Yesterday I joined a large portion of the movie going population and took my daughters to see the new Tim Burton "Alice in Wonderland" movie just released (and helped it set several opening weekend records) in 3D. It is really excellent, great cast, excellent acting, cinematography and effects but that's not why I'm talking about it. You most certainly don't look to me for movie reviews and recommendations and with my "odd" tastes in movies that's probably advisable, even though I'd be happy to share them if you want. The reason I bring it up is this, there is a quote from Alice's father, "I imagine 6 impossible things everyday before breakfast", that has me thinking. In fact I haven't been able to shake the line since I first heard it yesterday.
I've believed for some time that the real underlying factor for developing a social business is a major culture change for a company. At the same time this key factor is the largest barrier to accomplishing this transformation. Last week there were some good conversations around the topic of cultural change and the difficulty that change engenders. Check out this post from SugarCRM's Mitch Lieberman to get the gist of the discussions. Change is hard, there's no argument there and frankly, changing company culture is probably one of the hardest evolutions a business faces. This is amplified when we understand that most of the change is starting from the bottom up, not the top down in this instance (not that top down culture change is easy of course). What I mean is that bottom up culture change accompanied by top down resistance or even blockage is, well, almost impossible, right?
If you read my post on moving beyond the industrial societal models of the past you know I think the move to social business is very very disruptive, transformative and unavoidable. The issue is how painful will the transformation be and how long will it take. When you disrupt accepted social norms, or accepted business norms, resistance will come, especially from those most threatened. I think this is one of the reasons we're still mostly talking about the consumer social web or maybe of the most obvious business changes. The business case around transforming your relationship with your customer, for example, is difficult to resist, even for the most threatened managers. The internal business transformation though is finding stronger opposition. I submit though, that the external transformation can only go so far without the internal culture to support it. To me saying "we're engaging our customers" when we don't engage our employees, partners or suppliers in the same manner is ludicrous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we can only transform a business holistically. Traditional change management teaches us to move slowly and build on success and I believe this is essential here. We have to build credibility and support at every level and with every stakeholder. I get very excited when I think of the possibilities and the power of the social concepts we're starting to apply to business. Engagement, shared control, transparency, trust, shared problem solving, opened silo's; all of these things will change the face of business. So I don't know about you, but I'm going to go on imagining 6 impossible things everyday before breakfast.
