If you want to change the way that people work within an organisation, you have to change the way you look at change itself, a good friend once told me.
Whether you would like people to start tagging their data or collaborate in a social manner, in order to succeed you will need to have a way for people to be able to give up their old habits, or unlearn what they are used to, and replace it with something that is more rewarding to the individual as well as the organisation.
One such idea would be for example to encourage people to have meetings while walking outside. Take a stroll around the office building for a change. The fresh air will refresh your thinking. Or at this time of the year in Finland, since their is still a lot of snow outside, set yourself a goal as a team to build a snowman, or even a Polar Bear made out of snow. It doesn't really matter what you do, as long as working together and achieving a tangible result is the goal. In short: Have Fun! It's great for increasing your productivity.
The problem in big organisations is that it is all too easy for people to hide, or stay clinging to their old habits. We spend hours on end in meeting rooms in the comfort of that glowing rectangle called a computer screen trying to figure out how to make this whole digital thing to work better. This prevents change and is very costly in the long run.
Ultimately, any company's ability to adapt to way to do things better, faster will determine it's level of success, and employees that are eager AND allowed to try new things are healthier, happier people that are more productive.
Social Media acts as a critical enabler in this process in many different ways, as it can give you insight into the heartbeat of your organisation in ways that were never before possible.
Or, as another friend told once wrote in a blogpost on one of my favorite blogs called 'The Illusion of Work', work is not a time nor a place.
"It's rather the effort required to produce a desired outcome, and for knowledge work, the ideas, the creativity, the innovation and even the problem solving needed can happen at any time and almost anywhere." - Matthew Hanwell"
Just think for a moment what the creative possibilities are of that kind of approach to work!
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