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Welcome to Loyalty MagazineLoyalty Magazine reports on customer retention,loyalty schemes, rewards, affinity, CRM, call centre issues, direct and viral marketing, mobile and internet channels for both B2B and B2C enterprises. It covers all global markets and business sectors, including retail, financial services, travel and hotels, telecoms and electronic commerce. |
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Tuesday, 29 March 2011 08:32 |
 If you don't like the system, why don't you hack it?
The term hacking gets such bad press these days, being associated with bringing down websites, the stealing of credit card details and messing up our computers, that caution is probably called for in suggesting you should read a book entitled “Hacking Work”.
Indeed it is definitely NOT for the faint-hearted, for those who toe the line regardless and those who never question authority.
If, on the other hand, you are one of those types who hate it when procedures get in the way of achievement; and who relish the opportunity to ‘amend’ things in order to do a better job, then read on.
If you are still with this, it is probably because you are a Millennial, rather than a Baby Boomer. You are also probably in agreement with the statement that it is necessary to hack round the system in order to move the megaliths and their IT and support systems.
For example, don’t you hate purchasing procedures where people have to go to existing suppliers, even though they can’t deliver in today’s fast moving virtual world?
And what about systems that make it impossible to exchange data because the security rules haven’t caught up?
Rules, rules and more rules
There are probably bans in your organisation on YouTube and personal email, which lead to you circumventing and bending the rules. You are probably not allowed to Tweet while at work.
Employees who are deeply unhappy in their jobs (and apparently four out of five of us are) attribute this misery to an infrastructure that makes life so difficult.
There are those rules on supplying data (only use faxes, paper copies, certain outdated software) that hamper both creativity and productivity. It makes you just itch to pile everything onto a memory stick and shove it into your pocket.
These are the types of scenarios which lead to some imaginative (white) hacking, suggests authors Bill Jensen and Josh Klein. Basically, they can’t see anything wrong with bending the rules, as long as you do it for the right reasons.
Peter Drucker, the ‘ultimate’ management guru, once said: ”There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Well yes, OK, but if we all start hacking IT systems, and bending the rules on email and stuff, isn’t this going to lead to major organisational issues, and probably bring down the company? What about data protection rules and basic security?
The authors say that sometimes, our bosses need help seeing new possibilities.
They give the example of “Carlos” who apparently hacked into the system of a credit card processing centre and managed to make it into their IT system from the company lobby, downloading card details, which he emailed to the executives of the company – using their own email addresses – telling them how easy it was to do. He gained an immediate meeting and a contract.
Co-creation and crowd-sourcing
The authors suggest that because Generation Y think differently, they will seek out personal efficiency in what they do – and won’t share the previous generation’s ethical quandaries about hacking. They will also be more likely to use co-creation – sharing the problem with others – in order to solve the issue at hand.
Put the problem on the internet and it becomes crowd-sourcing. The masses solve the problem and the company gains a type of loyalty from these people who are happy to have been involved. Think Starbucks, and its solution to put a marker on their frothy milk jugs to stop staff pouring too much milk in the first place. This apparently came from the crowd.
The authors suggest that Generation Y is fast reaching a ‘tipping-point’ at which time it will not be prepared to go along with the rules of older generations. It could be suggested that recent unrest, and indeed uprisings in the Middle East, have been started and fuelled by this social and communicating generation.
Sometimes the book gets a little scary, when it suggests that we should all run our own networks, outside of the company structure, so that we are not weighted down by their systems. The book is also a tad revolutionary. But put these cautions aside, and it is worth a read for some good ideas – not least on the use of social media to engage customers and employees in company problems.
As we all know, multiple heads are better than one. And as Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said, we should do one thing every day that scares us.
Hacking Work – breaking stupid rules for smart results, by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein is published by Portfolio Penguin, price £12.99.
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