Social Media & You

Use of Technology Tools to Improve LeadershipBill Sheridan, CAEEditor, Maryland Association of CPAsAugust 11, 2010Baltimore County Public SchoolsDepartment of Planning and Support Operations

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How many of you feel like this is a typical day in the office for you? Permanent whitewater, right? Rocks everywhere, waves everywhere, you cant see whats coming next?

Being in business or government today is like being in permanent whitewater. Were dealing with:

-- the aftermath of the worst economic recession of our lifetimes;-- stock market volatility;-- worldwide economic instability;-- political unrest;-- a massive wave of new rules, regulations and laws that are impacting our businesses. And health care reform and financial reform might just be the start.-- and on top of all of that, weve got some groundbreaking technological advances that are fundamentally changing the ways in which we do business.

How do you lead and manage people in that environment?

Emmanuel Gobillot, a deep thinker on leadership and author of a terrific book on the subject called Leadershift: Reinventing Leadership for the Age of Mass Collaboration, says were dealing with two kinds of turbulence today: 1. The obvious turbulence that you see all around us economic issues, the battle over new regulations, all that stuff; and 2. What he calls clear-air turbulence that you can't see coming. Right? It seems like smooth flying, and them BAM something knocks you out of your seat. That type of stuff is much more suprising and dangerous. And were dealing with more of that today than at anytime that I can remember.

Then consider this:

This comes from Andrew Zolli. Hes a futurist, the CEO of the annual and influential Pop!Tech Conference and a National Geographic Society fellow. He says and think about this -- the number one reason that leaders and organizations fail is that they fail to detect the weak signals of disruptive change coming on the horizon.

Theyre so busy on the day-to-day busy work that they fail to see the next big things that are coming at them.

I think thats so true. We need to stop every now and then, raise our heads and take a look at whats happening around us.

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Back in the day, leadership was pretty simple, right? When you said something, everyone would do it. Everyone was sailing on a nice, smooth lake. One guy called out the orders and everyone moved in unison.

Today, though, the water isnt so smooth. When youre rafting on the whitewater, you have to yell over the rapids, and there might be different actions taking place at that same time, and theyre all designed to get you to your goal. Its a bit chaotic, but its kind of orchestrated chaos.

We might argue that's a better model. Right? Youre empowering your people to do their jobs, and those jobs might be fantastically different and seemingly incoherant. In the end, though, taken together, they move you smoothly toward your goal.

To do that, though, you need some new skills and new tools to deal with this permanent whitewater of change.5

7x=16704x=1890

6Quick question: How many of you think the pace of change is going to get slower?

How fast is it changing? This will give you some idea.

This is an estimate from an Educational Panel at the Aspen Institute.

As it relates to science and technology, the rate of change in the next decade is likely to be 4 to 7 times faster than in the previous decade. If it is 4 times faster, it would be like planning for today in 1890. If it is 7 times faster, it would be like planning for today in 1670.

Things are fundamentally different. You will need new skills to deal with this turbulence. You'll need to know how to constantly navigate change, because this turbulence will get worse, not better.

What skills are we talking about?

This is a comparison of current leadership skills and the skills leaders will need going forward. It was put together by the American Society for Training and Development and the Center for Creative Leadership.

Look at number 1 -- inspiring commitment. Emmanuel Gobillot would put it this way: He says trust is one of the keys to leadership today. And how do you build trust among your team? You ask yourself every day, Have I made them feel stronger and more capable.

Look at number 7 participative management. This whole Web movement is about moving into a much more open, participative culture. Its all about transparency, openness, participation. Overarching trend is toward these things. And those are direct results of whole complexity thing.

We are smarter than me. No one of us can figure out all of this complexity on our own.

How can I have a conversation and tap the brains of our people and figure it out together? And if you do that, by the way, you get automatic buy in to your ideas.

Completely new skills.Tools for Leaders

And how do you master these skills? What tools can help you tap that brain power and accomplish great things? Everything good comes from that participation, commitment, discretionary effort from your team.

There are a number of ways you can do it, but today I want to focus on four specific tools.

-- strategic thinking-- social media-- mind mapping-- and to a lesser extent, XBRL

All of these tools deal with turbulence by helping you tell a story.

