Successful Blog

7 Reasons Why Investing in an Internal Community Makes Solid Business Sense

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(Updated in 2020)

10-POINT PLAN: A Foundation of Solid Thinking

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

A Good Business Values Customers; A Great Business Values Every Person Who Helps the Business Thrive

I once had the best job of a life-time, working for the best boss I could have ordered up in my wildest dreams. Our relationship brought out the best in each of us and that ethic was true throughout the entire company. The operation of that business was smooth, reliable, and totally centered on customers and how to serve them. In an industry that was experiencing 2-3% growth, we were doing 10 to 20 times that. Conversations were honest and thinking was naturally strategic.

We were a community on a quest.
We loved what we did and we were outstanding at doing it.

Love. Not like, enjoy, or get kick out of, but have a passion for, live for, hold in highest esteem.

Every company that wants to grow should have some of that.

Here’s how to explain the value of internal community to leadership in ways that shout ROI and make business sense.

Why a Loyal Internal Community Is Crucial to Every 21st Century Business

People perform amazing feats when they’ve got a quest, a cause, and a purpose. We rise to our better selves when we become part of a community dedicated to building something that no one of us could possibly build alone.

Why?

It’s how we’re wired as humans. We’re better when we’re inspired by deep feeling. We bring our best to whatever challenge we face. Any less is inauthentic, second-best, didn’t try, plan b, ho-hum, phone it in, stand in right field and let that pop-fly pass us by instead of saving the game . . . we might as well be out!

There’s a reason that so many folks — online, in IT, in academia, in every career — say the same thing. . . . find your passion, do what you love.

The people who understand passion and work are not promoting self-indulgence. When people do what they love they perform better, faster, and with more skill. When a community gathers around a common quest, they raise the performance bar even higher by supporting each other.

What Makes an Internal Community So Important Now?

Big brands and small businesses have been talking about building customer communities for a few years. Yet, it’s been proven that the way we treat our employees is the way they treat our customers. So, it only follows that the strongest community starts inside the business.

The high touch and high concept of community draws a company together around a single goal. What could attract and support brand evangelists better than that?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink points out that “high concept” and “high touch” values (design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning) are as important to business success in the 21st Century as linear thinking, detailed analysis, and spreadsheets.

In this global economy, conversation and relationships matter as much as schedule and budget do.

In plain and simple words, thinking and doing what everyone always has thought and done no longer work.

It’s time align our goals and values and invest in what we do together. That’s the only way to attract the best people — employees, partners, vendors, and customers. That’s the only way to be the best.

Rather than checking our personalities at the door, why not check out what a loyal internal community can do for a business that wants to build a brand that wins the loyalty of life-long customers and fans.

7 Reasons Why Investing in an Internal Community Makes Solid Business Sense

A community challenges us to bring our best to a situation. We invest in the community and they invest in us. And in that manner, we share our goals to build something that becomes a common cause. When we bring all of who we are, full engagement of head and heart, 7 deeper values and higher outcomes show up in our work.

1. Complete presence — focus. We’re all there — the all thinking business is no longer sufficient. The business is more well-rounded and friendly to the people who help it thrive. Computers can’t smile. Computers can’t listen to the spaces between words. People conceive, design, build, buy and talk what we sell.

2. Peak performance — productivity. A computer might work every minute achieving great computation effort, but it will only be as good as the people who program it and it will never over-achieve its programming. People invest more, do more, go further for the work we love. People connect to other people who are doing that.

3. Tolerance — perseverance. We have more patience, time, and energy for problem solving when we directly reap the benefits. Peter Drucker proved that money is a disincentive … it has the most effect when it’s not there or too small. What leads folks to achieve greatness is the payoffs that a loyal community offers: support, feedback, acknowledgment, sense of purpose.

4. Value and Appeal — compelling story. To compete a product or service has to be useful and beautiful. Simple and elegant, for to the adult and the kid in each one of us. Bringing logic and emotion to a business outdistances the world view of logic alone. Competence and great execution are expected. A loyal community builds in added value in how they tell the story, how they treat the product and the customers who buy it, and how they talk about the company as a value in their lives. What’s more appealing than working with someone who’s not only good but also loves his or her job?

5. Total Differentiation — identity. An internal community develops it’s own culture and identity. The uniqueness of that common bound shines through in concept and execution. The respect of a loyal community shows in everything it does. It becomes it’s own barrier to entry. The competition can’t knock that off.

