brian pauley and daVe McderMott

eXplorinG the proMise of the social enterprise:How social collaboration helps a complex global company feel small again

The widely held assumption goes something

like this: as a company grows larger,

it benefits from tremendous efficiencies

and competitive advantages that arise

from scale. And since it’s estimated that

between 2011 and 2016, 60 percent of

global economic growth will be derived from

emerging economies,1 an expanding

global enterprise—making new inroads into

rapidly expanding markets—makes more

sense than ever.

1 / is it always true that a business Must Grow biG—Very biG—to succeed?

Yet when very big companies emerged

from the recession, a unique kind of

economic hangover clung to their massive

frames. ‘Scale’ can be a serious hindrance

to a company undergoing rapid change

and contraction. Enter the term

‘diseconomies of scale,’ characterized by

poor communication, lack of coordination,

and low employee engagement.

1 Economist Intelligence Unit (http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-fast-forward-growth-seizing-opportunities-high-growth-markets.aspx)

2

Respected business publications have

weighed in on the issue of late, publishing

articles with titles like “Why big companies

can’t innovate” (Harvard Business Review),

“Understanding your globalization penalty”

(McKinsey Quarterly) and “Our obsession

2 / the Globalization penalty

what is the “Globalization penalty”?

“High-performing global companies consistently score lower than

more locally focused ones on several critical dimensions of

organizational health.”

“[They are] consistently less effective at setting a shared vision and

engaging employees around it than are their local counterparts.”

“Global leaders also find maintaining professional standards and

encouraging innovation of all kinds more difficult.”1

—McKinsey Organizational Health Index

1 https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Globalization/Understanding_your_globalization_penalty_2833

with scale is failing us” (Harvard Business

Review). They suggest that growing ever

larger is a countervailing pressure on

innovation. As an organization expands it

loses connectedness and speed.

3

9 in 101 GE Innovation Barometer, 2012. http://www.ge.com/innovationbarometer/

eXecutiVes belieVe innoVation is about partnerships, not indiVidual success.1

ne

ar

ly

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How do large organizations foster the

qualities of a smaller, more nimble venture?

How can a global, complex company cull

the very best ideas from highly dispersed

regions and practices? Kelly set out to answer

this question—and to do so, we decided to

experiment with social collaboration tools.

3 / helpinG larGe coMpanies feel sMall

what is the “social enterprise”?

The social enterprise is any organization that uses social networking

technology to support conversation and collaboration—whether between

employees, customers, partners, or among all three.

Embarking on this project, Kelly chose

Chatter, a Salesforce.com tool that uses the

principles of social networking (e.g. Facebook

and Twitter), but redirected to business

applications. Chatter is but one of dozens of

social business collaboration tools, however,

other well-known, big players include Jive,

Yammer, and Socialcast.

5

1 GE Innovation Barometer, 2012. http://www.ge.com/innovationbarometer/

aGree innoVation needs to be localized.1

74%6

Some aspects of business collaboration

tools work like Facebook. For example,

you can connect with colleagues you know

and join groups that interest you. Your

social feed is made up of discussions and

insights from people and topics you follow.

But this is where the true power of social

enterprise begins: after an employee

4 / how does it work?

are social enterprise tools like “facebook for business”?

A platform like Facebook lets you connect and socialize with individuals

you already know. LinkedIn also largely assumes you want to connect with

individuals you already know, or those your direct connections know (e.g.

one degree of separation).

Social enterprise tools like Jive, Yammer and Chatter connect you to

people you don’t know, but should. A colleague may live 8,000 miles

away and work in a different division, but she may possess critical

knowledge you can use to perform your job better.

It’s like being able to eavesdrop on conversations across the

globe — but only join those that are relevant or interesting

to you. Hello, small company.

begins using the platform, the application

mines your interactions to recommend

groups, highlight content, and suggest

one-on-one connections to you. In

other words, the application learns what

issues grab you, and helps you find

information and people that overlap with

your interests and business needs.

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“Big companies are really bad at innovation

because they’re designed to be bad at

innovation…Once a business figures out

how to solve its customers’ problems,

organizational structures and processes

emerge to guide the company towards

efficient operation. Seasoned managers steer

their employees [away] from pursuing the art

of discovery and towards engaging in the

science of delivery.”

—Maxwell Wessel, a member of the Forum

for Growth and Innovation, a Harvard

Business School think tank focused on

disruptive innovation.1

5 / to innoVate, support discoVery

In other words, the very things that makes the

global organization so effective—scale and

efficiency—also hinders it. Complex global

enterprises must find ways to foster discovery,

collaboration, and a strong sense of purpose.

1 http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/why_big_companies_cant_innovate.html

8

project blue sky #1

one of kelly’s most ambitious applications

for chatter: crowdsourcing the go-to-

market strategy for a $1 billion division,

kellyocG. Top executives knew Kelly

employees held the very best ideas to mold

the right organizational and business design,

but eliciting these ideas in the traditional

ways—dozens of meetings and surveys—was

inefficient at best.

Keep in mind, before Kelly attempted it,

this was a totally new concept among large

global companies. Based on our research,

a handful of companies have crowdsourced

ideas to fold into an otherwise “final”

business strategy, but no company cracked

it wide open as Kelly did, asking employees

to debate and revise every aspect of

organizational design.

kelly selected a cross-section of employees

globally—90 in total—to represent the

larger organization. The three-week

session had virtually no rules, except not to

share your identity on the project with any

participants or other Kelly employees (each

participant used an anonymous “dummy”

account through Chatter) and successfully

operated across different timezones. The

often-intense virtual collaboration took place

entirely through the collaboration platforms.

why so secretive? we wanted each

idea to be evaluated based on its own

merits, not based on the title or clout of

the contributor. To ensure participants

would remember one another from one

conversation to the next, each was assigned

a Disney character as their project avatar

(irrespective of gender, just to throw off those

inclined to snoop).

