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What is Firestoker? - The Idea
One of the most frequent questions I have been hearing has been what exactly is the idea behind Firestoker?
Firestoker is really the cross section of four ideas about how people work best (space to talk, space to think, space to play, and space to learn), which boils down to conversation, and safe spaces.
There are millions of people out there who work day to day in jobs that reward them with almost nothing. A paycheck, a Christmas Party, the occasional chance to raise some money for a charity. Some of us have never experienced that, but many do.
We know, from all sorts of research and by just thinking about it, that unfulfilled people can’t do a good job. It is literally impossible. If there is a space, where everyone from the CEO to the front end customer service staff can talk, openly and on the same level, we believe an organization can improve more rapidly and more effectively than through any other method, process or theory.
This isn’t a bunch of theory for us either. We began in the consulting world. Working with companies to help “make things work better”. We tried not to act like consultants, we didn’t claim to know their business better than they did, or to hold some magic key, and we certainly never used the typical fear tactics of most of the other consultants we ran into along the way.
We only claimed one thing: If our client (a CEO, a VP, a President usually) could check their ego at the door, and admit that they had no answers in comparison to what they could learn from their own people, then they could succeed. The easiest way to do that was to create a space on the web where everyone in their organization could talk about what they knew, and what they were learning. We called it The Sandbox and now it is Firestoker.
The Firestoker Project is our way of making that software available to organizations who are ready. We have always maintained that software should be cheap, easy and open, and we are going to do our best to make it all three.
Break the silence
What is the Firestoker project supposed to change?
We believe that having a voice inside of your organization is one of the healthiest and most rewarding things you can accomplish in your career. The most responsible thing a an organization can do is to provide their employees a space where that voice can be heard.
Here is a repost of an old blog entry that helped get us started thinking along these lines:
The fact is that silence is strangling many organizations today. Employees and management are encouraged to speak out at only the most opportune time, after the appropriate lobbying has been done and they have their ducks in a row. This cultural quirk is often good for everyone as the person bringing the idea forward can avoid the embarrassment of having an idea “shot down” in a meeting or formal setting, and anyone above them on the hierarchy can feel as though they have already contributed to the idea, even if only by having known of it before it was presented.
“Consider what happened to one off-site meeting of top management at a web-based education company. Concerned about the company’s vision, the managers met to share and discuss different perspectives. But one speaker after another just echoed what the previous speaker had said. When any manager did dare to dissent, a colleague would quickly dismiss his idea. Having effectively tabled every discussion in which disagreement surfaced, the management team crowed about the level of “consensus” they had achieved. One by one they celebrated their achievements.” – HBR/May 2003
What is wrong with this picture? Even at an even peer level, members of an organization will keep remarkably silent in order to avoid confrontation. Often we will find one or two dissenters in a meeting, but a large proportion of attendees will keep silent.
Not only do we feel uncomfortable with communication on a peer level, but these problems are even more powerful between two levels of an organizational hierarchy. Consider how easy it is for a boss to send a “be quiet” signal to a subordinate. With minimal body language, a manager may not even realize what he/she is doing – but the signal is quite clear to the receiver, and the reverse is true as well. A boss will often be uncomfortable expressing new, but untested, ideas to a subordinate.
Where does this disconnect come from?
The exchange of ideas in many present day organizations is quite dysfunctional. The mere act of sharing an idea between levels on the hierarchy is akin to a direct command, and sharing ideas on the peer level will often result in complete silence around the table. We develop “spirals of silence” in which we create norms, procedures and ideologies all centered around having a gentlemanly silence.
The disconnect between members of an organization comes from the desire to avoid conflict and to accept, not affect, change only when needed.
What are the costs of organizational silence and disconnect?
The costs are very real. Resentment can grow and false social economies will foster a low status quo. When an organization needs to grow, or shift itself in some direction, it becomes unable to do so in any real way and change comes in very superficial manifestations. We begin to try to solve problems by altering rather than creating, and by keeping some old idea rather than tossing it. We are still able to accomplish things for ourselves as we can thrive on being agreeable within our hierarchies, but organizationally we are stalled and unable to affect change. Is there a solution?
How can we foster cultural change and open new lines of discourse?
An example from a Harvard Business Review article “Is silence killing your company?”
“Harry was a battalion commander, whose unit of more than 500 soldiers had just been miserably defeated in a mock battle . . . At first no one said a word. Then Nick, a very junior scout who was responsible for detecting and alerting the battalion to the enemy’s movements said “No, Sir, it wasn’t your fault. I fell asleep on duty.” Harry was shocked. But rather than focus on Nick’s failure, great as it was, Harry immediately redirected the unit’s attention to uncovering the underlying problem – the exhaustion the men were suffering.”
By avoiding putting the focus of the discussion on the person who spoke up, and concentrating on solving the problem at hand, Harry has rejected the norms of a military (organizational) model of communication. Not only has a meaningful discourse taken place, but the process was open and without that openness, Harry would never have known the true problems behind the failure. Had Nick not spoken up, Harry would have been forced to find the problems in other places and no useful change would take place.
A change in the prevailing culture of an established organization cannot come from the very top-down approach that is being reevaluated. It must come from people, like Harry in our previous story, who will lead by example. Facilitators and early adopters are key to the success of personal publishing in your organization. By bringing key figures into the picture, such as Presidents, Vice Presidents, and prominent people within departments, on board early on, the real need for openness and communication will be understood by the rest of the involved community.
Our new focus must move from the problem to the person. Much like Harry, we must empower people (or allow them to empower themselves) at all levels of our organization. By recognizing the power of discourse, we can encourage all levels within the hierarchy to speak freely. When “Breaking the ice” becomes a cultural norm, a powerful new way of working emerges. No longer are we stuck in a world where we can’t act creatively.
Creating a space where this kind of interaction can take place becomes a high priority. The problem with this type of change is that a Memorandum regarding a corporate cultural change would be the antithesis of itself. We must foster this change carefully, in a safe and comfortable space for everyone.
Why implement and invest in these new ideas?
Organizational communications are at the mercy of corporate culture. The more top-down our methods (newsletters, presidents reports, corporate newspapers) of communicating and directing, the more we formalize (by implication) our less structured interpersonal communications. Even the validity of our consensus building exercises comes in to question when we realize that our corporate culture may be fostering silence within the hierarchy.
Firestoker blog
Welcome to the blog for the Firestoker Project. This will be the easiest place for us to keep everyone up to date on our work.