Social Technology: Making Big Business Small

I was recently at Barcamp Hamburg hosted by 90:10’s very own Franz Patzig (Head of Germany). Before he was a successful blogger, digital analyst and social media strategist I recently found out he started out his working life doing ‘time’ in his family’s chain of butchers. I know the cliché of a German and sausages has not been wasted on me nor him for at least a for a couple of days worth of jokes.

His father had built this small start-up enterprise into somewhat of an empire by being what in recent times would be referred to as an obsessive workaholic. He meticulously knew every area of the business, every member of staff’s name and deliberately spent more time out of the office and on the shop floor. He tried to spend as much time with the customer as possible to understand their needs, wants, frustrations and concerns and tirelessly sought to remedy them. It seems to be common behaviour in leaders that go on to make small businesses big. The success all comes down to the time invested in relationships both internally and externally. These relationships allow the leader to understand inefficiencies and ineffectiveness throughout their business. Good ones innovate to fix them. So if that’s what makes businesses big why do their leaders stop when they get big?

If we look at how the corporation is structured the typical leader simply has too much in the way of this golden opportunity to connect and can sometimes almost appear isolated, on the outside, and overly reliant on management teams to interpret the business for them. They can only broadcast into it through these managers and out of it via marketing teams. They are reliant upon information slowly making its way to the top if at all. Few department heads report actual failings and are naturally more optimistic in outlook. The only folk that have direct contact with the customers are limited in their opportunity to fix the cause of problems and often spend time fire-fighting. We all know the frustrations of being passed from department to department trying to find answers let alone solutions.

So if the only people I have a relationship with from within a business are those trying to either sell me something or when I have the negative experience it leads to discontent. I am locked out of the process a far cry from Mr Patzig’s face time relationship driven model. This limits advocation and WOM and restricts my market to only those that I must pay to reach.

Social technologies from blogging, to Twitter, Yammer and Wikis mean business leaders can break down the silos that distanced them from their employees and more importantly customers. They free the information flow and give visibility to real issues faced in the field. They lead to greater efficiency and innovation and invite the consumer into the process. Because they are involved and getting a better service, and hopefully product, they advocate. This advocation powered by the same social technologies means markets have potentially no boundaries as each makes it relevant to their community of peers. Put simply it allows big business to act like small ones on steriods.

Business oath to seek and serve a greater good

I was reading an article in The Economist today about 400 MBA students at Harvard Business School taking an unofficial oath to ‘serve the greater good’. They were rather smugly dismissed as naive or cynically regarded as attempting to market themselves in order to stand out in a competitive graduate job market. But the fact is the new business world they are about to emerge into increasingly requires openness, transparency and genuine community spirit from its leaders in order to succeed.

This may sound stretched but the community can and will hold business accountable if their actions are contrary to these core tenants and take great pride in doing so. Equally it will reward and advocate on behalf of those that drive forward with such positive motive.

By the time these graduates are in senior positions this will only be further amplified as we see increased connectivity between people via social technologies. It will be interesting to see how this will challenge the accepted status quo of corruption in countries around the world. It was only a few days ago the Spanish Prime Minister announced local government corruption had cost the country 4.2 billion euros in the last 10 years . How long will such things be tolerated when we as individuals now have the tools that empower us to mobilise on mass with great ease around a cause. Traditional efforts to gag such movements are useless in social media as best demonstrated by Twitter and the Trafigura toxic waste scandal. You simply have to be a better and more ethical business.

So what does it mean to ‘serve a greater good’ and how far is it from the minds of current business leaders? At 90:10 Group we are privileged to work with Honda who already take this stuff very seriously. They genuinely are a belief based business and take one of their many core tenants ‘be a company society wants to exist’ as a guiding thought throughout their day to day and strategic actions. Others like Cadburys, originally a business grounded in Quaker based beliefs, have always been committed to social reform. These businesses are doing more than ticking the CSR box they are in some cases choosing belief over profit. They have found their ‘greater good’ binds them with the society they exist within and as a group of individuals (employees).

We have developed a workshop with Mark Earls, author of Herd, that demands of a business that it collectively finds its purpose beyond simply selling stuff. A great example he uses to inspire during this process is one that many of you with an interest in social media may well be aware of Howies.

In short they believe in a striving for a high quality in their outdoor clothing products not just because that’s what is demanded of such apparel but they believe the longer these things last the less waste there is rubbishing an old pair of trousers and manufacturing a new one. They live this purpose in all their actions. This really resonates with them as people and with their consumer who, given they are the outdoors type, care passionately about the environment. And it pays. They have a powerful external marketing force made up of passion advocates.

So I think the oath is not an optional one. I think its great that these students have found it unnatural to not do it and hope to see new generations pushing this even further. However I do think it should be evolved a little to read as a ‘promise to SEEK and serve a greater good’.