Open Leadership

How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead

Charlene Li

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780470597262
• eBook ISBN: 9780470636718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

An essential guide for leaders who want to use social media to be "open" while maintaining control

"Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Authentic" are the current leadership mantras-but companies often push back. Business is premised on the concept of control and yet the new world order demands openness-leaders do not know how to be open and be in control. This must-have resource will help the modern leader understand how to lead in the new open world-where blogging, twittering, facebooking, and digging are becoming the norm. the author lays out the steps that leaders must take to transform their organizations and themselves into being "open" -and exactly what that will mean.

• Shows how to use social media to become an open organization
• Offers basic advice for leaders who are adapting to the new era of openness in the marketplace
• The author Charlene Li is one of the foremost experts on social media and technologies

In easy-to-understand language, this book will help leaders orient themselves to social networking and other technological advances.

PART I
THE UPSIDE OF GIVING UP CONTROL

1
WHY GIVING UP CONTROL IS INEVITABLE

You may not know who Dave Carroll is, but United Airlines wishes it had never heard of him.

One March day not long ago, Carroll was a United passenger waiting for takeoff. He looked out of the airplane window and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Out on the tarmac of Chicago's O'Hare airport, he saw baggage handlers tossing suitcases, sometimes dropping them on the ground. Among the items were guitar cases—and the alarmed Carroll, an independent Canadian musician and songwriter, realized that these were his guitars being thrown back and forth.

Carroll called over a United flight attendant and asked her to check into what was happening outside. As Carroll related in an interview, “She physically held up her hand and said, ‘Don't talk to me, talk to the gate agent outside.’ Everybody I talked to after that said either they were not empowered to do anything, or they didn't care.”¹

Sure enough, when Carroll landed in Omaha, his final destination, he opened his guitar case and found his beloved Taylor guitar badly damaged. Carroll was in a hurry to get to his gig, and he was booked with back-to-back with shows, so it wasn't until three days later that he contacted United to report the damage. But United refused to compensate Carroll for the $1,200 repair—the company had a standing policy to not accept claims more than twenty-four hours after a flight, because as time passes it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint responsibility for damage.² Because Carroll submitted his claim more than three days after the damage occurred, United said that it would not pay for damages that could have been caused elsewhere.

Carroll pressed his case for months but made no progress. By November 2008, nine months after the incident, he finally got to talk to someone with some decision making power. But alas, it went nowhere. The United representative explained that her hands were tied because of the policy—and politely, but firmly, said there was nothing else that United could do.

Now, if you were a frustrated, deeply wronged musician like Carroll, what would you do? You'd write a song about the experience! Carroll actually did more than that—he also made a music video called “United Breaks Guitars” and posted it on YouTube.³ He felt better, and he really didn't think that more than a dozen people or so would see it.

That was on July 7, 2009. Within three days, the video had over one million views, and Carroll's anthem became a viral sensation. By the end of 2009, there had been over seven million views and hundreds of news stories about Carroll's experience.⁴

Understandably, United was aghast. The company immediately reached out to Carroll, who explained that his biggest desire was to have United's baggage damage policy changed. Tony Cervone, United's SVP of corporate communications, told me, “We engaged directly with Dave as soon as this came out, and said, ‘What happened and let us understand this better.’ We listened, and then we changed a couple of the policies almost immediately.” Indeed, United's willingness to engage Dave Carroll helped to quell the rising groundswell of anger. Carroll posted a heartfelt video statement that explained the incident, applauded United Airlines for its efforts in reaching out to remedy the situation, and even praised the professionalism of United's employees.⁵

United was in a tough situation. The airline industry gets luggage and people to their destinations without a hitch most of the time, and when things do go wrong, the airlines do their best to remedy the situation. But today, all it takes is one (talented) person to replace “Fly the friendly skies” with “United breaks guitars.”

THE NEW CULTURE OF SHARING

What's really going on here? The answer, both simple and far-reaching, is that there has been a fundamental shift in power, one in which individuals have the ability to broadcast their views to the world. This shift has come about because of three trends:

1. MORE PEOPLE ONLINE. Not only is the number of people going online growing, but the time they spend and the kinds of things they do online are both also multiplying. According to internetworldstats.com, 1.7 billion people globally are active on the Internet.⁶ Penetration ranges from 6.8 percent in Africa and 19.4 percent in Asia to 74.2 percent in North America.

