Arik Hanson explains how the introduction of a collaboration tool inside Fairview Health Services is a stepping stone toward culture change that can help the organization deliver better health care for less cost:

At Fairview, we recently introduced a social tool across the organization as a way to drive innovation and collaboration. The real need? We need to change the way we deliver care, for less cost. And we need to do it much faster than we’ve done it in the past. That’s HUGE culture change-type stuff.

One of the biggest hurdles we’ve faced with staff is getting them to think differently in terms of how they find information on a social network. Mostly, they’re used to sifting through hierarchal folders in a logical manner. As you may know, social platforms don’t work that way. It’s more about search and tagging than it is about intuitive navigation. We need them to think in terms of Google, not a structured file folder format.

That’s a big change for most folks. Not because it’s about navigating a social network. But, because it represents a big change in the way they think about accessing information and doing their jobs. That’s culture change.

This is a good example of a tangible, explainable situation that people inside organizations recognize and understand.

Arik offers three suggestions that increase the probability of successful adoption:

Build success…slowly. Instead of rolling out our tool to all 24,000 Fairview employees, we chose a more organic approach. Roll it out to those we thought may be our “early adopters.” Too soon to tell if this has worked, but the early results are promising.

Recognition is key. Your early adopters are instrumental to your success when launching a social network internally. So, you need to make sure they are publicly recognized for taking risks. Others will see that management is rewarding that behavior—and follow suit.

Take baby steps. You’re not going to convince all 20,000 employees at your company to join the social network overnight. It takes time. A long time, in some cases. Let adoption build organically. But foster and nurture that adoption behind the scenes. Take it slow. Build early success. And don’t bite off more than you can chew. A series of early and small success will prove much more valuable (and probable) than one big one.

(Via Marcia Conner)