In the last few years, a lot of people jumped onto the "social business" bandwagon. We were among them, of course, as our 2012 book Humanize was fundamentally about applying the ideas and principles embedded in social media to the way we lead and manage organizations. We still believe that's the way to go.
But we also believe that by itself, social business is not enough, particularly if that is implemented only by embracing social media and digital technology. It's great that more and more companies are figuring out social media and maybe even investing a little more than they did previously in their digital capacity, but at this point, all of that simply gets you into the game--it doesn't determine whether or not you win.
To win, you need to see the trends that are bigger than just the social internet revolution. In our new book, When Millennials Take Over: Preparing for the Ridiculously Optimistic Future of Business, we point out three big trends that are pointing towards a much bigger revolution in business. Yes, the social internet is part of that. The way social media has transferred power away from central institutions and into the hands of individuals all over the globe is a big deal. It's permanent, and it's changing society, not just marketing and communications. At the same time, we have also been experiencing an accelerating decay in the traditional systems of command-and-control management. We've been frustrated with management for decades, but today, we're actually creating new solutions. Just look at Zappos and its experiment with holacracy.
The third trend--and the one that's going to finally push this movement past the tipping point--is the emergence of the Millennial generation. Millennials (born between 1982 and 2004) have already been in the workforce for some time: the oldest turn 33 this year. But in the next few years they will suddenly become the largest segment of the workforce, right at the time that they are establishing themselves in management. And that is going to mean big changes for business.
In our research, we discovered an overlap between the millennial approach to leadership and the practices of organizations who have achieved off-the-chart employee engagement and performance. It centers on four key organizational capacities:
Digital,
Clear,
Fluid, and
Fast.
Digital is about perpetual and exponential improvement of all facets of organizational life using both the tools and the mindsets of the digital world. Clear is about an increased and more intelligent flow of information and knowledge that supports innovation and better decision making inside organizations. Fluid is about expanding and distributing power in a dynamic and flexible way. Fast is about taking action at the precise moment when action is needed. The organizations we studied in our research really nailed these capacities, but only by abandoning many of the "best practices" in management we've been told to follow for the last several decades. They organized their space differently. They hired people differently. They did performance reviews differently. They shared information with people who "normally" wouldn't get it, and they let people make decisions who "normally" wouldn't be allowed to. And they aren't being contrarian just to make a statement. They are succeeding. They have absurdly high employee engagement. They have low turnover. They charge more than their competitors, yet still get to pick and choose their clients.
This is the future of business, and being a social business is only a part of it. It certainly helps, because social business is consistent with the direction in which we're heading now, but this new bandwagon is a little bit harder to jump on. It requires more than being tech savvy; it requires a strong and clear culture that is aligned with these trends. But the payoff, as evidenced by the case study organizations in our book, is impressive.
Read more in When Millennials Take Over: Preparing for the Ridiculously Optimistic Future of Business, launching Monday 3/16 at SXSW. Get the book for only 99c during launch week!
------------