At last weekend's Transparency Camp West, Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation asked me a great question. "What are the characteristics of nonprofits that have successfully adopted social media?"
I think it is culture. But what is in the DNA of these nonprofit organizations that allows for them to embrace social media and use it successfully?
Perhaps it looks like this:
- Organizational leaders are curious, not scared by social media
- Organizational leaders are willing to be uncomfortable in order to understand why and then invest
Style of Working
- Departments do not work in silos, systems, policies, and work processes support this
- Organization can easily collaborate, connect, and reach out to others beyond the firewall
- There is trust that employees and stakeholders will represent the organization without creating command and control policies and policing them
(The work style comes from developing social media guidelines/policy)
- Culture of learning through making mistakes or taking calculated risks, not a Martha Stewart culture of perfection
- Ability to slay organizational myths – “We’ve always done it this way” by having discussion
- Does not equate informality or personality with a lack of quality
- Not always moving forward faster than the speed of light, driven by deadlines, but also reflects
- Takes a try it, fix it approach
- Has a culture of rapid response – can address problems or complaints quickly without getting bogged down by endless approval process.
- Evaluates current processes and systems on a regular basis and updates them as needed on an incremental basis
Am I missing anything?
So, what if these qualities don't describe your organization's culture? How do you change?
I came across an article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (no relation) from the Harvard Business School called "To Master Change, First Dread It" She describes the stress and feelings of lost control that change in organizations engenders. She goes on to say that the stress leads to paralysis. She offers a counter-intuitive tip for moving past it:
A counter-intuitive tip for mastering change is to start by wallowing in the feelings of dread it arouses. The sheer nail-biting horror of it all. Get in touch with every negative aspect, all the things that could go wrong. Then figure out a way to get that negative force on your side. In short, "Dream your worst nightmare and invest in it."
I think this is the key to adoption and social media success. To create your social media guidelines, examine the worst possible scenario, ask what if questions, wallow in all your fears, etc. I call this putting a smiley face on the screamer.
What's your nonprofit's worst social media nightmare?