humanize

by jamie notter & maddie grant

how people-centric organizations succeed in a social world

Humanize Worksheet: How to Be Generative

The worksheets which accompany Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World are designed to help you start humanizing your organization, whether you are a top-level executive, in middle management, or a front line employee. The basic process for the worksheets is the same for everyone; but we do include some additional information customized to these three levels because our goal is to help you get the ball rolling in your organization, no matter where in the system you might be. Humanize spells out four key elements for humanizing organizations: Open Trustworthy Generative Courageous

This worksheet is about creating more generative organizations.

Were here to help. Contact the authors:
Jamie Notter VP, Consulting Management Solutions Plus, Inc. jnotter@mgmtsol.com (240) 404-6493 www.getmejamienotter.com Maddie Grant chief social media strategist SocialFish, LLC maddie@socialfish.org (202) 713-5343 www.socialfish.org

Copyright 2011, Pearson Publishing

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 1 of 19

Overview of Humanize Chapter 8:

How to Be Generative

This worksheet assumes youve read the book, and it is probably a good idea to re-read Chapter 8: How to Be Generative, before you begin.
Generative organizations have cultures that embrace inclusion.
They seek out difference wherever they can, knowing it drives innovation. People are skilled in conflict resolution so they can handle difference. Decision making is distributed and not in the hands of the same few people all the time. People are allowed to be themselves, both in the office and online. Paradox is okay: people are sensitive, but dont hold back; people are proud but know theyre imperfect; people expect change but maintain a stable identity.

Generative organizations have internal structure and processes that maximize collaboration.
Processes that used to be controlled are now opened up for collaboration across traditional boundaries. For example, brand is now co-created with consumers and employees at all levels; it lives and grows, rather than only being distributed by communication vehicles. And strategy actively connects the top and bottom of the system so the what and the how are collaboratively defined.

In generative organizations, individuals have a strong capacity to build relationships.

Individuals know themselves and understand others well enough to negotiate strong interpersonal relationships. They have advanced competency in communication because that is the foundation for strong relationships. They understand how networks work; its not just one-on-one relationships. They leverage social media in their relationship building.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 2 of 19

Humanize Worksheet

How to Be Generative
Instructions
By focusing on these concepts in the three areas of organizational culture, internal structure and process, and individual behavior, this worksheet will allow you to assess your organizations capacity for being generative, and come up with action items that will help you to move towards being more generative. The purpose of this worksheet is ultimately to get you to do something. Reading our book is awesome (thank you, by the way), but nothing changes by reading a book. Change happens when people start behaving differently. When people start working differently. Our mantra: if you do what you always did, youll get what you always got. We feel strongly that our organizations need to be more human... Thats where you come in. The worksheet is divided into three sections to be completed in order. They build upon each other to complete a final plan.

1 2 3

Your Assessment
Start by answering questions about you and your organization. Complete a quick quiz where you give 30 numerical ratings on being generative in terms of culture, process and behavior. Then there are four open-ended questions for you to answer to fill in the gaps.

Conversations and Data

This section helps you have targeted conversations with others so you can collect necessary data and brainstorm ideas for taking action. Well help you set up individual meetings, group meetings, and produce summary reports.

Action Plan
This section will help you design an action plan for next steps to help make your organization more generative. Well help you prioritize potential actions, both big and small, and map out what you are going to do next.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 3 of 19

Your Assessment

Assessment Goals
a. To evaluate your organizations ability to be generative from your perspective. b. To identify possible ideas for your action plan.

