F•R•I•E•N•D•S – The one where they all collaborate (Part One)
I decided to break into the Huddo blog with a thought leader piece on business collaboration (I clearly like a challenge). I wanted to take a look at how people collaborate, the tools they use and some do’s and dont’s. To attempt to do this, I called in some favours from friends. Essentially, I made a conscious decision to make it a collaboration, in itself.
I am, unfortunately, not best friends with Jennifer Aniston or Matthew Perry, or any of the cast of ‘Friends’. So, when I decided to write a blog post on business collaboration, I pulled in some favours from six of my closest friends. I didn’t want to simply write down my own thoughts and feelings, but instead I wanted to get some different opinions and examples of other systems and experiences. I surveyed them the same series of questions, and I purposely picked a range of demographics.
Firstly, let’s check out the cast of my ‘Friends’.
Monica is a Business Development Manager for a software company with around 50 employees. She is very organised and methodical. She always confronts her problems and is an amazing cook. She is the big sister of the group and keeps everyone together, even when they are on the other side of the world.
Chandler is a CRM Administrator for a company specialising in data security. With Headquarters in Europe and the US, this global company has 350 employees. Despite a somewhat complicated back story, he is very warm and funny, and professionally very successful. Although no one really understands what he does for work.
Ross is a software developer whose code goes into space. Cool, right! He works for an Information Services company with 300 employees. He is the true nerd of the group, excelling in all aspects of geekery. He is smart, well-mannered, practical, and very close to his family. He’s the inquisitive one of the group.
Joey was (now retired) a Creative Director for a massive Investment Management company with almost 7,500 employees. The job title doesn’t fit with the character, I know, but he is very creative and good with people, mostly due to his natural charm. Definitely the confident one with a distinct Italian streak and look. Borderline cheeky.
Rachel was a Marketing, Communications, and Event professional for a massive Educational Management company with 6,000 employees. Now she’s a freelancer in many things, including a yoga teacher. She is very stylish and elegant and has a natural ability to just know what works and looks good. She has the courage to strike out on her own and continues to redefine herself.
Phoebe is a jack of all trades. Marketing, design, sales, finance, and ops. With a background in start-ups, she now works for a software company with around 50 employees. Often quite spontaneous and unconventional, she balanced a complicated past with spiritual teachings and decided long ago, life was too short not to be who you are and say what you feel.
So, now you know the gang… Let’s talk Business Collaboration.
In this day and age, is every business global?
The coronavirus has certainly made an impact on all types of organisations, large and small. With majority of the workforce unable to go to an office or shop or physical space, most people who remain in full-time employment, outside of key workers, do so digitally. However, although working from home is new for many people, and currently the new normal, working digitally is not new and most business have been doing it for quite some time.
All six of my friends work for global companies. Whether finance, education, software or information, or whether 50 employees or 7,500 employees. These days, even the smallest business can become global. Thanks to the internet, software tools, travel and infrastructure, most companies can go global very early in their creation. Whether to work internally with colleagues, externally with collaborators, or simply to communicate with customers, most businesses have the tools and IT infrastructure to enable digital communication and collaboration, to anyone, anywhere.
Most, but not all, will also have to enable communication and collaboration with other people on other time zones, on a weekly basis. The question isn’t really if businesses are now global, its more to what extent. As we know, digitally speaking, everyone is connected to everything.
Digital tools – the usual suspects.
Although the pandemic has greatly amplified digital tool usage (and it’s still ironic to hear my mum reference Zoom), tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, Google Meets, Google Hangouts, WebEx, JIRA, Trello, and Go-To-Meeting have been well known in the business world for many years.
Recently, we started to see digital tools merge in acquisitions, such as Trello being brought by Atlassian (who provide JIRA), Slack being brought by SalesForce, and Microsoft looking to buy Discord. There are clearly some massive tech giants looking to monopolise the market. But truth be told, there is still a lot of competition in the market for digital communication and collaboration.
It seems there are three main reasons for this:
1. Digital communication still has room for improvement.
All of the people I interviewed said, at best, that there were ‘some’ pros of digital communication vs in-person. But when pressed, each reference something that, digitally speaking, can’t be replaced. Most cited was social cues. Knowing someone is listening, understanding, when to speak/when to listen, etc.
2. Most companies do not enforce a single tool.
Digital tools are a lot like the proverbial Vegemite dilemma. You either love it or you hate it, and people develop polarising camps. Some people love Microsoft Teams and others hate it. Some people prefer to call, some prefer to message. Some like Google Meets, others like Zoom. From a business perspective, there are often positives to having everyone use the same tool, but it seems the first objective is to get people to communicate and collaborate. Then, if possible, is to standardise how.
3. A whole organisation rarely communicates and collaborates.
Most communication and collaboration happens on a team level. You have a project, and you work with a subset of people in the organisation on that project. Because most work happens here, each team and department develops its own working style and methodologies. And thus, adopts and prefers certain tools.