The ability to facilitate and gain consensus is critical. Making your thinking visible is critical. The eyes are the most powerful tool we have for observation. Eyes go right to the emotional brain. In order to break through the complexity, need to get through to peoples heads and hearts. These tools are visual and aided by technology. This area, we believe, has the biggest bang for the buck.

The goal, of course

is for you AND your team to successfully navigate that whitewater, together.9

Strategic thinkingLets start with strategic thinking.

Its all about enhancing your sight so you can see those invisible trends and be able to engage your team to think about those trends and create action around them. Its kind of like strategic planning on steroids.

We have developed a system called Insight to Action that does this very well, but there are a number of others out there particularly graphic facilitation systems that set out to accomplish the same goal.

The point is less about the particular system and more about graphic strategic planning and facilitation, and making your thinking visible. Thats key. We really believe todays leaders need to learn to use tools like this.

For our purposes today, Im going to focus on Insight to Action. My boss, Tom Hood, uses it almost exclusively to facilitate strategic planning sessions at some of the biggest CPA firms in the country, and it works.

It focuses on five qualities that all extraordinary leaders seem to have:

Sight Gathering dataInsight Determining which of that data is important right now.Create Creating action around that data.Communicate Communicating the plan in a way thats easy to understandInspire Ability to mobilize support and engage others to join you in ACTION to inspire folks, as Emmanuel Gobillot, so that they joyfully give you their full discretionary effort.

Most strategic thinking systems youll find out there use a similar formula.

What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.

-Rene' DaumalThe faster you go, the further ahead you have to see.SightSightWe start with sight. And why?

I think it goes back to what the futurist Andrew Zolli said -- the number one reason that leaders and organizations fail is that they fail to detect the weak signals of disruptive change coming on the horizon.

These systems teach us and not just you but your teams as well to scan the horizon for those weak signals. Whats ahead? What trends are shaping the future? What opportunities are there for us?

This step is all about gathering data. Now, we've all become very good at gathering data. The problem is, we gather so much of it that we often lose sight about which of it is really important.

This scanning is done in a completely collaborative, visual way. Thoughts are recorded for all to see.11Insights & Opportunities

But a time of turbulence is also one of great opportunity for those who can understand, accept and exploit the new realities. It is above all a time of opportunity for leadership.

- Peter Drucker, Managing in Turbulent TimesInsightNext comes insight. Think about that word: IN-sight. Looking within ourselves. What are our strengths? Our weaknesses? What internal traits do we have that might impact the way we react to or act upon those weak signals of disruptive change?

Sight is about gathering the really important data. Once we understand everything that may be important to us, how do we define whats important to us RIGHT NOW? Thats what insight is about.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

- Peter Drucker, Managing in Turbulent Times

Create!CreateNext is create.

Again, Peter Drucker. You cant predict the future, especially in an era as complex as this one. But you can co-create it with your team collaboratively and have a really good shot at achieving it.

In this step, we ask: What are some of the possibilities that we can create out of some of the insights that we have? We know whats important to us right now. Now, what can we create out of that?

In this step, youre actually mapping out your strategy what things can you be doing to take advantage of the changes youre seeing? Whats the best way of accomplishing those things? What things should you STOP doing, things that are no longer moving you forward?13CommunicateExtraordinary leaders know how to build and sustain large social networks and communicate effectively above the whitewater.Communicate

These strategic thinking systems also teach leaders how to communicate visually in a way thats easy to understand and that inspires people to action.

How do we simplify this in a way that other people can easily grasp? And this is where a lot of the work happens, because as we all know, it's really easy to generate 100-page reports; it's harder to generate a comprehensive, easy to understand, 5-page executive summary, or the paragraph that is really impactful. We learn to do that in this step.14Inspire to ActionInspire!

Finally, inspiration. We learn to communicate what were doing in a way that's compelling enough that other people want to get on board and become part of the solution. The visual process and templates we use give them a framework to tell the story to others. That's where alignment, energy and focus as an organization come from.

Research indicates that the most successful change efforts are dependent on an emotional connection between the person leading the effort and the people doing the work. Winning their minds AND their hearts, right? Its all about inspiration, engagement, connecting emotionally.

