff of the scheme. They on average, re-launch or update every two to three years. They viewed it very much as an evolving process.

There was an added moment of realisation for me in the Ricoh workshop hosted by Rob Bland and Chris Nicholls.  They were talking about the results of their latest staff engagement and the ratio staff engagement at their Telford.  They showed a recent slide which highlighted the level of engagement amongst their staff in terms of:-

  • Engaged;
  • Disengaged; and
  • Actively disengaged;

What Chris Nicholls said next, brought ‘yes of course moment’ to mind. He simple pointed to the part of the slide which highlighted  the engaged staff, and said, we only focus on these staff. Adding we do some work with the middle ground of staff who are not engaged to see what we can to try to convert them to being engaged. However we don’t not worry about the actively disengaged,…………………… Why waste our energy, as we are unlikely to convert them, We focus only the staff who are engaged and make no apology for this.

When Chris said that, i immediately saw parallels between the concept of focussing on engaged staff and the mantra which is constantly being repeated on the successful House of Tiny Tearaways programme by the eminently sensible Dr Tanya Byron, child psychologist. She constantly repeats to parents struggling with the challenging behaviour of their young children, acknowledge and praise positive/good behaviour in children.  Ignore or don’t acknowledge poor behaviour.  Well it’s just the same for adults really isn’t it!

What I’m taking away from this is simply this, direct your resources where there is greatest impact. If some people don’t want to engage, don’t waste your energies.

Three Very Different Organisations, Five Common Words. IdeasUK Employee Engagement Network Meeting.

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Last week I had the great joy of attending an IdeasUK Employee Engagement network meeting in Cardiff, hosted by the Wales Audit Office. The three organisations presenting workshops were incredibly different yet, I picked up on five common themes: Longevity, Trust, Evidence, Belief and Passion.

Question: Are these the key elements of success for any employee engagement approach?

To set the scene, the organisations involved couldn’t be more different in relation to what they do, the numbers and type of people they employ and where they operate:

  • HSBC, financial services and banking (global);
  • Ministry of Defence (GEMS Scheme), defence (domestic and global); and
  • Ricoh Manufacturing UK (Telford), photocopier manufacturing (European wide).

The success of each of these organisations and what they have achieved in employee engagement through their staff ideas schemes was obvious to see through the day. What struck me were common phrases/words/ideas/approaches/beliefs and values that kept popping up, despite them being very different organisations. Here is my take on what I think linked these three very different organisations, and what seems to support successful employee engagement.

Longevity: Each one of these organisations has been pursuing a path of employee engagement for a long time. The MoD started Gems in the mid 1990s and it’s even longer for Ricoh (1986). I think this long-term view is critical in developing a culture where employee engagement is taken seriously and people live the values through their everyday behaviours. Things like the ‘Thank You’ culture in HSBC don’t happen overnight.

Trust: This is mentioned so often that it’s almost a cliché; however the difference between saying it and actually trusting people is huge. It was impressive to see how HSBC trust their staff to interact with an internal social media type platform to share ideas. In the highly regulated world of financial services it would be so easy just to say no, ‘manage the risk’ and shut everything down. I heard the phrase ‘why wouldn’t you trust your staff, they know the job they do better than anyone’ several times during the day.

Evidence: Every single organisation had rock solid evidence of the benefits their suggestion schemes had delivered. These ranged from a 14:1 return on investment through to hundreds of millions of pounds saved. My key learning point was the necessity of having solid evidence when someone questions the effectiveness of employee engagement and suggestion schemes. It’s surprising how many people ‘just don’t get it ‘(see the David MacLeod & Nita Clarke report) so you will need solid evidence.

Belief: You’ve got to believe, because if you don’t, how will you convince anyone else? Everyone I met totally believed in the power of employee engagement; nothing else to say.

Passion: This absolutely stands out for me as the defining characteristic of what makes great employee engagement. Passion is what I saw in all three organisations across the day but if you want one example of what passion inspires here goes…….

Walking out of one of the workshops with Ricoh an individual who works in the NHS turned around and said out loud, to everyone…… “I found that inspiring, I would like to come and work for Ricoh”. Not a bad impact after sitting there for an hour.

