The CX Blog

Gapingvoid answers questions posed by Shel Israel in his blog. Lots of what he says makes sense but the following popped out at me because it so mirrors my own work with companies who are trying to get their collective head around the issue:

Mid-Management is in the unfortunate situation of wanting to “get it”, knowing it’s the future, whilst at the same time, they’re paid to maintain the status quo. One thing management often underestimates is JUST HOW DISRUPTIVE social software is. I see lots of pain in that future. Hopefully it’ll end up being worth it in the long run.

The main impact Social Media has brought to me was seeing my business model, over a period of about five years, evolving from a “Hierarchy” privilege model to what Jon Husband calls a “Wirearchy” model.

Seems to me that part of the problem management faces when considering the social media question is precisely the evolution from hierarchy to Wirearchy–great neologism, that. Since most management views the world through a hierarchical lens, it makes sense that they would be prepared for the disruptive nature of this new media–completely and totally unprepared.

There are two types of managers who really “get it” –those who understand what the front line needs–and they understand their role is to facilitate changes to bring the right tools and processes to bear. The second type is the manager who understand what the customer needs and wants. Those two groups–the agent and the customer–need JIT info, easy and fast. They need info in a form that makes sense to them. They don’t need info that makes sense to the programmer who laid out the processes for the new x-chip in the remote–even though that’s precisely the knowledge base article so many front line workers and customers get handed.

Those managers are out on the edge with their front line and their customer–and it sometimes seems as though those managers are few and far between.