Remember what Emmanuel Gobillot said. Leadership is about trust, and how do you build trust? By making your folks feel stronger and more capable. By inspiring them.

Insights to Action and other strategic thinking systems teach us how to do that. They are designed to encourage leaders to think differently, to make that thinking visible, and to learn how to communicate their thoughts and ideas in a way that can easily be grasped by others.

At the end of the day, you have:

-- a terrific look at whats on the horizon that may impact your business;-- a concrete strategy for growth amid that change;-- a blueprint for how you will accomplish that strategy;-- and, because theyve been part of the process, consensus and inspiration from your team.

It all culminates in a product that tells you where you're going to focus the resources of your organization.

And its not overdone, either. A lot of strat planning systems focus on 20 or 30 priorities that never get done. Thats just too many. Strategic thinking systems focus on just five prioritiees. With those 5, typically we find that organizations get action and buy-in.15Social media

There could be very good reasons for banning social media on the job. It is very tricky from a network security point of view. There are a number of reasons why employers continue to ban these types of resources on the job.

But I would like to open your minds to why you might want to be paying attention to it. You need to understand how big of a trend this really is. It really is fundamentally changing the way we communicate and collaborate, and in many instances its changing the way we do business.

At the very least, check it out at home to see how you might use it to further your career and enhance your life.

Discipline of refining your message makes you a better speaker.

Insert Seth Godin / Tom Peters video

Social media is creating the turbulence, and its also a way to tame the turbulence. If youre part of the conversation, you can shape the conversation. If youre not part of the conversation, this stuff can hurt you pretty bad.

We think its passed the time where you can ignore it?

If you think youre closing it off, youre probably wrong. It might not be impacting your work specifically today, but this is where this trend is going.

Here comes the Net Generation "There is plenty of cause for alarm and/or optimism when it comes to my generation. Still, I think the negative views of us come from a fear of the unknown, a fear of change. Our world is evolving at a rapid rate, and that can be scary for older generations. Savannah Jones, 17, Portland, OregonNGenophobiathe irrational and morbid fear of youth, especially with regards to their use of the Internet

Lets start with a look at our future members, our future employees, our future clients for a minute. Heres a quote from one of them:

Theres a name it: Ngenophobia its a disease, and its bigger than H1N1. Can someone read this definition for me. Anyone have this disease?

Here are some stats from Pew Internet and the American Life project about how young people are using social media.

-- Between 65 and 70 percent of them use social networking sites. Thats compared to 35 percent of all online adults.

-- About 20 percent of them use Twitter. That doesnt sound like a lot, but by comparison, 10 percent of those 35 to 44 and 5 percent of those 45 to 54.

Whats funny is that if you ask these kids how good they are with technology, they'll rate themselves as very low not very good at all.

With them, its not about the technology. Theres an old saying: Once technology becomes ubiquitous, it also becomes invisible. And thats whats happening here.

(Its not a phone. Its a toaster.)

If the Web is reshaping the world as we know it and will be the water in which the new generation of digital natives will swim, then it behooves all of us to understand its implications.

David Sibbet, The Grove Consultants International

18Video: A Vision of Students Today, from Michael Wesch, in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University

19I want to share with you a video that focuses specifically on students and the state of education today. But it also speaks directly to how different things are for todays young people than they were for us. It raises some interesting points and raises some pretty tough questions.

Are we be ready to educate todays students, tomorrows students, in ways that will give them the best possible chance of succeeding? And if we are not, what will be the consequences?

Eight Net Gen NormsFreedom: The freedom to work when and where you wantCustomization: My job, my lifeScrutiny: I know what you did last nightIntegrity: Be a good company to work forCollaboration: TeamworkEntertainment: Work should be funSpeed: Make things happen now!Innovation: Let me invent20

This is a social network. There still seems to be a lot of fear and apprehension about these resources, but really, theyre nothing new.

