{"id":29413,"date":"2020-07-06T07:04:01","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T11:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/?p=29413"},"modified":"2023-10-25T15:35:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T19:35:49","slug":"technology-people-and-the-collaborative-pyramid-of-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/technology-people-and-the-collaborative-pyramid-of-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology, People and the \u2018Collaborative Pyramid of Needs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

We must align our increasingly complex technologies with the increasingly complex human needs they meet as we move up the Collaborative Pyramid of Needs and recognize that remote work is here to stay.<\/h2>\n
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As you can imagine, COVID-19<\/a> heightened our clients\u2019 interest in numerous tools that enable workforce collaboration. While some of these tools could be purchased and deployed, others, such as Microsoft Teams<\/a>, might already be available but not yet deployed. Still others, including the ubiquitous Zoom, provide free basic services to anyone with a browser and good Internet connection.<\/p>\n

And as we know now, the shift to remote working is not temporary. During the pandemic, nearly 75 percent of chief technology officers say working at home will be the new norm<\/a> going forward. COVID-19 forced us into a transition that has been underway for some time. In one case at the University of Sussex, they deployed a five-year digital strategy<\/a> in a week to directly support its remote workers\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

However, getting collaboration right affects how we work. We must remember who we are as leaders, as employees, as colleagues, and as community and family members.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Collaborative Pyramid of Needs<\/h2>\n

One challenge we see organizations struggle with as we rush to switch to remote work is remembering we are people first \u2014 no matter what technologies we use. Our team spends a good amount of time in the field thinking about employees and how they work. We\u2019re fortunate that we can do the same within Centric\u2014employee satisfaction, engagement and collaboration are core parts of our culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All of this caused me to think more deeply about the human side of collaboration. More than a decade ago, a communications consultant named Daniel Baverly came up with the term \u201cCollaborative Pyramid of Needs.\u201d He adapted it from psychologist Abraham Maslow\u2019s \u201chierarchy of needs,\u201d which proposes our basic needs go through five stages as we mature: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.<\/p>\n

In this post, I will build on Baverly\u2019s concept by tying it more closely to specific technologies. My idea is to capture the idea that as organizations move up each of the Collaborative Pyramid of Needs\u2019 five levels (outlined below), the technologies each level represents become more complex, as do the human needs that they fulfill.<\/strong> And, just like in Maslow\u2019s theory, organizations must master each level before they can move to the next, though they can slip back.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a closer look.<\/p>\n

Level 1: Email — Fulfilling the Need for Basic Communication<\/h3>\n

Today, email is an organization\u2019s most basic communication tool\u2014it\u2019s the \u201cfood, shelter and clothing\u201d of the workplace. For many organizations, Outlook\u2014part of the Office 365<\/a> suite\u2014is the standard tool for email communications. Many people today can\u2019t imagine life without email, though that is changing.<\/p>\n

The ability for people to access work email through personal and mobile devices has transformed communication. I am old enough to remember when the ability to access my email through a flip-style, one-pound, belt-worn Motorola pager was a game-changer. Today \u2013 such mobile access to email is a necessity, but it carries a threat to work-life balance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In any regard, email is basic, asynchronous, and prone to what I\u2019ve affectionately called the \u201cEmail Dance.\u201d Fortunately, we saw a more synchronous means of communication emerge \u2013 real-time chat. For many, real-time chat provided a safe space to connect and do so quickly and in real-time.<\/p>\n

Level 2: Audio Chat — Fulfilling the Need for Immediacy<\/h3>\n

Workers move out of Level 1 when they realize the risks and frustration of waiting for a reply to an important email. They need the comfort of knowing the recipient received and acted on their message today.<\/p>\n

Like email, early real-time chat communication tools\u2014AIM, Jabber, and Google Hangouts\u2014have now moved into the mobile world, with even greater threats to work-life balance. In response, organizations need to remember the human side of these platforms. They must clearly communicate some basic guidelines, such as when it\u2019s OK to mark themselves \u201cunavailable,\u201d or how to recognize when it might be best to put thoughts into an email after all.<\/p>\n

