29. September 2010 13:01
Posted by SamSari
While it’s true that leadership can play a big role in developing the right strategy and building momentum within the ranks, the fact is that true change in any organization is dictated by the actions of beliefs of the front line workforce. They are the ones that make up your organization’s particular culture, and culture is never easy to change. In the end, culture eats strategy for lunch. Your workers determine the fate of your strategic initiatives, implementation only occurs when the majority is compelled to act.
In light of this, many organizations are realizing the power of changing the way they communicate change; taking less of a ‘top-down’ approach and instead focusing on creating a ‘bottom-up’, grass-roots style movement that seeks to address resistance rooted within the organizations core culture. This involves empowering the front line workforce itself to participate in realizing and implementing strategic vision, to truly ‘be’ the change that your organization seeks.
The tools for this kind of ‘bottom-up’communication are already in the hands of many key personnel in the front line workforce. Using cloud based software, mobile applications, social-media and other ‘crowd-sourcing’ technology it’s now possible to create communications campaigns that are driven by the front line workforce itself. At SamSari, we’ve seen some recent successes in using just this kind of bottom-up approach. It’s real employees speaking out about what’s really happening in ‘the trenches’ . It can be risky, and we’ve noticed that leadership needs to play a big role here in ensuring that this communication is genuinely constructive. However, when done right, it seems clear that bottom-up communication can be truly effective when it comes to mobilizing the majority and harnessing the wisdom of the crowd.
Read more on the subject!
4 levels of employee engagement
4 case studies on bottom-up engagement
Primary causes of negativity in a workplace?
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