Consider this:22Social networking (Old)

Social media (New)

A change in the way we build relationships+=The New MathSource: Matt Goddard, CEO R2integrated 23Old School vs. New School

Chamber of Commerce

Friends and FamilyE-mailClass ReunionsIndustry MeetingsNewsletters24Its all about your WhuffieWhuffie is the culmination of your reputation; influence; bridging and bonding capital; current and potential access to ideas, talent and resources; saved-up favors; and accomplishments.- Tara Hunt, The Whuffie Factor

That term Whuffie comes from a science fiction novel called Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. In that book, all of lifes necessities are free, so the currency, called whuffie, is all based on reputation.

Author Tara Hunt applies that term to todays social environment.

Basically, its your social-based reputation or influence. And it grows as your social network grows.25

Metcalfs LawThe economic value of a network increases like the square of the number of its nodes, or the law of increasing returns. Usually, when people share a piece of equipment, the return diminishes. When more people are engaged in the network, more value is returned to the user."Its about the Network EffectThats Metcalfs Law:

When more people are engaged in your network, you get more value in return. And thats what social media is all about.26

Its about the Network EffectIn a sentence {to recognize a network} means To discover how A, who is in touch with C,Is affected by the relation between B and C. Russ Eckel Becoming the Eye of the TigerHow big is your network?Whuffie example

8,181 ViewsAuckland, NZ15 minutesCan you hear me now?

Twitter story: TypePad and listening.29

Government & Social MediaChallengesSocial media requires loosening the reins on technology platforms and accessSocial media management requires constant care and feeding, as well as monitoringBecause social media is MASS media, mistakes and missteps are amplified

31Social NotWorking This is a managerial problem, not a technology problem.

If a salesman spends his day making personal phone calls rather than phoning potential customers, the solution is not to take away the phone. The solution is to make clear what is and is not acceptable behavior and

Discussion at AICPA Leadership AcademyChicago, July, 2009This is a managerial problem, not a technology problem.

If a salesman spends his day making personal phone calls rather than phoning potential customers, the solution is not to take away the phone. The solution is to make clear what is and is not acceptable behavior and

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Risk managementEducate and train your staffSet security and usage policiesRestrict access during certain times (if you have to)Monitor using search and Google alertsNext stepsEducate yourself www.cpalearning2.comCreate your digital footprint. Create profiles on Facebook, LinkedInand Google. Start listening. Use Google Reader or Bloglines to begin reading thought leaders in your profession or areas of interest. Continuelistening. Create your Twitter account and follow your profession and areas of interest. Start sharing. Create a blog and record your thoughts. Share. Recognize and promote the people you find interesting.

Mind mapping

Then we move on to mind mapping.

How many are familiar with the concept?

Well, it works, for one simple reason:35Visual communicationeffective. is more Want proof?36

6x RetentionSource: Presenting Effective Presentations with Visual Aids, U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Office of Training and Education

Training materials used by the federal government cite studies indicating that the retention of information three days after a meeting is 6 times greater when information is presented by visual and oral means than when the information is presented by the spoken word alone.

The same materials also cite studies by educational researchers suggesting that 83 percent of human learning occurs visually.

3783%

Source: Presenting Effective Presentations with Visual Aids, U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Office of Training and Education

of learning occurs visuallyThe same materials also cite studies by educational researchers suggesting that 83 percent of human learning occurs visually.

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67% Source: Effectiveness of Visual Language Presentations, MacroVU, Inc., www.macrovu.com.

more persuasive

Researchers at the Wharton School of Business compared visual presentations and purely verbal presentations and found that 67 percent of audiences felt that presenters who combined visual and verbal components were more persuasive.

Again, theres that notion of persuasion, inspiration, consensus.

3980%increase in willingness to readusing color visualsSource: Ronald E. Green: The Persuasive Properties of Color Marketing Communications

Vs.

And according to researchers, color visuals increase the willingness to read by 80 percent and can positively affect motivation and participation to the same degree.

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Map it! Think, plan, act, learnhttp://www.mindjet.com/cpas/mj.aspx

And thats where mind mapping comes in.

Mind mapping is another visual tool that helps you make your thinking (and the thinking of others) visible. It can be a collaborative tool. You can post documents, links, and other resources, you can share these maps online so that others on your team can contribute to them, and at the end you have an outline of your thoughts. Each bubble represents a topic and contains even more subtopics, each with its own set of visual resources.

Its an amazingly effective planning tool.

