We have to admit, that the toughest par of this book-writing business (other than the title) has been the opening chapter, which has been twice re-written and needs a third shot. When we do, we may borrow freely from TrueTalk’s website , which states:
“In an era of growing disenchantment with authoritarianism in all forms, what does leadership mean? In a climate demanding rapid action, self-organization and tightly coordinated teams, what does great management look like today? In a time of increasing cynicism about "corporate speak," how can organizations gain workforce trust? “
Good questions, addressing larger issues than just blogging, or if I blog, what should I do about negative comments. It seems to us blogging is about leadership taking company into new interactive cultures.
As a consultant, Tom Guarriello focuses is on leadership and management for clients that include Limitedbrands, Liz Claiborne, Altria, American Express, Pitney-Bowes and several lesser-known entities..
“Through authentic conversations we work to create a thought network between a client company and ourselves. In this way, we improve social systems by helping clients focus on key elements of organizational culture: identity, leadership, relationships, conversations, learning, creativity, story-telling, and trust,” he told us.
Guarriello has been struggling with these issues, for 20 years, long before the birth and evolution of the blog. A trained psychologist, and an early tech adopter, he worked in private mental health systems where he was responsible for installing and deploying a computer system across a community mental health center in 1979. “ Since there were very few people who understood both computers and human services back then, my phone started ringing for answers about picking and installing these new computer systems,” he told us and he started consulting from a Pittsburg living room for $25 and hour in 1982.
That same year, he opened a CompuServe account and made his first online purchase. “I was amazed by the array of voices on the CompuServe Special Interest Groups and spent way too many late night hours reading and posting messages. Online communication became second nature to me.”
Burning out on health care passions, he joined a Chicago management consulting firm in 1990. His focus had evolved from information systems to organizational effectiveness. “It had become clear to me in my years of systems consulting that technology was an amplifier not a solution; if an organization was screwed up, technology would only accelerate its demise by helping it be screwed up more efficiently,” he said.
”So, I started working on developing leadership capability within companies so that organizational cultures could create environments that would foster the kind of innovation that leads to breakthrough products and services. I'd spent lots of time studying ideas about a systems approach to organizations and knew the ultimate goal was enhancing the overall capability of the system to connect and learn from itself.”
”I did several projects with apparel design organizations and was intrigued with the speed and pragmatism of the retail world. It became clear to me that product quality (read: customer appeal) and development cycle time could be significantly improved by breaking down the barriers that existed between functional fiefdoms like design, manufacturing, merchandising, marketing and stores. This was very difficult work as those barriers were extremely well-guarded by self-interested high priests and priestesses,” he recollected.
By 1997, he was developing a model of social practices that supported this product development approach and reorganized with his partners into TrueTalk, Inc. because “we believed the key to effectiveness is establishing and maintaining relationships characterized by high levels of trust—ultimately a function of authenticity.”
Conceding this sounded a bit New Age, he added, “we've framed our beliefs in the most pragmatic terms: what kinds of relationships, and what kinds of communication patterns, do we need to maintain in order to achieve the results our company is trying to achieve? If we're working in an operating room, for example, the degree of collaborative decision-making required to perform an appendectomy is minimal; we need to inform one another of things that might affect the surgery's outcome, but not to brainstorm ideas about the best approach to the procedure. This is not the case when designing a sweater. Different contexts demand different social infrastructures.”
”Regardless of those differences, we believed an organizational system needs to learn to connect with all aspects of itself ("internal" and "external" differentiations of the system...like "employees," "customers" and "suppliers," being artificial distinctions in the long run). We've spent the better part of the last decade trying to facilitate the establishment and strengthening of system connectivity.”
That’s when he got hit by the train.
”I was stopped in my tracks by the powerful insights articulated in Cluetrain Manifesto. Here were people who understood the nature of systems, the necessity for a dramatically overhauled method of communicating and the kinds of relationships that communication could foster. I began preaching the Cluetrain gospel to anyone who'd listen. In the early days, not all that many did. It didn't matter. I knew this was the right direction.”
Still, he didn’t spend that much time on blogs. He read them from time-to-time, until May 2004 when he started his TrueTalk Blog truetalk.typepad.com, not with business in mind necessarily, but because “a desire to just write, ultimately got the best of me one day It's been a great experience. I don't blog with an eye toward directly marketing our practice, but as a way to develop ideas and test their soundness with my readers. My writing's never felt more productive and I've learned a great deal about the ways blogs can help organizations achieve the kinds of objectives I've been working towards for the past 20 years. I've developed a small group of regular readers including clients who check in regularly. He’s now encouraging several clients to begin communicating with their systems via blogs. “ I think they're getting close to doing so.”
The blog, and how it is being used, is still evolving. Guarriello wants to have it more integrated into the weblog, for example and taking steps to increase its recognition.
