In my mind the role of leadership and Influencers is to change "Social Behavior" as it is put in the following post on Emergence Marketing titled The Conspiracy Of Silence - how silence fails…and sometimes kills.
"...One study focused on hospitals, and looked at how the conspiracy of silence held in place powerful norms that kept people from speaking up when colleagues violated hygiene, safety or any other protocol - leading to unnecessary deaths. Take those numbers - 84% of doctors have seen co-workers taking shortcuts that could be dangerous to patients, yet fewer than 10% of physicians, nurses and other clinical staff directly confront their colleagues about their concerns. The main drivers leading to this type of culture in hospitals are the risks of lawsuit and infamy. You can find more on that study at www.silencekills.com.
Another study looked at other industries and found that the same code of silence sustains unhealthy behavior across the board. The vast majority of product launches, reorganizations, mergers and improvement initiatives fail or disappoint because of it. In fact, the researchers found that 91% of all large scale corporate projects collapse because people fail to speak up and be heard."
When we talk about "Social Media" we really can't entirely get away from how our behavior is shaped by what we think authority figures in our social, economic, intellectual, political and spiritual networks think:
"..most organizations do not realize is that this is not based on individual behavior, but rather on social behavior. Fixing this problem will not happen by focusing on changing individual behavior first, but instead by changing the social norms that drive the social behavior - and that is not a trivial task."
No, it's not a trivial task - but I think this is where role model, leadership, influentials role really is - to set the model for Social Behavior - by example (society lives and dies by this).
Thank you for expanding on my post. Your point is a good one - we need to change the overall culture, which can be done through leadership and influentials. It is funny to think that social norms that we take for granted in families, tribes, and other groups do not apply within most corporate environments. After all, if one of your family members is killing him/herself by abusing some substance, you would not remain silent.
Or maybe we do...
Posted by: Francois Gossieaux | April 1, 2008 12:47 PM | Permalink to Comment