It was an incredibly useful session and I would like to say thanks very much to:

  • Stuart Laws – Ministry of Defence
  • Rob Bland & Chris Nicholls – Ricoh UK Products
  • Zufi Yousaf & Michael Davies – HSBC
  • Anthony Denatale – IdeasUK

I know that IdeasUK are planning to keep the momentum going by publishing a series of blogs about the day. This is part of the pledge I made during the day to help keep things alive through my own blog posts.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Longevity is a key feature of successful employee engagement which other organisations would benefit from thinking about.
  2. Evidence of success (and cash savings) is highly necessary if you want to convince the ‘just don’t get it’ crowd.
  3. Passion above all will inspire people to do great things.

Links:

http://blog.ideasuk.com/2012/07/06/i-pledge/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/employee-engagement-kaizen-passion-in-the-west-midlands-ricoh-telford-to-be-exact/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/ricoh-gemba-mat-the-best-of-ohno-circles-gemba-walks-and-employee-engagement/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/gemba-walks-kaizen-the-elvis-way-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/social-media-staff-ideas-better-engagement-a-bank-that-says-yes/

http://www.goodpracticewales.com/Resources/Employee-Engagement

Just to emphasise the point about longevity……

Getting beyond the 1% rule – Intrinsic motivation and online communities

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Recently I posted about the rule of 1% for online participation and why I think it still applies in many  of the online communities I frequent. This is a ‘note to self’ and a plea to a few people I know with the ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy for online knowledge sharing. I admire the commitment, but it is worth thinking about how you move beyond 1% participation. That’s got to be good for the business case and the return on investment figures. It also avoids the sad faces when things get closed down after 12 months because not many people turned up and hardly anyone stuck around.

There are two really good sources of information I’ve found on this, both on the sponge.com website. Sponge is a service that provides a platform for online Q&A communities. It also has a very helpful blog that talks about engagement and participation in online communities. Given what they do, I think they are in a good position to provide this view.

The first source to mention is 6 reasons why we participate in online communities. These are all things many of us will recognise, but maybe not think about when we set up our online communities. Check out the post for further explanation and links to research behind each of the reasons why people participate:

  1. Anticipated Reciprocity
  2. Reputation
  3. Sense of Efficacy
  4. Altruism
  5. Sense of Belonging
  6. Emotional Connection

The second post is about motivation in online community participation. The standout message for me is summarised by the graphic they use. Basically, participation will peak early on for reasons to do with newness and then decline. Whether or not that decline becomes permanent or grows and stabilises depends upon the degree of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation within the community. I’ve seen this happen, in both online and offline communities. Looking at this from a 1% rule of participation perspective, the lower line in this graphic could represent the 1% of people actively participating to keep the community alive.

The extrinsic motivation factors mentioned in the post are things like rewards and quizzes, great for getting things started. When it gets down to intrinsic motivation, the post identifies three things; learning, self-expression and fun. Look at the explanation in the sponge post, but from my own perspective here’s an observation on how this might apply to the world I know:

  1. Learning. This is great, the primary reason why online knowledge sharing communities get established. It’s just a case of making sure that people can learn as well as share. This might require someone actively posting material for others to learn from and respond to. What we need to avoid is this just being activity by the eager 1%.
  2. Self Expression. This sort of answers the point above. If people are able to express themselves through posting comments and their own material we could get a virtuous circle  developing. The big barrier is still however the confidence to post material. Something I’ve talked about before, but things like micro-participation and private discussion groups will help to build confidence and more significantly, trust.
  3. Fun. This is a tricky one. There is a bit of an ‘anti fun’ movement in parts of the world I know. Regardless of that, I think we should persevere. I’m open to suggestions on how to inject some fun into an online community on for example….. refuse collection vehicle maintenance…….. there must be a way.

Thankfully there are some shining lights I know of. Here is a link to a post by Helen Reynolds about an online community that’s doing very well, Monmouthshire Foster Carers. They seem to have the intrinsic motivation factors I’ve been talking about which is great.

So, what’s the PONT?

  1. Anticipate a significant drop in participation during the early stages of and online community (I’ve seen it take some people by surprise).
  2. Online communities need careful thought in their design of you want people to participate and the community to grow and be sustainable.
  3. Think carefully about how you support the intrinsic motivation around: learning, self-expression and fun (any pointers on fun please let me know). How do you get better than 1% participation?