What followed surprised even the most

optimistic among us. Participants engaged

in vigorous, spirited and highly intelligent

debates about very specific elements of the

new business model. As in, “Yes, preserve

this component but get rid of these others...”

As the group grew more comfortable, and

learned more about individual personalities

and knowledge areas (still with no identifying

information shared), participants began

Kelly uses social collaboration to crowdsource a new business model.

to virtually call out to one another, asking

for input on developing conversations and

debating thorny concepts.

Just as a Facebook comment can elicit

dozens of follow-on comments to a single

post, so too did conversations about the

re-organization evolve as lengthy strings,

capturing highly specific details and

nuances not possible in live conversations.

Unencumbered by office politics or pecking

order, Project Blue Sky participants gave of

their ideas freely, influencing how Kelly would

grow and change as an organization to meet

new market challenges.

on top of sourcing ideas for the new

business model, the project also helped

kelly affirm that social enterprise tools

can help a massive, global company

replicate the most exciting elements

of working for a smaller, high-growth

organization: the shared feeling of purpose,

the sense that each individual can influence

the organization’s trajectory, and the

determination to build something successful.

how to

crowdsourcinG a Global business Model

among the ground rules project

blue sky organizers put in place:

• Noseniorexecutiveswere

selected as part of the sample.

• Allidentitieswereanonymizedto

ensure no real-world clout prevailed.

The decision ensured good ideas rose

to the surface by their own merits.

• Thetotalnumberofparticipants

was capped at 90 to ensure

conversations were manageable,

and each voice was heard.

• ProjectBlueSkyparticipants

were urged to hold nothing back;

express clearly and directly what

would make our organization

stronger and more effective.

9

feelinG sMall aGain #2

Kelly uses the platform for a wide

variety of applications—most related

to sharing ideas among employees—

with the velocity and ease typical of a

smaller, tightly focused organization.

using an enterprise-wide tool, kelly

realized highly valuable experts were

hidden from sight. When Kelly rolled out

the social platform, many of us suddenly

discovered subject-matter rock stars

across the globe; people who we would

never meet through the regular course of

work. For example, someone in Hungary

emerged as a Boolean search guru,

sharing valuable resource with dozens

of people across the organization.

local market intelligence is but “one

degree” away. As more and more

employees joined the conversations, the

value of collaboration grew exponentially.

Have a question about a particular

competitor? Dozens of employees across

the globe will weigh in, offering the type of

sophisticated local knowledge and analysis

that could take months to collect otherwise.

Writing a whitepaper about the regulatory

environment in Latin America? Survey your

peers to discover what they know, and whom

they can refer you to outside the organization.

talent development conversations are

more powerful when they move beyond

the classroom. The most unexpected

application for the collaboration platform

was in training and development. Kelly’s

global learning group uses the social

collaboration platform to continue

conversations that begin in training

programs, creating a sense of community

and continuity among participants.

Look at our Leadership Fitness Challenge.

Over 30 days, the program leader proposes

a small idea or activity each day as a mark of

leadership. (For example, one daily reminder

asks participants to take five minutes to hand-

write a thank you note.) These non-classroom

messages take but a minute or two, but keep

program lessons top-of-mind and practical.

in a connected organization, everyone is

a thought leader. The social collaboration

platform gives employees an important

platform upon which to share information,

gain visibility and earn a reputation

as thought leaders. Have a particular

interest or knowledge of a certain key

topic? Begin a group and moderate

discussions about that issue. Using the

platform, employees make important

contributions to Kelly’s knowledge base

while building their own personal brands.

when senior leadership participates in

social conversations, employees feel

part of a unique, tight-knit community.

Open, transparent participation from senior

leaders at Kelly breaks down hierarchies

and creates a sense of shared purpose

within the organization. Our CEO is the

most-followed individual on Chatter.

Across the organization, employees have

remarked how happy they are to hear top

executives weighing in on difficult issues

with thoughtful, real-life responses.

For employees initially reluctant about

spending time on social media (even if

for enterprise), Kelly social media experts

recommended a daily “Chatterburst”—

just 10 minutes each morning to catch up

on new conversations and weigh-in with

relevant insights.

“i don’t haVe tiMe.”

10

90%1 http://www.slideshare.net/thetalentproject/strategy-is-nothing-without-speed

of coMpany knowledGe is inside eMployees’ heads.1

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For KellyOCG, the investment in social collaboration boils down to this:

we believe our employees’ insights are our greatest asset. A collaboration

platform ensures this intelligence is shared effectively, improved

consistently, and directed toward solving customers’ problems.

inVestinG in releVance

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about the authors

Brian Pauley leads Kelly Services Sales enablement practice comprising of

lead Generation, Salesforce.com, and is responsible for leading a continuous

improvement of Kelly’s sales process. His 22-year career includes 10 years of

operations management and 12 years of selling, large account management, and

sales management. Brian is passionate about removing obstacles for those who

are tasked with selling, and creating tools that assist them in winning more business.

Dave McDerMott is Director of Sales enablement for Kelly Services where he is

responsible for guiding CrM, lead Generation, and Sales Collaboration strategy

across the global Kelly Services organization. Dave has extensive experience in

the human capital sector, including a background in sales, recruiting, and strategic

account management. He is a frequent speaker on organizational collaboration,

leveraging technology, and enabling sales organizations to drive results.

EXIT

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