It's time we walked the walk

Recently, I had the honor of delivering an opening keynote at a great conference in Boston around digital workplace transformation. As I prepared to take the stage, my mind was racing - as I was poised to toss my planned material into the garbage and instead deliver what I call a "take 'em to church" admonishment to the attendees. In the end, I didn't...  perhaps best, as sometimes that kind of dialog isn't well received. But the motivation that had me poised to throw caution to the wind hasn't subsided...  if anything, it has grown.

Let me start by saying that I LOVE what I do! My passion for empowering employees to share their voices and collaborate is what drives me. The opportunity to truly deliver positive impact to corporate culture is borderline spiritual - and the attendees in Boston clearly shared that passion. So many amazing insights to this body of work...   yet, I couldn't escape the feeling that for many (most?), it fell short. Talking about digital transformation has been "the buzz" for years - yet the promises we espouse are far from reality. Why? What is the barrier that so many companies can't seem to get past to be able to implement social capabilities across their intranets and truly leverage their most valuable assets - their people?

This conference had one of the best mobile apps I've had the pleasure of using at any conference - and therein the catalyst for my consternation was exposed.

These amazing people, with their passion and insightful metrics and consummate skills in wielding words (mightier than the sword!)...   weren't walking the walk. A tiny fraction of them had taken the time to upload a photo to their profiles in the mobile app, much less add any subject matter expertise or information. I spoke on the second day - and almost everyone was in the exact same seats they had occupied throughout day one, sitting with their co-workers and perhaps a few folks from another company.

Sure - there were "hallway conversations" and some great dialog in the breakout sessions, but this particular conference had some huge opportunities that were not being adopted. That same mobile app included facilitated messaging & meetup functionality, for example (I can't say enough good things about the event organizers and the opportunities their efforts delivered!)  But many of the people weren't necessarily DOING what they were SAYING.

A portion of the planned material I shared talked about leadership. In the gray matter between my ears (a scary place to be - trust me!), there is no greater evidence of leadership than the concept of leading by example. And we weren't. We aren't. We complain about the lack of budgets & staff, we hedge on the corporate culture 'not being ready', and we lament the challenges around getting our corporate executives to adopt and engage and do exactly what we need to be doing first! In what universe would a C-Suite executive be willing to put themselves out there and engage in the digital workplace when the people asking them to do so aren't consistently doing it themselves?

Here's my message:  Digital Workplace Advocates everywhere...  you are among the best of the best. You know the strategies, you're experts in the methodology, and you have analyzed the data to prove the ROI. You invented community management, and evolved the concepts of user experience - not to mention the fact that you created a whole new language of engagement! You're AWESOME! Now there's just one more little step to take: walk the walk. Work out loud, and engage prolifically. Swim upstream if you must...  and don't let the opportunities to form new relationships pass you by!

(author's note: this is not a blanket admonishment for all! Many digital workplace advocates ARE leading by example...   you know who you are!)