Good question! I always start with the why, people come for the why more so then the what, why are you building this product then begin to build a community around advocates of that why if that makes sense.
A good book I came across that explores the science of community building is The business of belonging by David Spinks
Fostering connections among employees is essential to building community in the workplace. You can lay the groundwork for these connections by encouraging employees to interact with one another, even though this can be a difficult task because it requires employee participation.
First establish a sense of urgency. Then create a powerful guiding coalition, in which senior managers always form the core. This coalition should create a vision and broadcast it so that others are empowered to carry it out. The process moves on to planning short-term wins, consolidating improvements, and institutionalizing new approaches.
This strategy has been vividly described by author John P Kotter in his article "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail".
https://hbr.org/1995/05/leading-...
@dsarkar What are good ways to broadcast the vision?
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@serainasilja Create a Mission Statement that lets your employees know that the work your company does can have a real impact on the lives of thousands of people, globally.
For instance look at Twitter's Mission Statement: " To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly, without barriers".
Once you have nailed the Mission statement here are three recommendations you can put into practice to broadcast it:
1. Over-communicate vision at all-team meetings: Every month, during team meetings, explain the "why" behind the actions in each department and how they relate to larger company goals.
2. Send emails at least once a week sharing:
(a) some success stories of your company and how this success impacted the lives of individuals.
(b) tell a good story about your products or your company to give life to your vision and thereby captures hearts and minds the reader.
3. I used to work for a U.S based management consulting company whose brand slogan "Where the best choose to be" used to printed just below the company logo. Actions like these motivates the employees since they are made to feel special.
Similarly, Coco Cola's brand slogan is "Open Happiness".
@okhlopkov That's nice. A decentralised, async, and personal way of learning more about each other. If your employees are up for telling their stories in mini podcasts, tell them about https://pager.fm — a podcast platform for teams! 🎙
We provide Scribd to employees if they want it, this created a book club internally (though I am not in it!). We also have specific team building meetings which brings out interests they have within the company that they can take ownership of - this might be projects, research or otherwise.
@aleksdahlberg Thanks for sharing! I like that you provide Scribd to them. And in general, book clubs seem surprisingly popular. We see teams talking about books in their internal podcast: each episode is a book recommended by an employee. 📚
Who organises the team building meetings?
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We follow three rule on all our workspace, including but not limited to meeting, training, team-building, group chat, documents...
- Be active
- Be clearly
- Be funny
I'm going to narrow it down to five helpful practices:
- Find what teammates have in common and capitalize on it: could be location, hobbies, experience, and so on. Finding a common ground drives effortless conversation and helps build natural connections.
- Encourage people to talk about their interests: often, I would work with amazing teammates and have no idea they were so cool until much later. That's why giving everyone room to shine is important.
- Keep an open mind and be non-judgemental: no one will ever want to share anything or be genuine in the workplace if they know every wrong move will be scrutinized.
- Find creative ways to engage people. Ideally, it's great to have events that show people in an entirely different light, like karaoke parties or acting workshops.
- Promote collaboration, not competition. Don't compare teammates with each other, don't play favorites, and don't single people out. All of the above create a toxic atmosphere in the workplace.
- Use communication-focused technology. I am mentioning this because I'm working on such a product myself (https://ovice.in/) but you can even use Slack chats to create internal communities.
@maya_ovice The first two points "have something in common" (like location) and "shared interests" remind me of this article by Oyster: https://www.oysterhr.com/library.... Maybe that is interesting for you, too. ;)
Do you think a specific department (or every employee) should do community building?
Good topic of conversation. It is increasingly important to have the notion that before creating a product or service it is possible to create the community.
In my case I created a startup that helps makers and entrepreneurs to find their cofounders to launch a project together.
Before that I created a whatsapp community with people interested in entrepreneurship.
We are now 200 people and many projects have already emerged.
The goal is always to grow a little more, but 200 people already filled a hall and that makes me proud.
@ricardo_marinho_goncalves That's a tangible example with your whatsapp community — thanks for sharing it. And be proud!
Also, I know many female entrepreneurs who need to find a co-founder here in Copenhagen. It's really really hard. Like dating! 😇
Are your community members in one place?
@serainasilja Thanks for the answers.
What we do is create a campaign to present the project (like a kickstarter campaign) but the goal of the campaign is not to receive money but applications from cofounders with the skills that the project needs.
We share the campaign with our community but the founder can also share the campaign to reach a larger audience.
@ricardo_marinho_goncalves That's great. Can I share this with my founder friends who are looking for co-founders? Send me details! :)
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Build a community around the industry you're in.
The majority want to progress and it will be easy to keep motivated people around.
Once it is established, pick an activity. More physical the better.
Keep building data.
That's how you keep adding value. Give a reason why people should follow you.
@vivek_vardhan I know, it's so cliché. I'll think of better ideas. ;)
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We have tried to find the interests of our employees and have created few groups around the same, we currently have 3 groups online gaming, memes( the ideas have really been super for the marketing strategy), and story for the week(members sharing their story). These group have really help in creating the good rapport between the team members even when few of our members are working remotely.
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