McKinsey: Better collaboration could boost productivity by 20-25%

People don´t share enough information.  We can improve collaboration by turning private emails into content available for all.  The hardest part is changing the culture.  New report from McKinsey & Co (The Social Economy – Exec. Summary download).

Too much closed communication: The average interaction worker spends an estimated 28 percent of the workweek managing e-mail and nearly 20 percent looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks.

Openness enables better collaboration.  But when companies use social media internally, messages become content; a searchable record of knowledge can reduce, by as much as 35 percent, the time employees spend searching for company information. Additional value can be realized through faster, more efficient, more effective collaboration, both within and between enterprises. – McKinsey Global Institute

Interaction workers – people who must interact to do their jobs – managers, consultants, engineers, cops and marketing people – people who must think, analyze and make judgements to get the job done, are the most highly paid people and the fastest working part of the economy.    By making communication (email) more social — in essence turning it into content — you can unlock increased potential across and between companies and individuals.  The hardest part is not the technology, but to create a culture of trust and sharing.

McKinsey Global Institute´s new report, The Social Economy claims that we are leaving 1000 BUSD on the table by not tapping the full potential of social media. The essence: make email by default public instead of private to turn it into content available for the entire company.

  • 350 billion USD in increased value creation by improving the collaboration around product development across silos — pulling in marketing, customers etc.
  • Twice as much value creation potential is untapped inside the enterprise as all other opportunities outside.
  • Too much “dark matter” tacit knowledge trapped inside people´s inboxes with potential value for the entire company. Dark matter should be communicated in a less private way across and between enterprises through social media.

“… McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) finds that twice as much potential value lies in using social tools to enhance communications, knowledge sharing, and collaboration within and across enterprises. MGI’s estimates suggest that by fully implementing social technologies, companies have an opportunity to raise the productivity of interaction workers—high-skill knowledge workers, including managers and professionals—by 20 to 25 percent.

About Carl Størmer

Carl is the founder of Jazzcode.
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