In the past, an employee’s skill sets were buried in a project document somewhere or in a resume that hadn’t been updated in two years. However, today’s social business collaboration tools offer a more immediate mechanism to highlight recent projects, skills and experience. That improved information access now allows organizations to start building teams around skill sets instead of around a traditional departmental or functional structure.
New technology enables collaboration solutions based on dynamic and updated personal profiles. Social business tools like Yammer and Office 365 offer easily updateable personal profiles that are searchable across your organization. Another key aspect of these tools is the notion of community. When people use these tools, the nature of communication is more social, and they tend to self-organize or organize around projects just like a community.
In some organizations, these social internal teams replace the more traditional concepts of a department. One notable example of this flat organization would be the online shoe retailer Zappos. Another example is Valve, a Seattle-based gaming company. At Valve, you don’t have a boss and there’s no ordinary team structure. They don’t hire for a project; they hire for people. Essentially, on your first day, you receive an employee manual and a link to the intranet. Then you go find a project and start working on it.
In flat organization environments like Zappos and Valve, communication and knowledge-sharing have to be lateral and informal, which social business collaboration solutions help to support. The success of internal teams built around skills probably requires a certain attitude and personality type. If you’re going to operate on a level of egalitarianism where there are no bosses and everyone is contributing, then everyone needs to be committed. Instead of having people tune out, you must know that you’re able to trust your colleagues and that they trust you.
It’s refreshing to see how these new collaboration solutions relate to the way people actually conduct business, and aren’t just cool social business tools that companies need to feel current. If you have the right culture of transparency and community in your organization, at the end of the day, all of the tools enable your success and help support your core values.
