March 14, 2004
Corporate blogs and change management
From Sebastien Paquet (le bien nommé), this quote
...one can view blogging as a personal "coming out" experience, going public with what was once private. And I think this process that many people are undergoing has the effect of speeding up the change and diversification of overt personal practices and social norms.Definitely. That's why I am blogging. In my daily life as a senior manager in a global corporation, I often get frustrated by some of the decisions made, which appear to me as inappropriate for the company. But the tyranny of org charts and top-down bureaucracy prevents me from openly disagreeing with my boss (especially in times of cost-cutting...), so what should I do?
- If I have no spine, I can comply and obey, and become a cynical reader of Dilbert, which accurately portrays daily life in big corporations.
- If nothing really matters but my career, I can enter the corporate political game, and walk my way up the corporate ladder through ad'hoc alliances and betrayals, and honestly, I am not very good at that
- If I do care about my company's future and believe my ideas at least deserve to be debated, then I have to find other people to discuss with. So I will post my ideas on my blog just to see whether they resonate with others from my company and elsewhere, and are strong enough to become a political force for proposals (a community).
I am conscious of walking a fine line here, especially since I believe I am the only known blogger in this company. The risk of being squeezed out as a black sheep is real 
Very few executives -only the very best actually- actually recognize the need to encourage reasonable behavior of resistance from their employees. Those corporate statesmen are not afraid to encourage out-of-the box thinking to foster innovation and change. They know that the age of productivity by efficient bureaucracy is behind us; they know that what they need is good ideas, and that managers assigned from the top on the basis of their ability to make their numbers are not often very good at identifying good ideas and nurturing innovation.
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Comments
Martin,
I know sometimes it's scary to be the only blogger in a company, but it worth the risk. If you don't speak how do you find that your words matter? If someone don't try to communicate in a new way how will the change start?
I'm happy that it worked in my case - I'm not the only one any more. But as any change - it takes courage, energy and a bit of good luck :)
Looking forward to talk about it at BlogWalk...
Posted by: Lilia at March 14, 2004 11:07 PM
Matrin, keep saying it loud and hard:-) in the age of top-down corporate noise and faked polyphony, people like you speaking with a human voice gain our trust. and if the headquarters find that hard to understand, then their time is running out....
Posted by: george dafermos at March 15, 2004 02:10 AM
A cause des "paquets" de billets que tu postes tous les jours. Oui, je sais, ce n'est pas drôle.
Je peux corriger, si tu veux...
Posted by: Martin R. Dugage at March 22, 2004 09:48 PM
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