Honesty

Shhhhh…Do You Hear That?

by Mike Vallez on November 4, 2009

Apparently there are still a lot of corporations that are very disconnected from their employees. The most disconnected corporations are those whose employees are their number one resource to generate revenue yet they don’t listen to them. The end result is a canoe going up a creek with holes in it and no one has a paddle, I think we all have heard that expression before. But why is there such as disconnect? Complacency.

An environment exists where corporations are so fixated on generating revenue that they unwittingly overlook there finest resources, their people. They create great operational plans that in the board room make fiscal sense, but the human element is left out of most of their slick equations. I don’t have an MBA and frankly I don’t want one. I appreciate the folks who have worked hard to accomplish an MBA, but if we all had an MBA then no one would think like the employees the resources who generate revenue. Corporations that get it are communicating with their employees and actually listening to what the employees say. The “I get it” corporations are not complacent, they are fostering a sense of communication that exists in social media. A give and take communication environment that creates trust (see Chris Brogan) , which makes employees feel important, wanted, and happy.

As social media changes our culture people expect more honesty, trust, and respect in their communication with others. People are quick to cue in on less than honest communication or complacent communication that makes them feel unimportant. People are expecting honesty in the communication they receive from their employers. No, this is not where I play a few versus of Kum-bi-ya. The idea of an employer providing honesty in their communication with their employees is not science fiction. Take that a step further and show the employee that you are listening to them. That what they say is actually important and you will win that employee over. Jump up to the next level and implement an employee idea (only good ones) and you will score a huge morale victory with your employees.

Funny that people don’t want to feel like they have no say in the work place. People spend more time at work than they do at home, so it is only natural that they want to find value and importance from their employer while working. I don’t care how sucky or unimportant the job is you can still and listen to an employee. It just may so happen that the garbage man has an operational process improvement that will save money or the police officer on the beat has an “out of the box” idea to reduce crime. Maybe the employees that work at your corporation have the next great idea to help your company generate revenue from streams never considered. Maybe that sound corporations hear is their employees talking about these ideas, but because they are not listening there missing out.

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Why Honesty Is Coming Back Via Social Media

by Mike Vallez on October 26, 2009

So to prep for this blog post I decided to post a question on two of my Twitter accounts CrazyMikesapps asking “what is honesty.” I got only one question, but no answers. Is that surprising? Does honesty mean different things to different people? Probably. So not to get too morally righteous, but honesty to me is telling the truth. The truth would be reality, what really happened as opposed to what did not happen or made up excuses.

As I spend more time blogging, Tweeting, posting Facebook updates, I readily see that people do not want to communicate with someone who appears to be fake, dishonest, or a narcissist. One of the fundamental characteristics of social media is transparency, which one could equate to honesty. People want to share their life experiences, but they don’t want to share them with a 54 year old pervert who has a Facebook picture of a twenty year old girl and communicates as such. That is just plain creepy. So ask that person you are communicating with through social media some basic questions. Like what they like to do, what they like to eat, what year were they were born, etc, and do this quickly. If they provided weird answers, or they provide unreasonable delays in answering then maybe you should consider who you are communicating with. Consider they are not who they say they are.

When it comes to social media one who is dishonest can only hide for so long. Bloggers call it the way they see it and if a blogger provides wrong or discrepant information the pack tends to right itself. People unfollow, weirdos, or those who have proven to be untrusted. That is what I love about social media and the honesty that comes from this forum. Not to get political, but from Bill Clinton to George Bush there is this belief that lying is acceptable in a sense by people on both sides of the political spectrum, which is nonsense. Lying is never acceptable and I don’t try to foster some “greater than though” moral righteousness. I have lied and probably will lie again, but that is not the point. The point is a true sense of honesty is alive and kicking in social media websites where millions of people are having conversations.

Who would have thought that “social media” websites would be the catharsis for honesty, not me. Not to be naive, I realize there is plenty of dishonesty on the web, but if you pay attention you can ferret out the dishonest, but you must pay attention. People want honesty. They want truth, they want to feel like they are actually being told something that is not a fairy tale. Take 5 minutes and look at Mashable the social media website for case studies in social media success by corporations. The corporations that are winning at social media are those that are engaging their consumers with a funny little thing called “honesty.”

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