One discusson, three platforms, twenty peeps

Ok, so that was a bad title, this is really just a little story of how some social media tools facilitated some fantastic dialog and ongoing discussion on real business and Human Resources issues.

Last Friday night Shauna and I did a HR Happy Hour Show about Tattoos, Piercings, and Diversity in the workplace. The show was really a discussion on company culture, and how culture is developed and perpetuated in the workplace.  It was a really fun show, and I encourage you to listen to the archive here:

 Also since there is no live show tonight, this should give you your HR Happy Hour fix until next week.

The next morning, Saturday, the culture discussion continued on Twitter among myself, The HR Maven, and Tammi Colson. We kicked around the idea of culture being a top-down, leadership driven construct versus the notion of company culture really begin driven and enforced so to speak by employees themselves. It was a pretty interesting exchange to have early on a Saturday morning, but definitely very interesting and informative

On Tuesday I blogged here about Technology and Company Culture, mostly riffing the conversation from the show and form the impromptu Twitter chat on Saturday morning. The basic question I asked was can the application of collaboration technology actually drive a change in company culture.  There was some excellent comments and discussion on the post.

And of course the debate carried over to Twitter on Tuesday night, where Beth Carvin, Kevin Grossman, Robin Schooling and I debated the whole Technology and culture issue some more.

So by my count the final tally was one radio show with about ten active participants, one blog post with about eight commenters, and two separate twitter chats involving five more people.

All great discussions, all happening in 'off hours' (heck on Tuesday night I was grilling ribeyes and having a beer during the chat), and all enabled by various social media tools.

And by the way, just some of the 'titles' represented in the various discussions - CEO, VP of HR, HR Director, and VP of Marketing among others. Look the titles don't really mean all that much to me, but I mention them to underscore the point that social media in general and Twitter in particular is not all about inane blather about what people had for lunch.

I probably learned more about company culture in the last few days, from this diverse group of people that I had in the last five years.

Comments

[HR Minion]

I'm going to have coffee with someone soon because of the cultural fit discussions we had on the HR Happy Hour last Friday. Twitter can lead to a lot of cool things. :)

[Steve]

Shauna that is awesome! Let me know how it turns out. My secret goal of the HR Happy Hour is for the show to land you a great new gig!

[Deirdre]

I think about this so much it is almost a pre-occupation. :) Two things - culture and fit - everyone 'knows' what that means but it means so many different things - what is 'culture' for the organization may be modified slightly by department. I think of the differences between finance and IT in my organization. And FIT - people can recognize cultural FIT but boy try and get someone to articulate it - not so successful.

So in my organization - it's a cultural of looking for ways to say yes. We are a listening group. We take people and ideas seriously. These things slow down work pace. You have to understand that people want to KNOW you first before we 'do' business. If you are in a hurry, our culture isn't for you.

Rather than a mission statement I would love to see companies define culture and FIT in mission and vision. It sure would help.

[Steve]

Thanks Dee for the comments. That is a really great point regarding the mission and vision statements that most companies have, that usually do not go far at all into describing the culture of the organization. It is a really tricky subject, but I suppose that is why it is interesting to discuss.