6. Fully Invested and Worth Investing In — market value. Rolling all of the above values into one, nothing beats the 360 degree investment of brains, money, and dreams all in the same direction. Any financial firm worth its salt looks for that combination when funding a small business.

7. Sense of Worth — authority. Community builds authority. We value what we earn and what we love. That value telegraphs itself. It’s contagious. Customers, vendors, and partners pick it up as well.

Can you see why it’s only sense that a strong business would move to build the most supported internal community on the planet? A fiercely loyal internal community is a secret weapon that stands on its own.

Have you ever worked for or interacted with a business that was a community of loyal fans? What was your experience of that?

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

5 Ways to Take the Work Out of Work and Connect with Life

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Some Folks Have All Fun

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Ever notice that some of us live, some of work to live, some of us live to work … and one or two of us seem to BE a piece of work?

Other living species don’t think their way into this problem. Why should we?

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Once upon a time there was a moment when the idea of work didn’t exist. Life was life and we lived it. Some of us only experience that in early childhood. Some of keep that secret with us and carry it through every moment we’re here.

5 Ways to Take the Work Out of Work and Connect with Life

It’s no secret that we’ve added negative connotations that bend the word work to define only some energy we invest or that work is often described as the opposite of play. And it’s fairly obvious to most of us that we often invest as much or more of our energy in things that we call something other than work … love, passion, sports, games, hobbies … life.

We’ve managed to disconnect what we call “work” from our life.

We frame it inside the idea of work-life balance — as if we could separate the working part from the living part and put each on the other side of a scale. Even if we could segment our lives so dicretely, each of us seems have a different definition of which exertion belongs in which category on which day.

The “who” of “Who puts the work in work?” is us. It follows that we’re the ones who, in the same way, can take the “work” out of work and get on to being fully connected to every breath that we take.

Here are five ways that I connect with life.

  • Connect to the passionate you who likes being alive. Many people say that difference between working for a living and a labor of love is passion. Find your passion for life, your joy at humor, your original curiosity and the thrill at knowing that not all is in what we see. Keep positive knowing that the only time and behavior that you can master or change is your own. Whatever happens is life. We can we see it as work or some fabulous puzzle that will improve our skills, bring new ideas, and unlock possibilities.
  • Connect with the passion of people who add positive energy to your life. When we’re passionate about what we’re doing, what we do seems worth every bit of energy it takes. We attract people who see the upside of what they’re doing too, even when what we’re all trudging through the mud in the rain. Notice the positive people. Connect with them in ways that bring more positivity into whatever you’re doing.
  • Connect to the “want to” of everything. If what you see is work, change the way you’re seeing it. Create a new view. Look to the outcome that is the payoff for what you’re about to do. It may not be fun to mow the lawn or pay the bills, but the feeling of accomplishment when it’s done is one worth savoring. Go for the gold and enjoy what that it takes to find it.
  • Connect to your ability to move when enough is enough. If the situation or is more work than it’s worth, move it out of your life. What we’re doing right now is what we want to be doing or we wouldn’t be doing it. Just as nature abhors a a vacuum — we don’t stay in situations that don’t payoff in some way. When the work gets to be higher than whatever used to be the payoff, we stop talking and move on. If you’re bored, uncomfortable, or feeling like it’s work to be you, move. Do something, one thing every day to move a little closer on where you’re going.
  • Connect with the power to experience and respond to humanity with humanity and life with life. Be a beginner constantly improving your “life in progress.” Joy, peace, anger, sadness, illness, and disastrous events — none of these are work — but the way we respond to them and hold on to them sure can be. Humans are hard-wired to be deeply inspired. It will draw people to you who want to do the the same. Make it your quest to be on a mission to improve things and to leave people who’d rather complain talking to themselves.

It’s the way we connect to our life that determines what we value, who we give ourselves and our time to, and what we consider work or fun. Connect to your life. Aspire (breathe toward) with intention to get closer to the people and ideas that invigorate and energize you.

As we live for the people and the moments that fuel us, life becomes simpler, easier, more fun — even when it’s not. We connect more deeply to the people we value, to the world, to ourselves and to our dreams.

Suddenly we find it’s never been a problem of finding a balance between work and life, but simply a problem of connecting and savoring the time of our lives.

