What Is Your Person Strategy?

The backlash is in full swing. It was inevitable given the rapid proliferation of social media over the past year.

Despite the integrity and good intentions of most people who use tools like Twitter, the low cost of usage and anonymity offered inevitably result in these systems being abused by people of questionable ethical standards. These people have no qualms about abandoning etiquette, stretching the truth, and attempting to manipulate the people the people that social media these tools allow them to access. All for personal gain. And because this behavior has a negative impact on those whose intentions are more noble, the “good guys” have started speaking out.

The dissent started out in the form of people publicly questioning the qualifications of self-proclaimed and self-important “Social Media Experts/Gurus/Ninjas/Gods“.

Some of the comments have been quite funny. One of my favorite examples is:

“‘Social Media Expert’? What does that mean? You’re really good at making Facebook profiles?”

You can find other examples by searching Google for “Social Media Expert”. I also recommend you check out Social Media Han Solo, which brilliantly integrates a Star Wars theme into its social media expert bashing. It’s funny.

How far has the pendulum swung?

Recently, the volume of critiques of social media efforts seem to be increasing. This new wave of criticism seems to be focusing on how people neglect the “social” aspects for social media.

Jeremiah Owyang recently drove this point home on his blog saying that companies should have a ‘Customer Strategy’ not a ‘Twitter or Facebook Strategy’.

Similarly, Amber Naslundm, director of Community for Radian6, in her post “Social Media Is Not the Disease” points out that it isn’t social media that’s the problem, it’s the people using it.

When you’re looking at whether or not “social media” is a blessing or a curse, remember this. It’s just the amplifier. The mechanism for the word, idea, attitude or behavior to spread faster and farther, and with less discretion. I’ve been thinking a lot about this for months, but my friend Linsday Allen’s post about a check skipper at a Tweetup hit on it once again. While the situation was unfortunate, social media itself isn’t the “fail” here, the people are.

The Fundamental Flaw

As much as I agree with these and other analysis of the shortfalls of social media, they themselves also fall short… (do you see what I did there?)

Social media tools enable people to connect with people in ways that previously were not feasible. As the the use of these tools increase, systems or networks start to develop based on how and why the members of that system participate. As these systems evolve, they become more focused, clarifying the value of participation and establishing their own conventions for participation.

This phenomenon is not unique to social media. The same pattern can be seen in the development of societies, in the evolution of business and trade, even in the evolution of religion. The world has a tendency to organize itself into systems to allow the members of those systems to achieve greater things than they could as individuals. This is not a bad thing.

The problem occurs when you and I, as individuals, are changed by our involvement in the system. We see this when we begin to focus (in our thinking and behavior) more on the system than on the components of that system. When the “means” of the system start to become “ends”. The flaw is that our awareness of the system overwhelms our awareness of what they system does for us.

That’s what’s going on with social media right now. People care more about the tools and how they work than they do about what they tools can accomplish.

Systems thinking

According to Wikipedia,

“Systems thinking is a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation.”

Systems thinking as a methodology became popular in science after discovery that the any act of measuring something changes that thing, thus making it impossible to know the true nature of that which you are studying. Thus, systems thinking focuses on the interrelationships of objects and seeks to define “systems” of objects by how they affect each other.

Systems thinking is a very useful strategy methodology as it provides a framework for anticipating the effects that strategic actions will create throughout an organization’s ecosystem. It is also very useful in problems solving as it can shine light on causes that otherwise might not have been obvious.

Systems thinking falls short when the relationships of objects within the system are overemphasized to the detriment of the objects themselves. The main way that this primarily happens is that the different aspects of a system are over-generalized and thought of as conceptual categories.

An example of systems thinking in my life.

I’ll give you an example. I do strategy work for a company in China that designs innovative and lean manufacturing processes primarily for glass products (ranging from decorative Tiffany-style lampshades to insulated drive-shaft sleeves for power tools). I relate the owner of this company in a number of ways but the primary two are as a service provider (vendor) and as an adviser.

As a service provider, I mentally describe this company and the owner with a number of general concepts that also inform how to engage with them: customer, overseas business, manufacturers, business owner… All of these descriptors apply with various degrees of accuracy.

As an adviser I tend to think of this relationship based on general descriptions of the owner himself: man, 60 year old, American, expat, Christian, leader, boss, mentor, friend.

But none of these, no matter how many labels I apply, will ever fully capture who Bill really is. There’s nothing wrong with objectifying Bill as I do, I would not be able to serve him if I did not.

But, in the busyness of the day-to-day or when trying to create consistent levels of excellent service to my customers, it is easy to forget that Bill is first and foremost a person. And when I lose touch with the “personal” Bill for the sake of my well-designed and well-defined system, I will always (without fail) marginalize him in some way.

You cannot operate a system that applies 100 percent of the time. There will always be outliers, exceptions to the rules. Someone somewhere will not “fit” the boundaries that we have defined. It’s inevitable.

“People strategies” miss the mark.

It’s encouraging to see a re-emphasis in our society on valuing the human- or people- aspect of how we act. Whether it’s the rise of “social” entrepreneurship or the emphasis on community among today’s churches. If Jesus teaches that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV emaphsis mine), it stands to reason that valuing others is extremely important to God (second only to loving God).

But, integrating “people” generally into our “systems” will always fall short. No matter which characteristics we use to define “people” there will always be a person that exists outside of our system.

Note that the object of Jesus’s command is not general, it’s personal. Jesus isn’t saying “love neighbors”, he is explicitly clarifying that I am to love my neighbor. The specificity of this command points to what is often lost, that the target of our love is a person. They are a person in the same way that I am a person. And that is the extent to which I am to love them, encompassing every single thing about them. I am to love them as an individual.

What is your “person” strategy?

I feel the need to say again (for the record) that I am pro-system thinking. I am also pro-”people” strategies and pro-”social” social media. I’m encouraged when humanity is valued in any context.

That being said, it is infinitely more valuable for you and me to truly love and serve one single person than anything else.

Above all else, our strategies must be “person” strategies. That means that as we devise create approaches for reaching the least and the lost we MUST NOT value the individual less than the corporate. As we build systems that increase our ministry reach, scale, and efficiency, our mechanisms MUST BE able to be adapted to the specific needs and opportunity of ONE PERSON. Our strategic vision and focus MUST NOT overlook the individual.

Given the choice of impacting the person we are with versus focusing our attention on impacting hundreds or thousands through our ministry or business, we must choose the individual.

It may feel counter-intuitive but Scripture drives this message home again and again:

• Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2 ESV)
• Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. (Luke 15:7 ESV)
• What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? (Matthew 18:12 ESV)

What do you think? In your efforts to love and serve people, are you neglecting the person? How can we ensure that we don’t lose focus on individuals?