Communicating ideas and new business strategies
quickly and accurately to thousands of employees around the world
is a conundrum that has been puzzling managers for years. But at
last, there seems to be a solution, according to a recent research
report by Rolf H˜ppi and Patricia Seemann of Zurich Financial Services
(ZFS) in Switzerland entitled Social Capital: Securing Competitive
Advantage in the New Economy.
Frustrated with trying the same old methods of
disseminating information to the 70,000 plus employees at ZFS, Rolf
H˜ppi, CEO, and Patricia Seemann, organisational specialist and
director of Communications, decided there had to be a better way.
Explains H˜ppi, “As an organisation, undergoing
major structural change, our challenge was, how do we get people,
often people who have never met and never will, to want to collaborate
-- to share ideas and opinions? We knew that simply implementing
lots and lots of new software wasnŽt the answer."
“You can have all the technology in
the world,” says Seemann, “but that doesnŽt mean that
anything is going to happen; technology is simply an enabler, it
wonŽt produce anything unless people want to collaborate.”
What they realised, was that in order to create real intellectual
capital in ZFS, they needed to consider the three elements in play:
human capital (individual knowledge, skills, experience, and talent),
structural capital (physical assets that facilitate a firmŽs knowledge
and competencies) and what they call social capital. Social capital
they describe as “the features of an organisation that facilitate
coordinated action to achieve desired goals.”
Going further, H˜ppi adds, “While human
capital resides in the people, social capital resides in the relationships
amongst them.”
"What we were seeking,” say H˜ppi
and Seemann, “was to get all the people in our organisation
moving instantly together, like a shoal of fish. Our idea was, how
can we replicate that in a corporate environment?”
They continue, “We believe there is an urgent
need for companies to find a way to collaborate at scale, at a distance,
and in a rapidly changing context. To do that, a firm has to manage
deliberately for social capital.”
Two European firms that H˜ppi and Seemann admire
for exhibiting clear signs of having strong social capital are:
Nokia, which
has been able to get all three elements (human, structural, and
social) working together in a consistent fashion. They have created
a heady blend that brings a true sense of belonging and ownership
to the firm.
Royal Dutch Shell, where there
is a management tradition of bringing executives together, often
on intensive overseas assignments. The companyŽs policy is to
rotate people so much that they are able to call on the advice
of a large number of fellow employees. This gives the firm a head
start on the social capital needed to get complex projects up
and running.
Seemann points out that, “What we need to
discover, is how the ÐbitsŽ in between the people happen. Our view
is that the concept of social capital offers a way to look at a
firm and all of its internal and external relationships in a way
that makes it actionable.”
Adds H˜ppi, “The key to making this work
is finding out where and when people are getting together to work
on a problem. Then you provide the right support to aid and abet
that process.”
But, warns ZFS, this isnŽt an easy assignment;
it needs plenty of attention and ongoing commitment to get it right.
However, they believe that managing for social capital offers organisations
an essential lifeline for the future, without which managing the
complex systems of today will become virtually impossible.
EditorŽs Note: To order copies
of Social Capital: Securing Competitive Advantage in the New Economy,
by Rolf H˜ppi and Patricia Seemann (FT Prentice Hall, 2000), please
visit Business-Minds.com.
This article is courtesy of the Management Centre Europe (MCE),
Brussels, Belgium. You can contact MCE at 32.2.543.24.00, or via
the Web at www.mce-ama.com.
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