36WWW.IWR.CO.UK/MANAGEMENT
THE SEMANTIC BOSS
There’s an online dimension to management that simply can’t be wished away. Euan Semple
puts the case for the full-blooded engagement with Web 2.0 that is Management 2.0
I
magine the following scenario. discussion forum within your story actually happened in my certainly happen to you in the near
One of your staff takes it on organisation and in this thread he is organisation. What would you do if future. Would you know what to do?
himself to defend your critical of the celebrity. Someone it happened to you? Would you be able to see it as the
organisation against criticism copies and pastes this internal Employees are leading increasingly opportunity that it actually is?
from a well-known public figure. conversation to the web in a public online lives and the scenario I’ve just Knowing what to do in this
He does so in a private email space. The critic gets to see it and outlined is playing out all over the situation involves three elements,
exchange with the critic. He then goes ballistic, making the whole business world. A situation just like none of which is a novel managerial
talks about his actions on an internal business a very public affair. This it, or even worse, will almost challenge, but all of which take
place in what may be unfamiliar
environments and accompanied by
new challenges.
LISTENING
The first, and indeed possibly most
important, skill for management in
the future is going to be listening.
Yes, I know it’s a cliché and that
managers have always been meant to
listen, but in an online world there is
a lot more to listen to.
Being able to establish systems and
habits that allow you to keep up with
the vast amounts of information
increasingly available to you matters
more and more. Working out what is
signal and what is noise and feeling
confident that you have a virtual ear
to the ground will be key.
If you can master these skills you
will in fact be better informed about
your business than ever before. With
a little up-front effort you will know
more and earlier about the things that
matter in your organisation. Knowing
early on that our employee was
engaged in a defence of our
organisation gave us much more
opportunity to deal with the fallout.
DECIDING
Understanding what to do about
things that happen online feels very
unfamiliar to many managers. They
may not have grown up online to the
extent their staff have and may not
be old enough to have teenagers at
home showing them the ropes. As
with listening skills, managers already
know much of what they need to be
effective at managing situations
online, but the way they apply their
knowledge will be different.
Very little can ever get done
without help from others and in a
Management 1.0 world you are
limited to those over whom you have
some sort of authority or your own
personal network. Online, however,
you have a much more extended
network to call on and access to all
sorts of people who can help you sort
problems and deal with issues.
INFORMATION WORLD REVIEW DECEMBER 2009/JANUARY 2010 WWW.IWR.CO.UK
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