Historically, the job of “managing human beings” has been a strictly top-down endeavor handled by someone who was either a stirring, inspirational orator or an intimidating, military strongman (sometimes both). And these “managers” usually had to — or more typically, wanted to — make huge, life-altering decisions all on their own, without any assistance or insights from the people they were “managing.”
This megalomaniacal “I’m in charge!” style of management has worked spectacularly well in some instances, but it has failed miserably in just as many others, if not more. Top-down management just isn’t the ideal strategy for dealing with every group in every situation. Many businesses, for example, can often benefit from a hybrid management style; one that combines the best of top-down approaches with the best of bottom-up. And here’s how to get it.
Even in these modern, technological times, few business leaders have fast and easy access to the collective intelligence of the people they manage. Sure, management could send around a mass email soliciting employee’s opinions on the state of business operations, but that single email thread would almost certainly cause your mail servers to commit ritual circuit-cide.
As a result of this lack, most business leaders today still make decisions affecting thousands of employees without including most of those thousands of employees. As a result, top-down leaders are more prone to making insufficiently informed and expensive decisions that cost the company and its shareholders.
How leaders can learn from employees.
Writing in a recent article on Entrepreneur.com, Andre Lavoie, gives “5 Lessons a Boss Should Learn From Employees,” and the way his five lessons parallel the benefits of an Enterprise Social Network is, frankly, kinda eerie.
1. Generate new ideas for the organization.
Here, he’s talking about employees cultivating new, original ideas in “an open atmosphere that invites discussion and sharing of ideas.” BAM! He couldn’t have described the benefits of tibbr more closely if he tried.
2. Improve the hiring and onboarding process.
With this one, the author almost pulls a page straight out of our Forrester Consulting report findings! Forrester’s analysis found that tibbr helped new employees get on-boarded and trained faster for their new responsibilities (for more details, read the whole report).
3. Be a better leader.
Here, he’s talking about getting feedback from employees and, with the tibbr Enterprise Social Networking platform, anyone in the company can easily create a poll/survey about anything — it’s instant democracy! Using tibbr Polls, people all over the company can weigh in on decisions whether they’re in the same office or across the globe. tibbr Polls also helps you get deeper insights than just a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ because people can add comments and attach images to give more detail, context, and rationale for the way they voted.
4. Create a sense of community.
Oh, come on! Community is one of the major benefits of an Enterprise Social Network like tibbr! That’s because humans work better within communal environments — research even shows that people with strong social connections are happier, more creative and actually live longer. So the use of Enterprise Social Networking helps make the office a place of open communication between workers and leaders where people feel more comfortable around their bosses.
5. Learn to trust.
Comfortable employees can lead to more comfortable leaders, too. Within the open atmosphere created by an ESN, leaders can be fully aware of what their employees are doing without the need to micromanage them. And that’s just a win-win for everybody involved.
Learn and lead better with an ESN.
Everyday, successful organizations are proving that an Enterprise Social Networking platform builds community and communication between managers and the managed. See how tibbr can help your company leaders make better, more inclusive business decisions — sign up for a free trial now.
