Tag Archives: leading

Leadership and Management in Social Media

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I’ve been thinking and writing for a little while now about the underlying concepts of Social Media – stuff that I keep on insisting to people are the ‘bigger concepts’ that are regardless of tools, much of which enters the realm of cultural and economic commentary. I started examining the change from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy – essentially discussing the fact that the majority of businesses in Western World now deal mostly with intangibles that are knowledge-based as opposed to production-based. For me, this was ‘The Reason Why Most Companies Don’t Get It‘, because it requires these companies to cease managing people like parts in a production process, and adjust to leading and developing the knowledge skills of their staff in this knowledge economy. Continue reading →

The Reason Why Companies Don’t ‘Get It’

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hydro2.jpgI was talking to Benjamin Ellis at #SMiB last Friday about the change in culture that is being accentuated by Social Media. Notice I say accentuated by Social Media – the change is not Social Media itself. Talking to Benjamin was a meeting of like minds and confirmed what I’ve been thinking for sometime:

100 years ago, most businesses had a factory-mindset and a production process that was managed. Money was made by fine tuning the production process to either reduce cost, or increase productivity. The production process was a series of mechanics – variables that were minimised to increase predicability and consistency – with human quality control. Continue reading →

Life Never Closes Its Doors

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Of times past and presentI loved reading Leonard Speiser’s words on TechCrunch on Sunday: “Business hours are dead. 24/7 is the new 9 to 5.” As an often too-connected individual, I must say I am glad that I’ve embraced this principle and moved my agency from time constraints to a non-geographically bound entity with international clients.

Whilst I’m only beginning to grasp what this global village is all about, most of us know that life, unlike business, never closes its doors. Putting your feet up at the end of day might mean your colleagues aren’t watching you, but your partner and/or kids certainly are. And whoever it is that you are in a position of influence with – children, friends, colleagues – the fact is that they always have their eyes on you.

George Ambler put it this way: Leaders live in a fish bowl. There’s always the human, or the cat, looking in to see what you’ll do next. Life doesn’t close is doors.

Now I think we need down time. And for sure, we’ll let people down because no-one’s perfect. But that doesn’t make me shun or despise the fact that people are watching me. To be given influence in that way is a privilege, and I’m of the opinion that if someone wants to watch me, then I want to make it worth their while. For me? No. For them. Because if they’ve granted me the honour of their attention, then I want to give them the honour of mine.

Leading 24/7 is hard. But if I have something to give, then I want to give it. If I can add value, then I want to add it. Like Roosevelt said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…

So, whether people are watching you to see how you succeed, or are watching in the hope that you’ll fail, decide that you’ll give them a good show. Or, should I say ‘a great experience‘?