Social media supports the shadow side

Faced with questions about why blogs and other social media can make a difference to the way organisations work I haven't got much beyond they challenge hierarchies internally if people share information informally, and they punch a hole in the membrane between the organisation and members or customers. They also encourage conversations and storytelling ... help people find a voice and new roles.
These issues were discussed a lot at the recent Gurteen Knowledge cafe and continue to be raised on the Gurteen forum.
What I have lacked is some ways of tying these ideas together - now neatly provided by Lloyd Davis in It's Social Stupid. It's all about the shadow. He reports he had a moment of clarity last week while holding an open space at Online - and I think it's worth quoting at length: 

I hesitate to call it an "ah-ha" moment.  It's more of a "well....duuuhhh!" moment. Hold Tight!
All organisations have formal systems and informal systems.  You know the formal bits because formal usually means explicit - the org structure diagram, job descriptions, line (or matrix) management structures, written policies, mission statements, value statements and vision statements and the group and individual objectives (supposedly) derived from them and the behaviours that go with them - making a request, filling in a form, going to see the right person in facilities management, appraising staff performance, project and programme reporting.  They also have formal links with customers, suppliers and other organisations - official channels.  This is the bureaucracy.
The informal or shadow systems are the links between people that may have nothing to do with their official roles or structures.  This shadow organisation arises because the formal systems cannot be efficient or effective outside of certain limits.  Ralph Stacey in Strategic Management & Organisational Dynamics (dreadful title - great summary and important critique of the development of modern strategic management) points out that there are two main reasons for bureaucratic control failing to produce what it's supposed to: the adverse human reaction to bureaucracy (Yup! as I typed that previous paragraph I shuddered at ever having to be part of one again) leading to alienation, passive dependence, work without significance, deskilling and provocation of undesired or unintended behaviour.  In addition, formal systems can't deal well with ambiguity or uncertainty.  So these informal groups, unofficial ways of behaving, doing business through social activities and networking grow up to allow the organisation to operate more effectively and efficiently.  Remember too that unlike the formal part of the organisation, the boundaries of the shadow systems are permeable and always changing, making new contacts in "the industry" or "the sector" as and when opportunities arise.
Furthermore, it has been pointed out that the shadow organisation is the place where innovation and creativity are allowed to flourish.  You can't make new stuff effectively within a formal process.  Creativity requires messiness, mistakes and flexibility around time.  Innovations happen in the informal world - and, from time to time, when they are useful to the formal world, they become systematised and turned into policy or else they remain "the way we do things around here".  Note also that the organisation as a whole is the same bunch of people - just that they move over time between formal and informal modes and activities, however, my experience has been that there are people who feel more at home in the informal systems (cool dudes like me - heh!) and others who spend most of their time formally (tight-arsed pen-pushers - natch!)
Now, what came to me on Monday with a thud was that it's these informal groups and activities that are supported by "social software"  Blogs give people the opportunity to say what they want and talk about it, outside of any established order - just talk about what's on your mind.  Wikis allow for a meritocracy in collaborative documentation and policy/decision making.  Social networking tools allow you to find and foster new connections outside of the org chart.

Lloyd then explains the resistance to introducing new tools. It isn't just technophobia.

So when we take social software or social media and try to sell it (through formal channels) as a part of the bureacracy - to replace something formal, it's not surprising that we get asked about ROI and metrics and to prove "what's in it for me".  And when we just take a risk and start something as an experiment that then just works, these questions get asked less and less.

I think the shadow organisation using social media (face-to-face or online) is a great metaphor. Can't wait to hear Lloyd's sales pitch to the chief exec about supporting the darker side...

Comments

[Shahid Mallick]

In the country like Bangladesh where literacy rate is too poor. and averagre income less than a doller per day. it is in this situation wher access to information techonology like computer is being denied their web use is meare dream.

[David Wilcox]

Shahid - thanks. It is so easy for us to forget how privileged we are in our connected world. But do you have some lessons about what it really takes to connect with other people, which we maybe forget amidst the technology?

[Philip Holden]

I commented on Lloyd's blog because there is some well-established sociological theory that illuminates this.
I don't want to write an essay here (though I guess I should one day, at least on my blog...) so suffice to say that social structures (including companies and voluntary organisations) are just that; social structures.
Simply because they appear to be formal or self-evident doesn't give them any special ontological status. More importantly when they go unquestioned or even unnoticed it's a pretty good bet that they do so to someone's benefit.
Further, the power to recognise certain structures and to legitimise them rests with only some people (rich in certain forms of capital).
Dang! It's turning into an essay.
Can I put it simply? Well, the 'shadow' organisation (or society) has always been there (in Bangladesh as well as elsewhere) but only certain people have the authority to call it out of bounds.
Read Bourdieu!!

Phil
www.pleasewalkonthegrass.com
www.pleasewalkonthegrass.blogspot.com