On a scale of 1 (completely not true) to 10 (absolutely its that way around here), rate the following statements in the context of you or your organization:

Quiz A: Culture
To Be Generative at the level of Organizational Culture: Goal = Inclusion
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 The people we hire look, think, talk, and act differently than the people at the top. Employees are free to participate online and be themselves fully. Change doesnt freak people out. Conflict is engaged freely, and not avoided. Lots of different people get to make decisions. We regularly bring in external voices to help us see particular issues through different lenses. We are not timid about our diversity conversations. Pride is not a barrier to collaboration. We are less about integrating people into our system, and more about growing a new system by bringing in new people. SCORE (110)

A10 In the middle of all this change, I still know who we are as an organization. QUIZ A SUBTOTAL (out of 100)

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 4 of 19

Your Assessment continued

Quiz B: Process
To Be Generative at the level of Internal Structure and Process: Goal = Collaboration
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 People work together because they are excited about what new things will develop. Everyone knows both where we are competing strategically AND how we will compete. Who owns the process rarely comes up in management conversations. Our organizations identity is evolving in ways I cant always predict. We have processes in place that help us learn from what we do. I dont need permission to work with someone from another department. Were not threatened or defensive when we let consumers into our decision-making processes. Were comfortable experimenting with online collaboration tools. We like the idea of external stakeholders shaping our brand. Most of us inside the organization understand and are invested in the strategic direction of our business. QUIZ B SUBTOTAL (out of 100) SCORE (110)

Quiz C: Behavior
To Be Generative at the level of Individual Behavior Goal = Relationship Building
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 I have made connections online that helped me in my work. We communicate and handle conflict well in this organization. I have a sense of how my organizations network is connected to other networks in my industry. I know what other departments need from me (and what I need from them) and this is common here. We offer staff training on how to use social media to communicate online. Im aware of who the online influences are in my industry. I use social media to connect with people, not just to promote our products and services. We routinely collect customer feedback through all kinds of channels, including social media channels, and let people know what actions have been taken as a result. I have made professional introductions between my fellow colleagues and people I have met online. QUIZ C SUBTOTAL (out of 100) SCORE (110)

C10 The strong relationships we have in the office help us get more done.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 5 of 19

Your Assessment continued

Compile your point scores

This assessment will give you a snapshot of how generative your organization is from your own point of view. Add up the points for each section, then add up your total point score. Add up your three subtotal scores. A B C QUIZ A SUBTOTAL (out of 100) QUIZ B SUBTOTAL (out of 100) QUIZ C SUBTOTAL (out of 100) TOTAL (out of 300)

226300 points 151225 points 76150 points

If you have more than about 240 points, please call us, because we want to feature you on the blog as an example of a generative organization. Nice job. Your organization is well on the way to being generative! You can freely concentrate on the areas that scored lower than others. Not a bad start. Pay close attention to which of the three areas (or particular questions) scored highest and lowest. Can you do more of the bright spots? Can you scrap some things that are completely not generative? This score assumes that you probably have lack of generativity issues in all three areas of culture, process, and behavior. Youll need to pick your battles and figure out where you can concentrate your efforts at first.

075 points

What scored highest? What scored lowest? What are some areas you might be able to effect some change? Are there high scoring areas you can do more of? Are there low-scoring areas where you can start small but still have some impact? Focus on those as you complete the qualitative self-assessment in the next section. Your notes:

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 6 of 19

Your Assessment continued

Qualitative Self-assessment
Multiple choice quizzes are relatively easy. Your score should give you a little bit of quantitative insight into how generative your organization is, and will become more interesting as you start to compare it with others scores (see Section 2). But this exercise is incomplete without more qualitative thinking about why you rated the questions above in the way that you did. Look back at your answers and write down your thoughts about the following questions: Wherever you are on the generative scale, why is it that way? If youre horrible, then why are you horrible? If youre awesome, then why are you awesome? What made you as generative (or not) as you are today?

What is the most important area to work on in your organization when it comes to being more generative? Why is that important? How will it matter to performance?

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 7 of 19

Your Assessment continued

What are you doing personally that is contributing to a more generative organization? What are you doing that is getting in the way?

Insights and Potential Actions

Take the answers to your essay questions and your own analysis of the mini survey and make a bulleted list of observations of where your organization stands in terms of generativity, including your initial thoughts about what can be done to make the organization more generative. You dont need firm conclusions yet, but you should be able to put some ideas down on paper. If you were going to start today, what could you do?

