Bliss

When you see a rock grow
When you hear smoke rise
When you feel a reflection
When you smell moonlight
When you savor partnership
When you grok another

Are self directed work teams blasé or still in vogue?

Let me frame the question...

I am a product manager in social marketing services. I am in a position to advise brands on approaches to social.

Organizationally there is an edge between marketing and customer service that presents itself in a barrier between the nature of communications between these two groups and the brand's customers.

When customers engage socially about a product, they expect to hear one voice from the brand.

The solution to me appears to be a cross functional team that can engage with customers socially without any internal barriers.

Would it be blasé to suggest this team should be self directed? I think the leadership of a designated individual would unnaturally shape communications in favor of one of the elements of the team. However, with a self directed team, communications would have a chance to be shaped by the most relevant element to the situation.

Is there another style of teamwork that seems appropriate to this scenario? Has the concept of self directed teams been repudiated?

I am also posting this on LinkedIn. I will give you credit, but let me know if you don't want your response cross posted.

Leadership by Objective?

John Beiter asks for advice on LinkedIn: I have a client that is struggling to create specific objectives to measure leadership.

My advice:

If you mean objectives as in "Bill must do X by Y date" and then the measurement is success or failure, I would not approach it this way. To me this sounds like management by objectives and I would not apply management measures to leadership. I would have the client think in terms of which qualities they expect in a leader. Have them come up with 4. Then have them come up with 4 behaviors that express each quality. You can measure behaviors. Have the client assign a scale and they are off to the races. Keep in mind that at different levels of the organization, more and different leadership qualities are expected. As the second iteration, have higher levels of management scored on additional qualities. You can see how I add qualities to the puzzle starting with first & second line supervisors here.

An Oportunity to Offer Sage Advice

Kyle Blades asks for advice on LinkedIn: The Kiss of Death: Young and Different. Please chime in.

My advice:

Read MICROCOSMOGRAPHIA ACADEMICA by Conford. You fall into the classification of "young man in a hurry." My solution to your problem would be to start with small engagements: prove you can solve small problems, and deliver beyond expectations. While working on the starting task, look for opportunities to pitch a grander change. But, also do your homework in the mean time. Don't bring an idea, bring a 5-paragraph OPORD and a team. Have a thorough dissection of the situation and assets. Create a vision considering the commander's intent two levels up. Create alliances with willing participants. Etc...

Sorry for the military jargon. OPORD = Operations Order which coresponds to a business plan. Kyle was a marine.

Are We Being Drawn Farther Apart?

My reply to a blog post on Linked 2 Leadership: Human Connection: The Achilles Heel of Technology

I find the opposite to be true.

Reply #1: You only have so much time. Would you rather use that time managing or leading? A key element of my consulting practice is to encourage the use of technology to reduce the amount of time spent managing in order to increase the amount of time available for leadership. Conversations are key to leadership. Managing conversation threads and contact lists takes time. I would rather spend that time conversing. I encourage the use of these tools to facilitate your ability to lead.

Reply #2: There have long been forms of communications used to maintain emotional closeness between people who are physically separate. Rather then look at this as though we are being drawn farther apart, look at this as a means to draw us together.

A Definition of Change

A transliteration of Schofields Definition of Discipline
The change which makes a team reliable for the future is not to be gained by burying your head in the sand. On the contrary such behavior is more likely to destroy then to make a team. It is possible to look ahead and provide vision in such a manner and such an attitude as to inspire in the team no feeling but an intense desire to accept change, while the opposite manner and attitude cannot fail to excite strong resistance and a desire to maintain the status quo. The one mode or the other of dealing with an opportunity for change springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the leader. He who can see and hence project the value of change cannot fail to inspire in others a desire for change, while he who can only see, and hence project, the personal risks of change, especially to the reluctant, cannot fail to inspire sabotage of the change.

Where's the Sale?

RT @GabrielGrimes I've run into the same question again. "What s the difference between Marketing and Selling?"

This question implies there is a gray area between marketing and sales and Gabriel is trying to draw a line between the two.

This question sounds remarkably like the typical ethical dilemma, "what is the difference between right and wrong." Instead of trying to classify right and wrong as two sides of a coin, it is better to consider them as extreme ends of a continuum. At either end things are clearly right and wrong, but between is a giant gray area.

However, in this case the extreme ends of the continuum are not marketing and selling, rather they are marketing and collecting. At one end is the attempt to shape market forces in order to draw attention to the product. At the other end is the transaction exchange, i.e. receiving something of value in return for delivering the product,i.e. "collecting." "Selling" is an optional, interim step, not the end game.

In my terms selling as a one-to-one interaction that results in an agreement for a transaction. The transaction is the sale. In modern times, transactions occur without selling.

The newest social technologies, Web 2.0, take this one step further. There is a new gray area between marketing and customer support. The modern view should be that producers must establish relationships, Web 3.0, with consumers. Periodically this relationship results in a sale. The sale can occur to this particular consumer, or to another influenced by the relationship. In the interim, the producer must ensure customer satisfaction in order to keep the relationship positive and subsequently the influence of the relationship.