Dimensions of the Socially Dynamic Organisation

Today has been a long day, working with the HR leaders of a range of global businesses exploring aspects of the Social Age, tomorrow I will lead a session on how we build the Socially Dynamic organisation. This is one of the more challenging aspects of #WorkingOutLoud. Long days where writing is the last thing to happen as it approaches midnight. But of course, the thing about habits is that they are easily lost, so forgive me a short, reflective post as I digest today and prepare for tomorrow.

The Socially Dynamic Organisation is fundamentally adapted for the ever-changing reality of the Social Age: it finds strength not simply through system and process, hierarchy and control, but rather through its ability to adapt, constantly, at speed. This adaptation comes about not simply because it has optimised a process for innovation, but rather because it has adapted down to the level of DNA to have a strong ability to adapt. It is fundamentally evolved.

There are many dimensions of change that must take place to build the Socially Dynamic Organisation. We must adapt in terms of leadership, in terms of learning, HR, IT, compliance, we must adapt the ways we induct people into the organisation, and the ways that they leave at the end, we must adapt all of these things, but it starts with mindset.

The Socially Dynamic Organisation gains its strengths through the dynamic tension that it holds between formal and social systems: in other words this is not simply a change in the formal system, but rather the development of an entirely parallel system, one that coexists.

That’s the challenge we face: to preserve the strength we currently hold, and develop an entirely new type of strength. That is the challenge of the Social Age.