Level 3: Video Chat \u2014 Fulfilling the Need for Visual Contact<\/h3>\n

As humans, seeing a person\u2019s face is an essential part of connecting, engaging and creating a community.<\/p>\n

Many organizations already had corporate-approved \u201cvideo conferencing\u201d solutions before coronavirus, but they didn\u2019t often deploy these on an individual basis. Although the list of reasons is long, many organizations simply made the decision based on cost. Instead, they would encourage a shared model or one which brought employees together in a physical space, gathering with a teleconferencing setup to meet virtually with employees at another location.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 shook all of this up \u2013 and created a demand for personalized video communication: person-to-person, engaging, simple. Although the data isn\u2019t quite there yet to quantify the claim, it is likely the demand will grow exponentially.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where prior investments in tools such as Skype for Business did empower one-on-one video conferencing for some organizations, employees in other organizations who felt the same need took a similar path using Zoom or other \u201cfreemium\u201d tools with personal accounts.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, and like most shadow-IT solutions, security concerns abound with this ad hoc approach.<\/p>\n

As a result, as we move up the Collaborative Pyramid of Needs, creating a secure space to collaborate becomes the next level.<\/p>\n

Level 4: Beyond the Shared Network Drive \u2014 Fulfilling the Need for Security<\/h3>\n

It is not an exaggeration to say most organizations struggle with security. Even before the pandemic, security was an ever-present topic, guiding how organizations invested in IT infrastructure, how employees worked, what they shared, and more. Now that more people are and continue working remotely, the need for security is acute.<\/p>\n

In this new, nearly fully remote model, many employees have one foot in legacy investments in shared network file systems<\/a>. At the same time, their organizations\u2014or parts of them\u2014 also support cloud-based collaboration tools.<\/p>\n

The result is a lack of centralized reporting and difficulty determining the authoritative version of a document, how you can share it, and whether that document is private, public or confidential.<\/p>\n

How employees work with these documents further complicates security. For most employees, they often split documents between works-in-process (things they need to create, share and manage to do their jobs) and content they need to control, approve and regulate, like SOPs or HR documents. Accessing, sharing and interacting with these different types of content proves challenging in fully remote organizations that lack a tool built with security and collaboration requirements specifically in mind.<\/p>\n

Level 5: Microsoft Teams \u2014 Fulfilling the Need for True Collaboration<\/h3>\n

Once your employees master the various forms of modern electronic communication, from email and audio chat to video chat and take the time to make the appropriate security decisions, they are ready for a true collaborative environment.<\/p>\n

What does this mean? Well, in the email world, collaboration meant emailing a document to someone else. That person then made their changes, renamed it (hopefully) and sent it back. Then the originator would have more changes, and so on until both parties finally decided the document was final\u2014in other words, the \u201cEmail Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

With true collaboration, employees work on documents together in real-time \u2014 no more need for formalized check-outs and check-ins. You can manage versions inherently and on the fly. No need to email the document around, either \u2014 you can share a link to it, paste it into a collaboration channel, and then open, view, discuss and co-edit content in real-time.<\/p>\n

With this greater level of collaborative freedom comes greater collaborative responsibility\u2014translation: training and governance. You need to think about training and adoption to head off potential chaos. In particular, consider rolling out your true collaboration platform in a measured, sequential process.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If done correctly, you\u2019ll help your employees work well, collaborate effectively, and safely implement a remote work model.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s always tempting with a system like the Collaborative Pyramid of Needs to assume organizations at a \u201clower\u201d level\u2014say, one that relies almost 100% on email\u2014are less evolved than those at higher levels. But technical reality, just like psychological reality, is far more complex.<\/p>\n

Organizations don\u2019t progress neatly from one stage of the Collaborative Pyramid of Needs to the other any more than people move up Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs. Instead, we fall back, learn and adjust.<\/p>\n

Yes, there will be setbacks and frustration. But together, we can get through it, and together we can all work toward becoming fully self-actualized, and fully collaborative organizations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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