Picture source: Graph sponge.com website

Why us Welsh make the best guides at German Museums

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Recently I visited 3 Berlin museums in a single day, impressive I know, 6 hours of intensive learning and culture. These were all good learning experiences; however the best one was delivered by someone Welsh, Shaun from Aberystwyth!  I’m not being biased here, there are good reasons I’ll explain. I’m not going to give you a ‘Trip Advisor’ review, these are my personal criteria for deciding what makes a good experience at a museum, here goes:

1. Attendant Interaction. Did the museum attendants engage with me? Did they make me think or did they intimidate and make me want to leave?

2. Go backwards factor. Did I find myself going back to things I‘d already seen, for a second look? Zig-zagging my way around museums is an annoying personality trait, but the more I retrace my steps the better my experience.

3. Boring my family later. The more facts I can remember, to regurgitate to the family after the visit, the better the museum. Poor Geof, my cycling companion suffered this time.

Here are the scores for each of the establishments I visited:

Deutsches Historisches Museum The DHM is a traditional state run museum with free entry. It felt like most of the museums I’ve ever visited; lots of interesting things in glass cases with explanation cards for you to read. I visited the section covering 1918 to the present day and to be honest, by the time I’d made it to the Berlin Wall display I’d had enough.

Attendants: Impeccably dressed in smart uniforms. However there was no interaction. They just stood by with that intimidating “touch anything and you get thrown out” expression.

The tour: Very linear. Start at the beginning and dutifully “read” your way to the end, wasn’t tempted to retrace my steps once.

Remembering facts: One key fact about the Trümmerfrau, the ‘rubble women’ who helped reconstruct German cities after the war.

Overall score, a solid 6 out of 10. Most memorable thing, the intimidating attendants.

DDR Museum This was about the years of Soviet occupation in East Germany from 1945 until 1989. It is privately funded and claims to be one of the most interactive museums in the world. I won’t argue with that, it was fantastic, well worth the 6€ entry fee.

Attendants: If there were any I didn’t notice them. I was too busy opening doors, listening to covert recordings and sitting in the Trabant honking the horn. The place was packed, and everyone was so involved, I’d argue that you didn’t need Attendants.

The tour: This was ‘zig-zag’ heaven for me. There was no obvious linear path and I retraced my steps on several occasions. At the final door I headed back in for another view of a typical East German sitting room. I must admit it looked pretty similar a South Wales Valleys sitting room circa 1970’s……..

Remembering Facts:  Plenty to ponder on here. Strange things keep coming back to me like how long it took for your Trabant to arrive (16 years) and the impact of lignite (brown coal) opencast mining.

Overall score, an 8.5 out of 10. The museum shop at the end was a bit too earnest.

Flak Tower Walking Tour  This was a tour of one of the partly demolished Flak Towers built to deter bombers in 1941. You know it’s going to be serious stuff when they insist upon checking you have sensible shoes before they will sell you a ticket and recommend a warm coat because it will be cold. This cost 10€, was run by a ‘not for profit’ organisation and couldn’t have been more professional.

Remembering facts:  Unfortunately poor Geof now knows more about the Flak Towers than he ever wanted to. I soaked it up like a sponge (3m thick walls, 100,000 cubic meters of concrete etc etc) and regurgitated it all to him, and my wife, kids, colleagues and complete strangers since I’ve got back home.

The tour: I did stay in line for this one. The environment was quite scary and it was very reassuring to have a Health and Safety Attendant at the back making sure nobody got lost.

Attendants: Absolutely brilliant and I’m not just saying that because he was Welsh. This was someone who loved the job. He was passionate about the subject, knew it in incredible detail and was happy telling you all about it. This was knowledge exchange and learning at its best.

Overall score, 11 out of 10. It was that good. All German museums should have a Welsh attendant.

So what’s the PONT?

1. The contrast between what I learnt from listening to and interacting with Shaun at the Flak Tower and reading cards in glass cases at the DHM was huge.

2. The acts of looking and reading feels much harder to do than listening to someone explaining and asking questions. 90 minutes at the Flak Tower flew past, even in the cold and dark.

3. People make a massive difference. An engaged and passionate guide at the Flak Tower turned a good experience into a fantastic one I’ll not forget for a long time, thanks Shaun.