Blog
Memo on building a collaborative enterprise
Because Gestalt Effect is as much philosophy as practice, we wanted a manifesto to express our thinking. Reggie wrote one. I didn't like it, so he used it in a blog post. Then I wrote one. Reggie didn't like it, so I using it in this blog post. No worries, though. We got it together and wrote a manifesto we both like. You can read it here. Just be prepared to read it again, after awhile, because the manifesto will be the most edited piece on the site. That's less about changes in the collaboration industry and more about the evolution of our thinking, as we are exposed to more situations that push the limits of our manifesto. Below are my thoughts on what it takes to build a collaborative environment inside the enterprise:
Design Thinking
- At the core, developing an enterprise that fosters collaborative thinking requires design strategy — use design thinking to help your company solve issues around enterprise collaboration
- To be clear, when we talk about design it isn't about styling and window dressing, it's about the thoughtful and considered form and function of you product.
- Think architects, not painters. If the building design is incorrect, you can't fix it with a coat of paint. Also, you can't start building and then call in an architect to make the building better.
- The Design Council found that of the companies rated "Fast Growing," 47% of them rank design as their number one priority (versus 16% of all companies studied).
- If you want to be a design driven company? You have to start inside.
Strategy
- Leaders take risks. If you want to play it safe, be prepared to play follow the leader
- A 2008 study by Stanford and Neutron found that top executives defined aligning strategy with customer experiences as one of their to 10 stickiest, pervasive and seemingly insolvable problems.
- If you want to collaborate better with your customers, potential customers, their friend and colleagues? You need to learn to collaborate internally with each other first. Build a culture of collaboration.
- Be sure to frame your problems, design the solutions, and build consensus to launch a culture of collaboration.
Collaborative Tools
- If you go out and buy a collaborative tool and deploy it in your organization, will that fix your internal collaboration issues? Maybe, but the smart money is on No.
- Deming, of Sigma Six fame, listed over-reliance on technology to solve problems as one of the "deadly diseases" of business and management
- Technology over a broken process is just another layer that doesn't work over something else that doesn't work. It didn't fix anything.
- Trust us, we've done this a lot and have seen it done incorrectly too many times...design first, technology after.
Planning
- Failing to plan is planning to fail. If you don't have time to do it right, how will you find time to do it over? Measure twice, cut once. There's a reason for sayings like these. When you want to create stronger collaborative environments, they happen to be true. How about this one? Hit the ground running and you'll probably fall down.
- Regardless of whether you engage us, set up clearly defined success criteria. Have a succinct ending to this sentence, "This project will be money well spent if..."
- It's like the old saying, "If you don't know where you're going, you won't know when you've arrived."
Transformational Change
- Keep in mind, sometimes you need a technology solution, sometimes you need a culture shift, sometimes you just need to move 2 desks closer together, sometimes you need all of those.
- Creating a collaborative environment will transform the way your company does business
- Are you ready? ... Are you sure?
- Catalysts are everywhere, when you're ready to see them, you will.
Now it's your turn, what did I miss? Whole sections? Bullet points? Any point you vehemently oppose? Any point where we're in violent agreement?