How do you take the work out of work and connect with life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Related:
The Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life
How to Be Alive and 10 Ways to Celebrate It!

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Beach Notes: Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

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Ambition + Skill = Success
by Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

This ambitious bird ( a darter) we saw this week while walking at Rainbow Bay. It looked like it was about to bite off more than it could chew (swallow). The fish it scooped into it’s mouth initially we thought the bird had no possibility of swallowing. The photos show that both skill and persistence do pay off and give success and satisfaction.

How do you turn your ambition and skill into success?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

SOB Business Cafe 09-03-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Matthew Ebel
Once upon a time in 2004 there was a new media community- back then we called them Podcasters. They were passionate, excitable, and ready to jump on any new opportunity they could create for themselves. Podcasters flew from all over the world to hang out at conventions they organized. For three years, New Media brought people together. Friendships were forged, business ventures launched, and through it all some amazing creations made their way onto the internet. The New Media community felt like a family.

Now it’s gone; the community has dissipated. And that’s okay.

Seriously, it’s okay.

WebWorkerDaily
You may have already experienced social media meltdown: a rapid derailment of your previously neat and tidy social media marketing efforts. Because social media cannot be “controlled,” the very thought of putting marketing messages out into the social web strikes fear in the hearts of many. Without control, how do you avert or manage a crisis that bubbles over and could explode on Twitter, Facebook and the like?

Jim Kukral
I tell a story in my book about how I used post-it notes to get offered a job. I wanted the job. I knew they were interviewing a ton of people. I wasn’t any better then any of them in graphic design. In fact, I was an average designer at best. But I wanted the job.

I tell another story in the book how I wanted to get into the Internet video business. I had a friend who owned a big SEO firm and I pitched him via video on YouTube. I could have sent a resume… c’mon, that wasn’t going to work.

You want the job? Show me.

BIGG Success
On our show today, we were thrilled to chat with Terry Starbucker about leadership. Terry has been a leader for over 27 years, including a gig with a pro football team!

WordPress Community Podcast
Liz Strauss gave a masterclass tonight; at least, that’s how it felt to both Frederick and myself. We talked about communicating with your audience, and Liz shared some experiences about open comment nights. We discussed positioning yourself and your blog, and how important personal branding can be.

Gigaom
The Elance report, which will be released in full next week, found that 70 percent of freelancers surveyed are happier working independently than when they were full-time employees, and more than 60 percent said they would prefer to remain a freelancer rather than take a full-time job.

Related ala carte selections include

Simon Mainwaring

I wanted to share with you this video of a speech by Nicolas Christakis from the Harvard Dept. of Sociology, on the shaping powers of social networks. He does a wonderful job of explaining stastically the forces and dynamics that drive social networks. . . . how our behavior affects others, whether it be family member, friends or strangers.

Windows Experience Blog

This week Windows announced the return of the very popular the Family Pack this Fall. General Availability for the United States is Oct. 3 and it goes on sale in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia and many other markets on or after Oct. 22 (Windows 7’s 1 year anniversary!)

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Steve’s Shorts: Twitter Influence and WC Privacy

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We Interrupt Regular Blogging for Steve’s Shorts

Take a simple few minutes where a guy who is brilliant makes an observation about the social web that you might have already be thinking. This interruption brought to you by the evil conspiracy that is Steve Plunkett and Liz Strauss.

What is Social Media Influence? (on Twitter it is..)
by Steve Plunkett.

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I post a link to an article, it gets Retweeted. They don’t ask where the link goes. They don’t ask what the article is about. They just retweet it, because in the past @steveplunkett has sent them to a favorable destination. There is inherent trust that it’s not a malware or virus link and credibility that they can pass the link on to their followers and not look stupid. so how is this influence? I never asked for a retweet, they were “natually influenced” to do so.

A Short Look at … What’s Next?

Hope you enjoyed these moments with Steve’s Shorts.

steve_plunkett

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results –and offers an array of optimization services that are scoring big for those clients.

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5 Ways to Motivate Virtual Teams

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by Patty Azzarello

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How do you motivate people you can’t spend time with in person?

1. Virtual Team Building (literally)

I always did team building exercises when I had my team in a room together. But somehow with a remote, virtual team, I never considered that it was possible. This was a brilliant idea that one of my members offered. I wanted to share this because it is a great idea that I wish I had thought of ages ago.