There are lots of tools out there. Perhaps the most well known is MindManager. Or you can do it by hand. The point is the concept. Visual strategy, visual thinking, visual planning.

CPAtemplates to help you with...24We liked it so much that we worked the folks at MindJet to create a special series of preloaded maps for CPAs. So CPAs who bought the CPA Edition of MindManager received not only the software, but 24 preloaded maps that centered on issues like professional development, personal productivity and strategic planning.42Connect your productivity tools

Source: http://www.wordle.net/create

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XBRLAnd finally, XBRL

Im not going to go into great depth here, but I do think its worth mentioning.

Its just another technology tool that speaks to this open, transparency movement. We think its a significant trend that bears watching.XBRL is already here!FDICSECOregonNetherlands Australia New ZealandNevada

The FDIC is using it in its data reporting platform and in terms of high-profile initiatives, it doesnt get much bigger than the FDIC these days, considering its work with the banking industry throughout this crisis.

The SEC is mandating the use of XBRL for public companies. The first phase of XBRL-based financial filings -- those for the largest public companies -- arrived in June 2009. More large public companies are required to file via XBRL this year, and by 2011 all public companies will be using the data-tagging language to file their financial reports.

And its not just for public companies.

Oregon was one of the first state governments to make use of XBRL in its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. A number of countries overseas are doing likewise.

And Nevada is using XBRL beyond the financial reporting arena. Since applying XBRL to the grants reporting arena in its Department of Agriculture, Nevada has cut the time it takes the grants manager to prepare a report from two weeks to less than a day. And the state is preparing to launch a pilot program in which XBRL becomes part of the state's debt collection process. Thats Nevada Controller Kim Wallin there on the left.

So its certainly an idea whose time has come.

If youre a forward thinking leader who is serious about making your data more transparent and easier to understand, XBRL should definitely be on your radar screen.to innovate and lead!

Use your new skills and technology I2A Insights to ActionSocial mediaCommunicate visuallyXBRL46Questions?

Technology Tools for Leaders

Bill Sheridan, CAEEditorMaryland Association of CPAsBusiness Learning Institute(443) 632-2314E-mail: bill@macpa.org Web: www.macpa.org Blog: www.cpasuccess.com

Connect Protect - AchieveResourcesGood videos for setting context:

Vision of Students Todayhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Trendhunter 2010 Top 10 Consumer Trendshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goMoO3DLDNw

Social Media Revolutionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Microsoft Future Vision 2019http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0UuzwS2z-8

Did you Know (2009 edition)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

MACPA resourcesCPA Success, our daily blogwww.CPASuccess.com CPA Spotlight, our podcastwww.macpa.org/podcast Other MACPA blogs:www.CPALegislativeInsider.comwww.NewCPAs.comwww.BizLearningBlog.com CPA Learning 2.0, a social media playgroundwww.CPALearning2.com

I2A resources / articlesStrategic Planning That Really Workshttp://www.mdbizexpoblog.com/2009/06/insights-to-action-strat-planning-that-works.htmlTop 5 Qualities of Extraordinary Leadershttp://cpasuccess.typepad.com/business_learning/2009/10/six-qualities-of-extraordinary-leaders.htmlTop 5 Traits of Innovative Leadershttp://www.cpasuccess.com/2009/10/top-five-traits-of-extraordinary-leaders.htm5 Keys to Enduring Organizationshttp://www.cpasuccess.com/2009/08/five-keys-to-enduring-organizations.html

Information to bring this program to your firm or companyhttp://www.bizlearning.net/learningcenter/customizedtraining/event_detail_inHouse.cfm?eventid=10IASTS

ToolsInsights to Action: A strategic thinking systemwww.macpa.org/I2A

CPA Vision Projectwww.cpavision.org

How are CPAs using social media?www.cpasuccess.com/2009/09/how-are-cpas-using-social-media.html

Social Media Quick Start Programwww.macpa.org/QuickStart

XBRLwww.xbrl.org www.cpasuccess.com/xbrl/

Mindmanager CPA editionwww.mindjet.com/cpas/mj.aspx

Bill Sheridan, CAEEditorMaryland Association of CPAswww.MACPA.org bill@macpa.org

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