One of the themes in Mack Collier’s excellent Social South presentation, What Rockstars Can Teach You About Kicking Ass With Social Media, is finding ways to shift control to your fans. Mack gives great examples of this, like the Beastie Boys handing out video cameras at their concerts and letting their fans shoot concert videos. Contrast this to the “typical” approach of forbidding photography at concerts. Which is likely to inspire more passion?
Now, take that idea and translate it to WITHIN your organization. How can you better use your INTERNAL fans? I would wager some big bucks, that in most cases, there are people that work for you that are chomping at the bit to be empowered to make things better. What if instead of pulling back so hard on the reins, you simply engaged them in conversations about the direction of the company? What would happen? Here’s what would happen:
You would be more in touch with what’s really going on in your organization.
You would have more, better ideas.
You would have more loyal, passionate employees willing to go to any length to help you succeed.
You would have a stronger, more positive, energized culture.
Your customers would then feel your stronger, more positive, energized culture. They, too, would become more passionate, loyal, fans of yours, and more likely to spread the word. See? Could just turn a negative cycle into a positive one.
So ease up on the reigns, there, Hoss. Stop clinging so tightly to the illusion that you can control everything that you shut out your biggest fans, whether it’s internally, or externally. LEAD. Do so strongly. But collaboratively.
