Look to your Bad Habits to Foster Your Goals

When helping many enterprises wrap their arms around a social strategy, I always try to get them to circle back to their business drivers or goals for embarking on a social roadmap.   If these aren’t in place it will be virtually impossible to arrive at results never mind deploy the correct social technology to succeed!

A blog post on Workshifting.com regarding “7 Habits That Derail Your Goals” by David Baeza really pushed me rethink goal setting process.   The definition of a goal by the Oxford Dictionary is “the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result”.   This is critical in developing a social roadmap.  

My epiphany was: Goals are set to Rectify Bad Habits.   Goal setting, by nature, should be prefaced by a gut wrenching exercise to determine why this is a goal to start.  What aren’t you doing or what are you doing which is preventing the ideal nature of business nirvana?   We all have heard to death that “Goals need to be measureable.” Sure, okay… but does that make them achievable?   Think about a personal goal which continues to show up on the list in January year after year.  Some of the top personal goals every year are to lose weight, stop smoking, spend more time with family, exercise more…  you get the picture.   

Let’s look at this.   On your goal list is:  I want to lose 30 pounds this year.  Okay, that is:

1.     Attainable (given you have 30lbs to lose) with proper management and is less than a pound a week. 
2.     It can be measured by a scale
3.    It can be broken up into smaller goals that can be used as incentives along the way.  I want to lose 10 pounds by March 31^st.

What most people don’t do is look at really why they need to lose 30 pounds.  They may realize they don’t eat healthy or exercise or have an addiction to ice cream.  However, these are still symptoms rather than the root of the problem that is causing the issue.   You aren’t going to suddenly decide fruit is tastier and a craving rather than ice cream.  

Moving this into the professional realm.   Do you want to have better customer retention?  Okay great.  Your social strategy goal is to impact customer retention and increase your percentage by 10% over two years and drive incremental existing customer sales up by also 10%.   Lofty goals, my friend.  Lets put the goal analysis magnifying glass on it.

1.      Attainable: Yes, companies can improve customer retention by 10%
2.      It can be measured.  Sure I have 1000 customers how many of these are still customers in two years.
3.      It can be broken into smaller subsets

Here is the question…  Why are you having a problem with retention in the first place?  Better communication and listening to your customers on a 24/7/365 basis is certainly a step in the right direction just like joining a gym.   However, simply having a place to listen or work out is not going to get you to the goal.  For many, this is hitting bottom.  They have looked in the mirror and decided what is looking back at them isn’t the person or company they want to be in life.   If you are a company leader, is the organization really the best it can be?  Are you finally ready to implement changes that need to happen in order to make your customers more loyal or buy more from you?   Are you cultural ready?  

You may not realize the core of the problem.  Your customers probably understand it.  Social Technology can be a great mirror.  Painful for some.   Addicting to others.   So when you look in your corporate mirror are you seeing the Biggest Loser when they walk into get on the scale for the first time or at the finale?   Zappos.com, Ford Motor Company, American Express and others are addicted to looking in their social mirrors at themselves.  It is not a bad thing for you and others to like what you see.  

Success is not chance.  It is hard work with a bit of luck around the edges.   Social success is not easy or free.   Companies that are seeing success have dedicated the appropriate resources from a human resource, financial and cultural standpoint.   

Community Sandbox ..

Every now and then, I get asked by a perspective customer for a sandbox to try out a “community”. See, this is a typically offering from a technology or software company. They want to be able to play around in the sandbox. My memories of a sandbox stem back to Kindergarten. You know … the place we all learned to “SHARE”? These things you would think would go together.

Sharing |Sandboxes | Kindergarten.

Sadly, in the community space, sandboxes aren’t really beneficial. You see, the mistake is routed in the perspective that it is a technology purchase.

In essence, there is truth in that concept. You are purchasing social technology. However, it is really a business service that is enabled by technology. How can you assess the viability of a technology that is to engage your brand with a targeted audience without the audience? Compare this to a play. Every final dress rehearsal typically has an audience. Movies are prescreened for an audience to get a reaction. It is the same way for a successful community strategy and deployment. Social Technology without the members/fans/customers is flat. It is simply a set without the actors.

Please Please think first about your goals and strategy and then apply technology to achieve them. In other words, get your script right! For enterprises that are being cautious like this, I would first suggest doing a “pilot community” rather than a sandbox. In the theater world, this is called playing to Peoria. Develop your roadmap with a soft launch to a specific audience. This may be for a particular grouping of customers, partners, or around a particular product or service. Learn your lessons here and then expand across your enterprise as the roadmap. Make sure you choose your pilot audience carefully. It must be a big enough group to foster INteraction and attention. You require a valid business reason for them to care to INgage with you on a regular basis. Many times these groups will self identify as requesting a social application to communicate with each other.