2. THE WIDESPREAD USE OF SOCIAL SITES. These days, it's hard to find any Internet user who hasn't watched at least one video on YouTube. Adoption has been quick: in September 2006 only 32 percent of all active Internet users around the world had watched a video clip online; by March 2009 it had grown to 83 percent.⁷ Similarly, social networking site usage has jumped, growing from 27 percent of global online users to 63 percent of all users ages eighteen to fifty-four globally. So when people go online, they are now spending a disproportionate amount of time on content that they have created themselves.

3. THE RISE OF SHARING. More than anything else, the past few years have been dominated by the rise of a culture of sharing. The activity of sharing is a deeply ingrained human behavior, and with each new wave of technology—printed paper, telegraph, telephones, and email—sharing gets faster, cheaper, and easier.

Now there's a new dimension to sharing. Until about five years ago, unless you knew how to program a Web page, sharing was limited to the number of emails you could send out. And if you sent out too many, you would start to lose your credibility.

Now widespread distribution of information online is as easy as updating your status to your friends on Facebook and Twitter, which you can access from just about any device (Web browser, mobile phone, even your TV).⁸ And new services make it easy to upload not only text, but many different types of content: upload a photo to Flickr or a video to YouTube directly from your mobile device, or create a podcast by simply calling a phone service.⁹ All of these new features have made sharing not only simple, but also scalable. This technological leap has given anyone armed with a mobile phone the ability to share with the world.

GOING PUBLIC

Social media has not only empowered your customers but also given your employees new ways to collaborate with each other—a good thing—and new opportunities to publicly grumble about their jobs—a not-so-good thing. Problems that once were resolved through private channels like phone calls and emails are now played out in public. You never could control what people said over their backyard fences about your brand, your company, or your management style, but until recently the public impact tended to be minimal.

Take, for example, what people think about their jobs. You've probably complained about your job to friends and family members, sharing with them your frustrations at work. In the past, the effect of disgruntled employees was mostly limited to their immediate circle of acquaintances.

But today, one need only go to a site like Glassdoor.com to get the inside scoop on an organization. Employees anonymously review companies and their leadership and also share their titles and salaries, in an effort to help others who may be negotiating a job or raise. Here's an example:

NOT A FUN PLACE TO WORK

PROS

• Interesting technology.
• The people at our location are fantastic.

CONS

• Senior management (officer level) does not communicate in a constructive way.
• It is obvious that senior management does not value the employees of the company.
• Since our company was acquired by Company X, morale and productivity have plummeted.

ADVICE TO SENIOR MANAGEMENT

• Allow business units more autonomy in day-to-day operations. Set goals for business units, then provide the freedom and the resources to get the job done.
• Recognize and reward productive employees.

SAYING GOODBYE TO CONTROL

Business leaders are terrified about the power of social technologies, but they are also intrigued and excited about the opportunities. I've spoken with hundreds of leaders about their desire to tap into the power of social technologies to transform their businesses. They like the idea of being able to hear instantly what their customers are saying about them. They're curious about the ability to obtain new ideas from customers or to lower their support costs by having customers solve each others' problems.

A few have actually taken the steps to embrace social technologies and are doing well; many others began the journey enthusiastically, only to fail. There is neither typical rhyme nor reason in these successes or failures—the size of the company, industry, or even prior experience with social technologies did not dictate the outcome. Instead, my research shows, the biggest indicator of success has been an open mind-set—the ability of leaders to let go of control at the right time, in the right place, and in the right amount.

The first step is recognizing that you are not in control—your customers, employees, and partners are. If you are among the many executives who long for the “good ol' days” when rules and roles were clear, indulge yourself in that kind of thinking for just a few more minutes—then it's time to get to work. This is a fad that will not fade, but will only grow stronger, with or without you.

LETTING GO TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

At this point, you may be thinking that engaging with these newly empowered people is too risky, that your organization isn't ready to dea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: THE UPSIDE OF GIVING UP CONTROL
• PART II: CRAFTING YOUR OPEN STRATEGY
• PART III: OPEN LEADERSHIP: REDEFINING RELATIONSHIPS
• ENDNOTES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• THE AUTHOR
• AUTHOR’S WORK WITH CLIENTS
• ADDITIONAL READING RECOMMENDATIONS
• OPEN LEADERSHIP RESOURCES…FREE
• A SPECIAL OFFERING: Introduce Open Leadership To Your Organization
• SUBJECT INDEX
• NAME INDEX
• End User License Agreement