How to do remote team building

First, prepare.  Distribute a template ahead of time that each person fills out.  It should include a photo of them, and questions which help people get to know each other.

Some examples:

  1. What is on your iPod?
  2. What was your best/worst job ever?
  3. What are your hobbies?
  4. What is your favorite book, movie, sport, animal?
  5. What is something from your childhood that has stayed with you and you use in your work?

Then when you have your virtual meeting over a conference call, show each person’s template and photo, and have them talk about it.  It is an amazing way to help your team get to know each other as people, and build a much more productive working relationship.

Photos!

Photos alone go a long way to build trust and camaraderie.  If your team is comfortable with photos, create a social media, facebook sort of page for your team to share non-work things with each other.

This is something you can easily assign to someone on your team who is inclined to set it up and keep it alive.  Refer to recent posts in your meetings.
(note: if someone refuses to submit a photo, let it go, don’t force the issue.)

2. Improve the Quality of Communications

Another issue with virtual teams is often that they are spread around the world, in different countries with different native languages.

Conference call communication is difficult enough, but if it’s not in your native language it’s excruciating.

A colleague of mine created a brilliant process to deal with this. 

Add written reinforcemnent to conference calls

On all of their multi-country conference calls they use an additional IM window where people in each country type out the key points being made, translate any jargon, highlight questions and decisions, and clarify areas in the discussion that were moving fast, or unclear.

They also use blog updates which capture the key ideas and decisions from the conference call in writing, to re-inforce the key outcomes and have a record for later review and understanding.

Adding written communications to conference calls, improves understanding, relationships and productivity dramatically.  Brilliant!
(I would think these were good practices even if there were not language issues.)

3. Timing

Being sensitive to time zones can go a long way to make people feel like they count.

Use their time zone: Whenever I recommend a meeting time, I always note it in the time zone of the other person.
From their perspective, if they are not in the headquarters time zone they need to translate every single meeting. Just doing that one step for them makes a big difference.

Use GMT: Another idea that came from a member was to always note times in GMT so everyone has to translate equally.

Share the suffering: Also, if you need to get the US, Europe, and Asia on the phone at the same time, alternate the suffering.  Have the meeting on rotating schedule so that one time zone is always comfortable.

4. Individuals must exert their presence

As a leader, another thing you can do is let individuals who are remote know that part of their job is to make sure they are not invisible.  The more they step up to make their presence felt the more included they will feel and the more motivated they will be.
It just works so much better for the remote individual to own this.

5. Have Better Virtual Meetings

How to have better meetings when no one is in the room:
When people are in a meeting I expect them to be “present” – listening, participating, contributing, and NOT doing email. If people are not going to be present why have a meeting?

Insist on starting On Time.  Everyone is to call in 5 minutes prior and be ready to go on time.  If need be, start the meeting start at 5 minutes after the hour – sharp! No excuses. Being late degrades accountability for presence, and is a huge time waster.  Don’t tolerate it.

Start with a weather report (or another personal topic) from each person on the call.  This gives every person’s presence a chance to be felt even though you can’t see them around the table.  And it gives you an opportunity to treat people like humans, which always helps.

Insist that no one mutes their phone. I don’t care if I hear children or dogs.  This also makes it harder to type, or watch TV without getting found out.  Mute degrades presence.  And it’s another big time waster.  After a discussion has gone down the road a bit, someone will chime in and say, “sorry, I didn’t realize my phone was on mute and I need to go back to …”

Be there. Make it clear that if this is an important meeting you are supposed to have it on your schedule, be on a landline, and not be driving somewhere between more important things.  You need to set the example for this yourself too – or don’t have the meeting.

Have a clear desired outcome and the promise of a shorter meeting.  “We will finish this meeting at 9:45 so that you can hang up and do 15 minutes of something else before your next meeting.”

Reinforce the fact that you value each others’ time. “The reason we have a shorter meeting, keep our phones un-muted, and don’t do email is because we respect each other’s time and therefore commit to being present, even though we are not in the same room.”

What has worked for you?

Having your whole team int the same room these days is a rare exception.
How have you motivated your people around the world?
How did you improve productivity, communication or motivation for your virtual teams?
Please share your experience and ideas in the comment box so we can all get better at this.

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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