The Future of Work is Business in The Social Room at Scale

Part 3: Social is Authentic, engaging the uniqueness of every individual

 Social is not Digital. Digital satisfies the human need to be engaged extrinsically from the head; to experience the power of data and mobility At Scale to ask new questions and create new things which are useful in our lives. Social, on the other hand, satisfies the human need to be engaged intrinsically from the heart to contribute Social Good.

At best, both types of human motivators are deployed in the Future of Work together. Digital provides the platforms and tools to do work at scale in ways previously unimaginable.

Digital provides the what and how of our future work and engages our minds to process whole new combinations of information, leading to new possibilities and opportunities to co-create new value, especially things that are useful and to do this at scale.

Social provides the Why of our work. It engages a deeper need for meaning, for contribution, for sharing a journey together with people who believe what we believe about the world and how it might be and how it will be at scale. Social is also about relationships and it is highly personal and authentic. Social is about authentic connections and conversations at scale around who we are, our strengths and passions. Strengths are the innate ‘good’ behaviours in individuals, groups and enterprises which, when applied to work, contribute to making the world a better place - what is now being called Social Good. The Future of Work is about how we engage more and more strengths to experience and deliver more Social Good at Scale.

Innovation is the discovery and reconfiguration of strengths to meet new opportunities. Social and Digital enable strengths to be scaled

Social is not Digital. The former is about a Community in authentic dialogue with itself but open to connect with new members as a global ecosystem where stories engage the heart and generate images and possibilities for a better world. But authenticity is not only the foundation of collaboration and innovation, it is the very experience of being well - being who you really are - Being! not just doing. Social at its best allows people to be more of who they really and taps the intrinsic motivators to engage in Social Good.

First Social engages the Heart by starting with a discovery and alignment of individual, group and Enterprise strengths. These conversations enable people to feel ‘wholeness’ and to generate a future story which looks to imagine, extend and grow from what works but more deeply and intrinsically to discover and extend what gives life? This is the who and the why of work.

Then, and only then, we engage Digital; bringing to bear the best of the new At Scale technologies such as Big Data and Mobility to enable us to innovate to make this future story our reality. Because we now own the how and why and because we started our Future of Business at Scale at this point, and not with Digital; then, when we do introduce the power of Digital, people get it. They own it intrinsically and contribute their best passions and ideas to co-create the future with us because they are engaged from who they are.

All the major ‘employee’ or worker engagement surveys around the world are saying the same thing; people want to be engaged in the future of work from who they are. The happiest and more productive workers are first engaged in the future of their work from the heart. Then, when the heart is engaged, the head becomes engaged.

In the age of Social and Digital work at scale, we first engage the heart to take the journey with us for meaning and shared contribution - the why of Social Good. Then we open up the Digital tools, the mobile technologies and big data, to see how Digital can help us to make our Story come true. That is the strategic ‘At Scale’ business batting order.

We then introduce the social collaborative platforms and tools now available to sustain and grow the authentic conversations which happens smoothly and effortlessly because we have taken the time to build an Inside Out Culture. We may do this initially across our single Enterprise or Community. We then might open up to others ‘outside’ this group to join the authentic conversation, the collaboration and the co-creativity and contribute their own strengths, now levered at scale with the strengths of others.

Installing Digital in Enterprises is the way that many Enterprises are going because it is head based, rational and Outside In. But not many are reaping the rich potential harvest of an Inside Out Approach.

Installing Social effectively is different because it requires Enterprises to engage people authentically from who they are - as unique individuals. It requires the deliberate Positive Disruption step of building an Inside Out Culture. But this is outside the world-view of many enterprise leaders who grew up in a pre - Social Good, pre- Inside Out mindset about how the world works. The good news is that this can be changes by coaching and equipping business leaders and teams to take the Inside Out Social Journey - by first engaging them as unique individuals; from the heart, not the head.

Social is not Digital but both are connected. Both are needed in the Future of Work. Indeed at their best they are interdependent, feeding each other. But, in Social, the right order of things sees Digital serving Social.

What is the right order for the future of work in a digital age? Is it just about the digital technology, the numbers, the analytics, Big Data, the mobile apps and the collaborative platforms to get work done more efficiently at scale and / or provide more choice?

Or, is it also about Social, which is about the connections and interactions between people, about experiencing authentic and real conversations? Is it about being able to be who you really are and about collaborating, not just to embed a new technology, but to do Social Good together; to make a positive impact on the world by combining our strengths at scale to a shared purpose?

Of course, it is about both and they are interconnected. The digital technologies, analytics and mobile apps provide us with more data, information and insights to see the world as it is, to reach more and do more in our work and leisure and to do this at speed. But these are the extrinsic servants to the Social conversation which is about something deeper, about being able to connect with people at a level from who we really are.

 Clay Shirky talks about how social technologies are breaking down silos and restoring the true essence of community; where people not only consume but come together to share and to make - in today's buzzwords - to collaborate and innovate for SOCIAL GOOD. Shirky makes a distinction between the Old Work which engaged people extrinsically or rationally for Compliance and the New Work which engages people intrinsically from the heart, for Social Good.

Extrinsic Motivators come from outside and they are shallower and appeal to the basics in human nature - such as the need for efficiency, safety, accuracy, speed and profit – all good things in themselves. But Intrinsic Motivators engage the heart emotionally for something bigger than self or efficiency. They engage the need to experience Autonomy - the need to be able to make our own choices about our work and to be really Competent at something that we as individuals care about.

Shirky calls this engaging the Individual Intrinsic Motivators in Social Business. But there is a second group of intrinsic motivators and these are about the human need for individuals to be part of an Authentic Group or community experience in Membership and Generosity.

As individuals, we now have more and more choice and control given to us, in what we access, play with, contribute to and what part we want to play, with whom and when. In our spare time, we get to choose what we engage with at scale and it is a wonder to behold.

With our smart phones we get to be players, not just consumers. We choose and adapt and disrupt from a myriad of mobile and data apps which are adding something useful to our lives. They provide us with new forms of entertainment or experience which allow us to be players in the process of continuous co-creation in terms of how we will adapt and use them.

But it is not just the technology or the apps or the fast processing of billions of bits of data to form new patterns of information and knowledge. It is not just about 1 and 0 at scale. At its best it is something more and it is personal and authentic. It is heart, story and just sometimes being reconnected into what it is to experience life as a community on fire together for a better world.

At its best, what I see on Facebook and on Twitter are people being real, being authentic, and being themselves, warts and all. The young kids love this. They are growing up with the digital technologies to access more stuff they can use at scale in their daily lives through their mobile - this is Digital 1 & 0. But there is also something else and that is their need to engage with others to experience and do Social Good from who they really are; their authentic self.

A dictionary trawl defines Authentic as

• Real, not pretend or false
• Accurate or based on fact
• Original
• Genuine
• Worthy of belief
• Trustworthy
• Not counterfeit
• Conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features
• True to its type
•  

I will leave us with a question?

Where are we starting your experience of the Future of Business at Scale? Are we staring from Digital or are we starting from Social? If, Social - wicked. If we are contemplating this whole Social and Digital thing and want to know how to get started authentically, I will share this in my next blog post. If we have already started the Digital journey and struggling a little bit to engage our people to be authentic- KEEP CALM - there is a Positive Disruptive road we can take which can lead us back to an Authentic Social future. I will also share this in my next blog.