At my last company, one day you couldn't talk to anybody outside the company unless you were registered as HQ and had been on a two day "talking to the press" course. If you did talk to the press and you were not authorised, it was gross misconduct and you were fired. There was one very famous case of somebody that got hit by this.
This was the regime for many years.
Then all of a sudden, we got an email that we had to connect our email accounts to some computer system they had purchased and we would now pump out corporate content through the employees social profiles.
Nobody was told that the regime above had changed, in fact, if you read the social media policy, it was still in place.
So people would say to me "is this a trap?", "if I post the wrong thing will I still get fired?" (yes was the honest answer to that) "this corporate stuff is crap, but I guess I won't get fired if I share it?" "I cannot get any followers since I started posted this corporate crap and all the people that follow me are my sales team, wouldn't it be easier for me to walk down the office and shout the tweet out?" (yes was the answer to that too).
While change requires management support .... the leadership after all, stand at the front of the employees and say "follow me". If you have a leader that bullies or is sexist or doesn't do what they should do on social media, this is a green light to your employees to follow those behaviours.
So, while leadership is important, you cannot get change by telling people to do something. You WILL connect your social media profiles to this tool and pump out corporate content. I did, as I thought I would be open minded, but lost followers so disconnected.
Change requires creating a ground swell. When I rolled out social selling across 4,000 people across Europe, I spotted my champions. One of my salespeople, dog had 2,000 Twitter followers. When ever we wanted the sales people to adopt a change we got Andy to try the process, if he was successful all the other sales people followed.
I should point out, that, there again has limited use as you cannot roll out a whole methodology and change mindsets and habits by asking "Andy". You have to appeal to the people, the employees, you need to start a "bottom up" rebellion.
Don't forget, not everybody will come on the ride. You will never get 100% of the people, but with the leadership, your champions and a method to active the change in people you will win.
Time for digital change within your employees?
Culture is like the wind. It is invisible, yet its effect can be seen and felt. When it is blowing in your direction, it makes for smooth sailing. When it is blowing against you, everything is more difficult. For organizations seeking to become more adaptive and innovative, culture change is often the most challenging part of the transformation. Innovation demands new behaviors from leaders and employees that are often antithetical to corporate cultures, which are historically focused on operational excellence and efficiency.
