Start your organization´s online learning journey now
While the trend towards the use of online tools and social media for marketing purposes is undeniable, since consumers are pushing for it, most organisations struggle with the use of online media in its internal communication. Often organizations have an intranet, but most times this intranet is static and leaves little room for interactivity and by that kills the power of it: fast and global reach of user-generated content. As a consequence intranet users do not use their intranets except for downloading HR tools and other templates. Sometimes there are places to create communities on these intranets and they are being used as social platforms for people within the organisation. The intranet of KPN - KPNConnect - is a good example; a third of all people are frequent visitors of its facebook page. On the PhilipsConnect, the internal twitterfeed, there are 20.000 people of the 120.000 online and exchanging. But more often than not there is little interaction between people online.
The ones that could benefit most, since they carry the responsibility to make large groups of people successful by activating collective intelligence are topmanagers. But right now they are the big non-attendants in online. CEOs that we speak say that they do not have time or that they are not sure whether they actually want to open an online dialogue with a broader group of people in the organization and make themselves vulnerable. MeyerMonitor research shows that 7 out of 10 CEOs have some online presence but only 1 in 10 uses online tools in a concerted effort to stimulate dialogue internally together with the topmanagement team. Those leaders are aware of the fact that online media is out there and will cross their path as CEOs at some time, but most are postponing the moment. Even though there is a whole generation that will mostly take its information from online media and most probably expects their leaders to use these channels as well, there is not enough sense of urgency to start the learning process to use online communication tools.
Most changes take off slowly and the fact that there are not many known best practices yet does not speed up adaption. But we do believe that topmanagement not engaging in their organization’s online dialogue learning process now leave a great chance to differentiate themselves and to gain learning advantages. We believe a well-coordinated use of online media in the internal communication mix can be a great lever to increase strategy awareness and people engagement and make a contribution to a better performance of any organisation. DSM has used what they call online circle of thoughts in its cultural change process through which they connected groups of people worldwide around its change themes and facilitated them to come up with actionplans and proposal. An effective online dialogue strategy, artfully executed, drives action. Companies that use online content well get people to join internal communities and to share their insights, feedback and suggestions to make things better.
To start a fruitful learning journey around your online presence as (top)management ensure the following key success factors:
Key messages: Define key messages that you would like to share with your organization
Community manager: Define a responsible person to monitor and categorize intranet dialogues
Board agenda: Embed online dialogue inputs en outputs on in your meeting agenda
Continuous evaluation: Monitor and learn from your internal learning process around online
Start your organization´s online learning journey now
While the trend towards the use of online tools and social media for marketing purposes is undeniable, since consumers are pushing for it, most organisations struggle with the use of online media in its internal communication. Often organizations have an intranet, but most times this intranet is static and leaves little room for interactivity and by that kills the power of it: fast and global reach of user-generated content. As a consequence intranet users do not use their intranets except for downloading HR tools and other templates. Sometimes there are places to create communities on these intranets and they are being used as social platforms for people within the organisation. The intranet of KPN - KPNConnect - is a good example; a third of all people are frequent visitors of its facebook page. On the PhilipsConnect, the internal twitterfeed, there are 20.000 people of the 120.000 online and exchanging. But more often than not there is little interaction between people online.
The ones that could benefit most, since they carry the responsibility to make large groups of people successful by activating collective intelligence are topmanagers. But right now they are the big non-attendants in online. CEOs that we speak say that they do not have time or that they are not sure whether they actually want to open an online dialogue with a broader group of people in the organization and make themselves vulnerable. MeyerMonitor research shows that 7 out of 10 CEOs have some online presence but only 1 in 10 uses online tools in a concerted effort to stimulate dialogue internally together with the topmanagement team. Those leaders are aware of the fact that online media is out there and will cross their path as CEOs at some time, but most are postponing the moment. Even though there is a whole generation that will mostly take its information from online media and most probably expects their leaders to use these channels as well, there is not enough sense of urgency to start the learning process to use online communication tools.
Most changes take off slowly and the fact that there are not many known best practices yet does not speed up adaption. But we do believe that topmanagement not engaging in their organization’s online dialogue learning process now leave a great chance to differentiate themselves and to gain learning advantages. We believe a well-coordinated use of online media in the internal communication mix can be a great lever to increase strategy awareness and people engagement and make a contribution to a better performance of any organisation. DSM has used what they call online circle of thoughts in its cultural change process through which they connected groups of people worldwide around its change themes and facilitated them to come up with actionplans and proposal. An effective online dialogue strategy, artfully executed, drives action. Companies that use online content well get people to join internal communities and to share their insights, feedback and suggestions to make things better.
To start a fruitful learning journey around your online presence as (top)management ensure the following key success factors:
Key messages: Define key messages that you would like to share with your organization
Community manager: Define a responsible person to monitor and categorize intranet dialogues
Board agenda: Embed online dialogue inputs en outputs on in your meeting agenda
Continuous evaluation: Monitor and learn from your internal learning process around online
Marinka Mossel
