3 Ways Enterprises Need To Up Their Game: Give Choices, Make Changes, Take Leaps

Ten years ago, the enterprise was 5 years ahead of the consumer in its technological service offering and systems set up. Now, the consumer of 5 years ahead of the enterprise. Thank you, Apple et al.

It is time for the enterprise to catch up and serve colleagues (as customers / consumers).

Let’s see how, by working backwards from outputs to inputs.

Consumers demand choice. This means the types of device they use (BYOD); and in how they work:

Out loud – sharing their voice
Collaboratively – with existing and new (self-formed) teams
As a peer leader – subverting hierarchies
leveraging their networks – dissipating boundaries

Of course, ironically, the enterprise has no choice in this. If it does not enable the consumer-colleague, the consumer will go guerrilla and deploy their own tools hither and thither.

So, the enterprise wants to give their employees choice through technology. This requires change. Large-scale change.

As Gartner says about the consumer-choice organization:

“The social enterprise is implemented 80% through the organization’s culture, and 20% through its technology.”

(Source: Gartner, The Nexus Effect and How the Nexus of Forces Alters Established Architecture Models, Sept. 2012)

So, 80% of the effort is about change and culture. The main change in deploying choice is giving up control. Less oversight; fewer gatekeepers; a lighter touch. Herein lies the opportunity we have been looking for to empower! To TRUST! But, easier said than done.

Here is the not the post to talk about how to change – see CAWW for real-life expertise – but if you want to make real change, fundamental change, you need to leap.

Ask yourself these two questions:

Is your company ready?
Are you ready to sponsor it?

The two questions are unrelated. Even if the answer to the first question is yes, it does not mean it is easy; hence, question two is equally important. You will need broad shoulders, to know how to take a beating, to work out how to keep movin’ forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_o3_iwUNLk

If you take the leaps, and make the changes, and give the choices: wow! Welcome to the future of work.

←This Much We Know.→