Youre done with Section 1. In Section 2, youll compare notes with others.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 8 of 19

Conversations and Data

Conversation Goals
a. To collect qualitative and quantitative data from others in the organization evaluating your organizations generativity. b. To collectively identify possible ideas for your action plan.

You are now ready to have conversations with others about generativity.

Step 1: Identify who you want to meet with individually in your organization.
Exactly how many conversations you have and with whom will vary tremendously depending on your context. What works for a six-person nonprofit will not be the best plan for a large corporation. More information to help guide you on this is at the end of this section. List their names here.

Step 2: Schedule INDIVIDUAL meetings.

List the dates and times for each meeting with those you identified in step 1. Name Date Time

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 9 of 19

Conversations and Data continued

Step 3: Invite the individuals you have listed in Step 2 to complete Section 1 of this worksheet as pre-work for a discussion about generativity.
Their answers, compared with yours, will be the conversation starter. Suggested agenda: a. Quiz resultsCulture. Compare notes. b. Quiz resultsProcess. Compare notes. c. Quiz resultsBehavior. Compare notes. d. Action Plan brainstorm. Compare and compile ideas.

Step 4: Record key ideas from your individual meetings.

Step 5: Schedule GROUP meetings.

Be sure to review the group meetings guidance in pages 13-14 before you schedule your meeting. List dates and times for each meeting. Remember to invite participants to complete Section 1 of this worksheet as pre-work for a discussion about generativity.

Name

Date

Time

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 10 of 19

Conversations and Data continued

Step 6: List observations that you had from your group meetings.
Create a brief meeting report after each group conversation. Here is a sample: Meeting with (list names)

Date / Time / Location

Goals for this meeting 1. To assess, as a group, our organizations ability to be generative 2. To brainstorm possibilities for improvement

Culture (inclusion) what are the bright spots?

what needs work?

Process (collaboration) what are the bright spots?

what needs work?

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 11 of 19

Conversations and Data continued

Step 6: List observations Continued

Behavior (relationship building) what are the bright spots? what needs work?

Specific areas that need further exploration

Ideas for actions to be taken Any and all ideas are welcome here.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 12 of 19

Conversations and Data continued

Guidance on individual and group meetings

Your goal for this section is to gather data from other people in your organization, and to brainstorm ideas for becoming more generative. Every business is different, and only you will be able to judge how best to conduct these conversations. - You could plan one or a series of meetings with individuals - You could ask every department to have their own meeting and share results - You could plan a half-day workshop for the whole company - You could use online tools to have an ongoing conversation Depending on the existing culture, you may need to have a series of one-on-one conversations to start. Its possible youll come across as the person who just got seminared and is trying to push an agenda on them. Maintain a tone of curiosity in the conversation, and be open to the possibility that others wont see things the way you do. When you move to group conversations, we recommend you invite anyone who has an interest in the topic of being generative in your organization to participate in these conversations. Being more generativemore inclusive and more collaborativemeans inviting all kinds of voices to speak and participate. That being said, in many organizations you will also want to have conversations within certain subgroups. Both types of conversations are fine. Here are some things to think about as you plan these conversations, depending on your level in the hierarchy. Executives. This is a good opportunity to explore the senior teams true commitment to being generative (think inclusion, collaboration, and relationship building). Without anyone else in the room, you might get some more truth in the conversation, so have some courage to hold your collective feet to the fire for a bit and focus on you (not the others who are out there and are the source of the problem). Youll need to be clear on the ground rules, particularly confidentiality. Youll need to come to agreement about what sort of reporting out to people outside the room there will be. But since this is about including others and collaborating, you obviously dont want to have all these conversations behind closed doors. Still, we dont recommend running out and inviting in the managers and line employees for an all staff meeting about inclusion and collaboration. Being generative is about creation and productivity, so give some time to the other groups to start some conversations and actually invite YOU to attend, rather than the other way around. Dont wait forever, but dont rush in to control it. The same advice from the Open worksheet applies: be curious and dont dominate the conversations. Middle Managers. Of the four elements in the book, generative might be the one where the middle level should really be taking the lead in the conversations. As a manager, youre a connector, which is critical to being generative. Its sometimes easier for you to make the connections for collaboration or facilitate new relationship building. So spend extra time thinking about who you want to include in these conversations so that you get good content in the conversation AND start making connections that will help build the capacity for being generative. And brush up on your facilitation skills!
Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 13 of 19