Choose a technology partner that will scale with your success. Another pit fall I see enterprises that are tip toeing around a social INgagement strategy make is choosing a technology that doesn’t scale. Once they want to scale … they pay double to convert the existing content on to a more enterprise clad platform. 

So are you ready to play to Peoria? I am interested to understand what baby steps your enterprise has discussed in developing a successful (or not) social technology.

Employer Branding – Alice’s view in the Reverse Looking Glass

So you are a smart recruiter or Human Resources person, right? You have all the tools and tricks to recruit and check out candidates on Linked In, Twitter, MySpace, and the social networking site de jour. You have a candidate fully vetted prior to picking up the phone for the first screen. Perhaps, you have already done confidential reference from a shared connection. BUT … Have you looked to see what candidates are seeing about you as an employer? What have your staffing decisions done to your employee brand? How will they affect your company's ability to hire quality talent? What if they did a reference on you with your former employees that held the same position?

My past experience in both social technology and recruiting leaves some very interesting stories at my door often. I am going to share one I learned about this week in my travels. I sat next to this woman on the train named Alice. We had a quick chat about the new movie "Alice in Wonderland" that I had seen and loved! In the hour long trip, we covered a variety of topics but after hearing about my professional background she shared the following story….

Alice had received an email from a stranger asking about their experience working a past company. This stranger had been contacted by a recruiter looking for him to explore leaving a solid job at solid company to seek out greener pastures. This candidate did his homework and found Alice on LinkedIn. The opportunity sounded exciting. Prior to risking his current job, he wanted inside information no recruiter or hiring manager was going to share. In the stranger's research, it was discovered a ton of people had worked in the same capacity as he was being asked to interview. All of the people had short tenures (averaging 6 months to two years). Bravely, this stranger started reaching out to these former employees to discover inquiry why? Alice was one of the individuals the stranger reached out to contact.

Alice told me about her mixed feelings about telling this stranger the truth. On the one hand, she had enjoyed working for the company. She had friends that still worked there. However, she wished she had been smart enough to push this fact herself. She had seen it prior to accepting the position. Alice had accepted their story and didn't double check the facts. The company in question had a history of hiring a new VP and people to do this task only to lay them all off within six months to year. Then in about another 6 months go through the hiring process and pay recruiters to do it all over again. This stranger deserved the benefit of the doubt she felt. Alice shared the following dialog with me:

Alice: I also looked at your LinkedIn profile. Are you still working at Company X?

Stranger: Yes, I am still employed there.

Alice: Are you happy?

Stranger: Yes, the only reason he was interested was the new skill set and potential larger to make an impact on this new company.

Alice:
(hmmm sounds familiar she said to herself) Is there any pressing reason you need to make a change? More potential earnings for College tuition, moving closer to family, a burning desire to live where the company was etc.

Stranger: No

Alice: Then why on God's green Earth are you even entertaining this interview given the information you believe to have uncovered? You know the phrase "Where there is smoke there is fire" Honestly, I would tell anyone regardless of the company this if they had asked me. In this economy, why would you ever risk the happiness you told me about? Want a new adventure….try rock climbing! Listen to your gut, man!

The Stranger thanked her for opening his eyes and confirming without bashing the company his suspicions. He would be canceling the interview.

Alice told me had some of the answers been different about his employment status or happiness or compensation she may have encouraged him to take the interview. Alice just couldn't let someone else make the same error in judgment that had left her in a financial crisis. The lay-off had forced her to have to give up her independence. at close to 30 years old, Alice had to move back in with her parents for six month while she found another job and got back on her feet. It had not only impacted her career, her independence but had done a number on her relationship with her family not to mention her self-esteem and finances. Why people open up to me about these things? I have no clue. I guess I have a trusting face.

Here is the morale for employers… Remember, your previous actions on hiring, lay-offs, and serial turnover will have a huge impact on your ability to hire the best talent out there given the ease of connection with social networking and search. What will they see when they load in "YOUR COMPANY NAME" "KEYWORD = POSITION TITLE" and select past employees in LinkedIn. Will they see a pattern of serial turnover? Remember, your brand isn't only the company's product or service. It is your people and the people that have worked for you. They also continue to be a conduit of your brand. What will candidates discover by referencing you? Every employer that has been around a while has previous employees with an axe to grind. I am not talking about this one off wild chance. It is the patterns you need to be aware of creating and the poor messaging you create with potential hires. I have seen this myself with companies I recruited for in the temporary staffing market.

Here is a possible solution… Create your own reference list. Have past employees your candidates can speak with that will provide a good reference. It won't prevent them from doing what this savvy stranger did but it may help.

Happy Recruiting Everyone!