In her previous book Groundswell, written with Josh Bernoff, the authors introduced the why of openly engaging your customers. In this context engaging, being defined as encouraging and accepting two way conversations, rather than the old push method of one-way marketing messages. After extensive interviews and consulting research, In this new book, Open Leadership; How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead (ISBN 978-0-470-59726-2)Ms. Li dives into some ideas on the how organizations can become more transparent and open.
Right from the introduction, and within each of the case studies, the text makes quite clear that Ms. Li defends the thesis that control of your message is a thing of the past, and that the way communications that lead to customer engagement with your brand is the way of the future. Ms. Li is equally clear that while engagement does require loosening control, this loosening is not throwing open the doors to chaos, or chanting mantra’s and kumbaya’s.
Loosening control requires strategy, execution and measurement, along with the appropriate procedures, policies, and guidelines. Marketing executives will understand the authors context of defining how open do you need to be will depend on where your customers and stakeholders are. In other words, know thy customer, and understand the lifetime value and Net Promoter Scores of your customers.
The author presents a compelling argument that giving up control is inevitable, and presents the following points which she then builds upon to begin a framework that can assist your business in loosening the apron strings while maintaining brand and message consistency through what I would call covenants rather than direct control;
1 Respect that your customers and employees have power
2 Share constantly to build trust
3 Nurture curiosity and humility
4 Hold openness accountable
5 Forgive failure
While the author mentions our currently available two way communicating social technologies such as blogs, twitter and FaceBook, it is important to understand that the while the technologies we use may shift and change, (and change happens quickly) this concept of engagement supersedes whatever the tool of the day may be.
In a chapter describing the business benefits of being engaged and open with customers, Ms. Li provides good, hard samples of the calculations that executives may need to demonstrate ROI and benefit. The chapter covers the context of supporting products or services, marketing engagement and reputation protection, and expertly presents the difficulty I have written about previously on the difficulty in measuring innovation.
All businesses are different and will not have the same strategic goals, this book, while prescriptive, provides a descriptive framework that can be modified to suit your own requirements and strategies;
Define your objectives
Identify the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Identify Open activities that support your KPI’s
Establish a baseline for your objectives and KPI’s
Optimize and adjust against KPI’s and priorities.
I find that this prescriptive text to be the first that I have personally read that goes beyond the Why to delve into the detail of the How.