Anonymity, Mass Collaboration and the Social Organization

From the reading I was very interested in the successful CEMEX example from The Social Organization, where CEMEX “initiated a program called SHIFT that used social media to create a community around each of the company’s strategic initiatives” (Bradley & McDonald, 2011).I would be very interested in exploring the possibility of doing something similar in my organization, as we have five brewery locations – as well as a hundred remote employees around the United States – and engaging the entire company in discussions around sales, performance or production goals would most likely generate strong collaborative discussions.

This type of mass collaboration could have tremendous benefits as my organization has greatly benefited from creative solutions presented by employees in the past. We are currently going through some reorganizational processes and the timing is right to collect ideas for areas of improvement, refocus or critical analysis. This is particularly true as much of the restructure is happening at the top of the organization which is where expectation gaps exist as upper management does not want or need to dive too deeply in to the processes; however those are still the roles responsible for some of the larger decision making and where unrealistic changes or goals are made. An effective mass collaboration amongst the various layers/levels of departments ay mitigate the “disconnect between management levels that causes animosity, poor moral, and an inability to get things done efficiently and effectively” (Woods, 2013).

I’m curious about how transparent the social collaboration would need to be to optimize the success of a mass collaboration effort. Despite being a respectful organization, my company has had issues in the past with silo busting and personal prejudice. An endeavor of using social media to draw collective ideas from employees would most likely be best received if the posts and comments were anonymous, eliminating an idea being discredited simply by the person or position in the organization making the suggestion. I don’t believe someone needs to work a department to make an observation about possible areas for improvement, and I could see how a suggestion from someone in Brewing could easily be disregarded by someone in Sales because there is a perception of being ignorant or uneducated in the responsibilities or tasks of that group. Alternatively, some of the best suggestions for improvement can come from someone not yet or not well respected within a department, and the anonymity would allow the ideas and feedback within the company to be considered without prejudice within the cycle of collaboration.

References:

Bradley, A., & McDonald, M. (2011). The social organization. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Woods, L. (2013, March 4). Overcoming disconnect between middle & upper management. Retrieved from http://www.managingamericans.com/BlogFeed/Leadership-Teambuilding/Overcoming-Disconnect-Between-Middle-Upper-Management.htm