The politics of collaboration

[Sean Lew]

Traditionally, organisations hide information from the public to maintian their competitive advantage, secure trade secrets and a whole lot of various reasons. This is logical and I understand. However, within organisations, people also try to hide to improve their position, power and importance. The enterprise 2.0 idea reflects a total opposite of this. People are asked to collaborate, exchange information and share. I call it the “love all, serve all” model.

Let’s face it, within organisations there are always a bunch of people that are like that – love to hide stuff. They do not see the benefit in sharing. Is it true that hiding can propel someone’s career? Can the enterprise 2.0 way propel it even further? These are questions that I can’t answer for sure but I do believe the Enterprise 2.0 can propel someone’s career in a great way.

In any case, how can we change a politically intense environment and get users to share and contribute? First of all, senior management needs to acknowledge that its a problem and it needs to change. There will also be some changes that needs to be made to the company culture, team bonding and common understanding. They can start by doing it themselves and setting an example. One must know that in a politically intense environment, sucking up to senior management is generally one of the traits.

Next, middle management needs to provide a reason for everyone lower in the food chain to come onbaord and use it. I always believe this – if there is no reason for me to do something, why do it?

I think alot of people underestimate the importance of a quality enterprise 2.0 tool. Personally, my team and myself use it daily and posts hepas of information and comment of truck loads of stuff. If its something of such importance, make sure its a good tool and fantastic and pretty tools are pretty cheap too! We cannot just look at the functional requirements but also the look and feel of it. There are plenty of people in the world who are not techies and look at things very differently.

What’s your experience in implementing Enterprise 2.0 in a political sensitive environment? Would be interested to hear your side of the story.



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