 Front Line Employees. You have a lot to bring to the table as a front line employee in the conversation about being generative. So make sure you get to some of those conversations with managers and senior executives so you can share your experience as someone who is implementing on a daily basis. Dont fall into the trap of nothing will ever change about inclusion, collaboration, or relationship building, and dont fall into the theres nothing I can do about anyway trap either. Step up and share your perspective about where you can create new and exciting thingsand where those efforts are thwarted. And this is also a great topic for engaging your co-workers who are more active in social media (or if thats you, making sure you share your insight and experience with others). Thats a critical piece for generative action. The ultimate goal of these conversations is to brainstorm actionable ideas, small and large. If you feel you need customized consulting help to manage these conversations, contact the authors. Were here to help. Youll be done with Section 2 when you feel you have enough participation (buy-in) and enough ideas to want to take action in large or small ways. In the final Section 3, youll prioritize those ideas, and decide how you can start. Notes:

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 14 of 19

Action Plan

Action Plan Goals:

a. To prioritize actionable ideas b. To identify what YOU can do to get started.

Looking at all of the ideas that have come out of these conversations, we now need to figure out whats do-able for YOU. What are you, personally, going to do? You can also take this action plan and complete one as a team, or as a group. But ultimately, everyone who reads our book and wants to take action to help their organization become more generative will start with the question, What can I do? Based on the assessments and ideas youve collected, there are at least three ways to decide on a plan of action.

a) Figure out what is working, and do more of those things. Think FRY (Frequency, Reach, Yield)can you be generative more often? Get more people to be generative in particular circumstances? Expand the areas youre already generative? List the ideas here, from the results of your group and individual brainstorming, that fall under this category.

b) Change small things that are not working. Find small victories and keep moving up from there. Document everything and use data to help you move the needle. List the ideas that fall under this category here.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 15 of 19

Action Plan continued

c) Make big changes, as long as you have a good percentage of people invested. Involve everyone in the process of choosing what changes to make. List the ideas that fall under this category here.

d) Think about priority, and degree of difficulty. Of all the ideas youve brainstormed, are some more important than others? What kind of resources need to be mobilized? More Important

Fewer Resources / Easy

More Resources / Hard

Less Important e) Think about sequence. Do some of your ideas need to be completed before others can happen?

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 16 of 19

Action Plan continued

Action Plan Outline

Ultimately, however, helping to make your organization more generative starts with YOU. List the ideas YOU can do.

Idea Culture

How easy/hard? [sample]

Timeframe [sample]

Can I do this myself? Who else do I need to involve to make this happen? [sample]

[sample]

Invite an expert colleague from a different industry to our next Research & Development meet ing

Easy

Next mont h

Yes, if t heres no budget involved.

Remember: a generative culture is about inclusion.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 17 of 19

Idea Process [sample]

How easy/hard? [sample]

Timeframe [sample]

Can I do this myself? Who else do I need to involve to make this happen? [sample]

Start a small web project to crowdsource product ideas

Need to research opt ions and cost. Need to figure out process for implement ing ideas

Live in 3 mont hs

Need IT involved; budget approval. Maybe headcount to manage t he ideas.

Remember: generative processes enable collaboration.

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 18 of 19

Action Plan continued

Idea How easy/hard? [sample] Timeframe [sample] Can I do this myself? Who else do I need to involve to make this happen? [sample]

Behavior

[sample]

Join an industry networking group

Easy

Immediately

Yes

Remember: generative behavior focuses on relationship building.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to complete this worksheet and start the ball rolling towards becoming a more generative organization. There are three other similar worksheets accompanying Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World: a worksheet on How to Be Open, one on How to Be Trustworthy, and one on How to be Courageous.

Good luck!
Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World I www.humanizebook.com I Generative Worksheet 19 of 19