Andrew KollerToday’s best business leaders know that they are leading their teams through previously uncharted territory fraught with hazards like hostile competition, prospects that are slow to buy and ever changing technology landscape. It’s a tough gig, but not one that’s new to leadership. For example, two hundred years ago, Lewis and Clark embarked on an epic and dangerous expedition. With their innovative leadership style they were able to trek 2,000 miles across hostile terrain, and gave us the leadership lessons about how to keep a team together by building a consensus.
After about a year and a half on the road, Lewis and Clark finally reached their goal of reaching the Pacific. They were just north-west of modern day Portland, OR at the mouth of the Columbia River. The bad news is that winter had begun. Morale among the Corps was low. They were over 2,000 miles from home.
Not surprisingly given the conditions, a fight broke out in the camp about where they should spend the winter. Rather than give orders, as is the right of any military captain to his subordinates, Lewis chose to let each side present their case. Afterwards, a historic vote took place where every member of the party got a vote.
Why would Lewis choose to bring to a vote the most important decision of the entire trip? Because he understood that in order to survive the winter, he needed the buy-in and engagement of every member of the party from the bottom to the top. If he just decreed the choice, the party members might not work so hard to gather provisions or build a temporary fort. The party could splinter leaving everyone more vulnerable.
Like Lewis and Clark, the best business leaders know that their influence comes not because they can make decisions but because they can pull together the resources necessary to ensure the survival of everyone’s livelihood.
When SocialChorus designs our product we keep these lessons in mind enabling corporate leaders to increase the feeling that each employee is involved in company direction.
- We’ve added the ability for users to submit content to feel more connected to the program.
- We also allow our users to share directly to their connections using email making sure to keep everyone informed, even those that are not part of the program.
- Employees can choose the content they wish to view by customizing their channels and tags making the whole experience truly a two way opt in
Upcoming features include tracking user engagement through time on site, emails customized to each user on the platform, a “Recommend internally” functionality and many more.
We make sure that we have a platform that includes everyones opinions so that when times get tough, the employees are bought-in to the direction of the organization giving it the best chance for survival.
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