In many respects, what tool you use is almost secondary. Everyone I interviewed named at least two instant messenger tools, two video call tools and two collaboration tools, that they use, right now. No one really understood why a certain tool was used. They have biased preference themselves, usually based on a team preference. Everyone, though, used process to enable multiple people and departments to use multiple tools.
Chandler mentioned that in his company, they are transitioning to Microsoft Teams from Skype, mostly because they already have Microsoft licences. A desire to standardise communication and save costs at the same time. Seems logical. Ross, on the other hand, said that migrating to Microsoft Teams was attempted at his company and everyone hates it. Now the organisation is reverting back to using the previous system and tools.
It seems although we see the usual suspects, the tools used by individual teams are similar across different organisations, but perhaps more accurately they are using a slightly different combination. It seems digital communication and collaboration tools are a lot like Lego or MineCraft blocks. You build your own world. None exactly the same, but all quite similar.
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION & COLLABORATION
GUIDE 2021
Has digital taken over, for good?
If we look at instant messaging, I get the impression that it definitely has its place. I think separate from ‘is it better or worse than in-person communication’ there is the valid point that it is necessary. It seems half of my friends see that there are cases when instant messenger is better. Like when you are sending data. However, most people refer to the benefit of face-to-face communication over instant messaging. If a message involves emotion or is something you need to convey (that’s not black and white in written form), it’s often better to communicate it face-to-face. There are also social cues, an acknowledgment of understanding, less misinterpretation, and conversational energy that just isn’t conveyed well over instant messenger.
But not all messaging can happen face-to-face, in person, or not. It seems its best usage is transactional in nature. Its updates and notifications. It’s simple, more black and white (and less grey). It’s purposely short and to-the-point.
What about video calls though? They are face-to-face. Well, they often are. I see working-from-home is new for many people and this has resulted in quite a few turning off their video feed in fear of judgment on how they look (at that exact moment). Perhaps the professional appearance standards have slipped with the pandemic. With my friends though, it seems that social cues are still missing with face-to-face video calls, and in-person communication is still thought of as more efficient. Or, I could say, being better at giving that social feeling and enabling expression. Natural meeting etiquette appears harder to achieve and/or maintain in video calls.
Chandler actually felt like Zoom meetings are more efficient than in-person meetings, with less general chit-chat. Plus, digital communication does remove the need to travel a lot. So, again, it’s clear that video calls still have their place. In terms of social cues, it’s far better than instant messaging, but it seems process around usage, or perhaps improvements in the tools themselves, need to replicate what face-to-face meetings should provide in order to completely replace it for good.
Process can either provide the chit-chat and social aspect of video calling or not, depending on what you want. You can use process to limit people talking over each other in calls. You can make a point of acknowledging understanding in video calls without facial expressions or being able to look around the room. You can make a process of note-taking for meetings, and referring back to them in follow-up meetings, keeping your objectives clear. You can encourage team and company chats in instant messenger for visibility and support accountability, or reserve instant messenger for one-on-one and more transactional communication, to limit the disruption for everyone.
Does digital collaboration tell a similar story? In a way, yes. The social cues, affirmation of understanding, brainstorming, and using collective intelligence (even the act of whiteboards and post-its) and a general impression of a more fluid process, are sentiments shared with digital collaboration tools vs in-person collaboration. Of course, Chandler is the exception again and for the same reason as video calls. He said traveling to the office for project collaboration means he is less productive. Being tired from travel, not sleeping at home and a break in routine all contributing.
And, again, I think everyone recognises that digital tools help when collaboration can’t happen in person.
So, it seems digital tools can’t replace face-to-face communication in person, nor working on projects in person. Perhaps one day it can support that social aspect of communication and collaboration. One day, it can replicate the natural social etiquette of in-person communication. But right now, people can’t always meet in person, and the tools are there because they are necessary. Process and company culture can help support what digital lacks. The first step is being conscious of the difference, as a company, and adapting its usage to better suit what is required of it.
I also asked my friends if they felt supported, digitally. It seems, as a group, they are very self-sufficient and self-reliant. Perhaps due to our age and seniority, but everyone works with a level of autonomy now. So, they don’t feel that need for regular or extensive support. So, that is at least one thing that digital is, quite clearly, positively supporting. It seems most of my friends feel content to be a little further away from their managers now.
How do people manage notifications and stay organised? To-do lists. Digital or physical. There was a series of confessions that some of my friends still like that act of putting pen to paper (so old school). That said, there is something to be said for the act of writing a task on paper to help you embed that ‘task’ in your present and short-term memory. Obviously, digital lists are easy to edit, update, change, share and save for reference. Either way, it seems the humble to-do list is a daily necessity for everyone. And that hasn’t changed since the days of chiseling grocery lists onto cave walls.
To be continued…
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