I am working with a CubeTree customer whose CEO wants to communicate with employees, engaging them with real opportunities to interact. The IT Director and the CEO agreed that the existing channels, email and the company intranet, were falling short.
We discussed three simple steps that executives can follow to engage employees through CubeTree: informally with microblogging, more formally with blogging, and as an observer.
Step 1: Micro-blog. With microblogging, executives can easily communicate directly with the employees. CEOs are on the front of some of the most exciting daily events for the company. It is motivational and inspiring for them to share their insights on meetings with customers, visits to branch offices, and talks with partners. The whole company benefits from the positive environment created when the CEO sends a shout out for a job well done. Sharing these events in real-time, even using photos to highlight an update, is a powerful way to connect instantly and emotionally with the entire workforce.
On the receiving end, employees get a real pulse on what's happening in the business from the perspective of its leaders. It lets people know that their work matters. Then, because it's a collaborative system, they can communicate back! Because it's more informal than email, microblogging makes it easy to comment and provides the executives with direct feedback from the employees on the front lines.
Step 2: Blog don't email. For more formal communications like state of the union messages, CEOs can use the personal blog. This provides a way to communicate to a broad audience without the message getting lost in employee's inboxes. With blogs, it's easy to add links, photos and video, which improves the message's "stickiness". But the real advantage of the blog is that readers can comment back, and others can see these posts and then add their thoughts to the conversation, creating an authentic discussion with multiple points of view. Of course, email does let people reply, but most are reluctant to spam their colleagues. Even if employees don't hesitate to reply, the conversation often gets jumbled due to messages received and replied to out of order. A conversation in email is much harder to read and participate in than the same discussion in CubeTree.
Step 3: Read and react. As an observer on CubeTree, the CEO can keep an eye on the business across virtually all the major projects in the company. Similar to microblogging, it's unfettered, unfiltered access; it's watching projects evolve in public groups not just getting the updates in prepared reports. That allows the CEO, at critical points, to interject a comment or nudge an idea in a direction that's best for the company. As people in the organization brainstorm and come up with innovative concepts, those who see the "big picture", like the CEO, will recognize and adopt the ideas that company needs to be successful. Without CubeTree, these ideas might never have seen the light of day.
As the CEO and other execs lead by microblogging about their day to day activities, blogging about major initiatives, and participating in CubeTree conversations, the employees will be better informed and offer valuable feedback. Employees will take cues from the company's leaders and increase their use of microblogging and blogging as well. And as they do this, the workforce will be more active and more engaged, which for the company means more innovation and better business execution.
Step 1: Micro-blog. With microblogging, executives can easily communicate directly with the employees. CEOs are on the front of some of the most exciting daily events for the company. It is motivational and inspiring for them to share their insights on meetings with customers, visits to branch offices, and talks with partners. The whole company benefits from the positive environment created when the CEO sends a shout out for a job well done. Sharing these events in real-time, even using photos to highlight an update, is a powerful way to connect instantly and emotionally with the entire workforce.
On the receiving end, employees get a real pulse on what's happening in the business from the perspective of its leaders. It lets people know that their work matters. Then, because it's a collaborative system, they can communicate back! Because it's more informal than email, microblogging makes it easy to comment and provides the executives with direct feedback from the employees on the front lines.
Step 2: Blog don't email. For more formal communications like state of the union messages, CEOs can use the personal blog. This provides a way to communicate to a broad audience without the message getting lost in employee's inboxes. With blogs, it's easy to add links, photos and video, which improves the message's "stickiness". But the real advantage of the blog is that readers can comment back, and others can see these posts and then add their thoughts to the conversation, creating an authentic discussion with multiple points of view. Of course, email does let people reply, but most are reluctant to spam their colleagues. Even if employees don't hesitate to reply, the conversation often gets jumbled due to messages received and replied to out of order. A conversation in email is much harder to read and participate in than the same discussion in CubeTree.
Step 3: Read and react. As an observer on CubeTree, the CEO can keep an eye on the business across virtually all the major projects in the company. Similar to microblogging, it's unfettered, unfiltered access; it's watching projects evolve in public groups not just getting the updates in prepared reports. That allows the CEO, at critical points, to interject a comment or nudge an idea in a direction that's best for the company. As people in the organization brainstorm and come up with innovative concepts, those who see the "big picture", like the CEO, will recognize and adopt the ideas that company needs to be successful. Without CubeTree, these ideas might never have seen the light of day.
As the CEO and other execs lead by microblogging about their day to day activities, blogging about major initiatives, and participating in CubeTree conversations, the employees will be better informed and offer valuable feedback. Employees will take cues from the company's leaders and increase their use of microblogging and blogging as well. And as they do this, the workforce will be more active and more engaged, which for the company means more innovation and better business execution.
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