Snippets: A feeling of belonging is key!

http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/1656904042/a-feeling-of-belonging-is-key

johntropea:

Xerox rolled out an employee community for its repair technicians. They had actually tried a few communities initiatives before, but those failed. Eureka succeeded.

Why?

Previous communities were set up in a way that did not make the repair technicians feel like they belonged as equal citizens. Management was trying to get something out of them, and made that message too blatant. (The repair technicians were the source of tons of field information that was used to fix defective designs. They also frequently ignored the service manuals because they knew how to fix the machines using better tricks. Engineers wanted to know the dirt on their machines, but there was a bit of a cultural rift between the engineers and the repair folks.) In earlier attempts, management ask technicians to submit a quota of repair tips, or they had joint quality circle teams between technicians and engineers. Technicians just didn’t feel at ease in these settings.

Excellent advice on how a community thrived