I was lucky enough to meet GE CEO Jeff Immelt at a Cisco event some years ago and interview him on the topic of leadership.  My biggest takeaway from listening to him:  leadership is about how you “show up.”  In other words, it’s how we act and behave in everyday situations that define our leadership persona.  I’m pretty sure he meant it literally, as in how we “show up” in the physical world.

But how do we “show up” as leaders in a world where work is increasingly done on a mobile phone or tablet, or using a video chat, web conference or Telepresence?  This is one of the great leadership challenges of this hyper-connected world: as a leader you will need to know what I like to call your “Collaboration Persona” – that way in which your leadership style shows up when you’re not in the physical world.

How should you approach building your Collaboration Persona?  Here are three steps:

1)      Know yourself:  Whether it is in the physical world or virtual, how we show up should authentically represent who we are.  Click here to take a quick online assessment to discover your authentic communication style (Click on the green “Take Survey” button). This confidential assessment is a bit like the Myers-Briggs test and provides you with a customized profile of your unique communication style; it reveals how you naturally process information, and how you prefer to deliver that information to others. Most importantly, the assessment provides a simple vocabulary to communicate your style to others. Are you conceptual or analytical?  An introvert or an extrovert?

My co-author Carl Wiese and I cover this topic extensively in the third chapter of our book, The Collaboration Imperative, entitled “Get Real about Communications. Click here to learn more about The Collaboration Imperative.

2)      Know where you excel as a “Virtual Star”: Just as you play to your strengths in the real world, play to your strengths in the virtual world.  Here are some examples:

• If you are a conceptual thinker, you will excel when the team needs someone to explain the aspirations of a decision, such as a vision. These thinkers will be good on video presentations during virtual meetings. It’s not that conceptual people aren’t good in online discussion forums where the medium calls for more precise language; it’s more about playing to the strength of conceptual thinkers – they love talking about ideas and tapping into that passion on video is a great way to play to one’s strengths.
• If you are an analytical thinker, you will excel at “making it real” when communicating a decision to your team.  These thinkers are outstanding in virtual mediums where precision communicates best – such as online question and answer sessions and discussion forums.  Again, it’s not that analytical thinkers aren’t outstanding on video, where the communication is sometimes more free-flow; it’s that online Q&A and discussions forums play to the strong logical nature of analytical thinkers – they love communicating the steps taken, the process used, and the supporting facts of a decision.

3)      Get out there and practice on your medium:  When you align your communication style to these new forms of communication, you’ll find it easy to participate in the increasingly virtual, mobile, social and visual work environment that your teams leverage to get better, more productive results every day. You can’t underestimate how your team will appreciate your unique efforts at participation in the world they live in.

Follow me on Twitter: @RonRicciCisco

Tags: authentic, Carl Wiese, collaboration, communication, leadership, Ron Ricci

From the IT Executive Symposium at Cisco Live 2012

We all dream of inventing the next breakthrough product, or creating the next company that no one can live without. The truth, however, is that innovation rarely occurs that way. Innovation isn’t just about invention—it’s about creating value. And it isn’t just important—it’s critical to a company’s growth and success.

Every few decades, something truly innovative occurs—a transformative development with global impact. The human species has pulled away from the rest of the animal kingdom predominantly because of our ability to communicate and collaborate. Every time we make a major improvement in the communication/collaboration arena, innovation accelerates at an exponential rate, and humankind moves forward dramatically. The printing press moved us from spoken transmission taking months, to printed materials that could reach the masses in weeks. The telephone gave us instant communication over any distance. The Internet moved us from paper to electronic processes. And today, we are on the cusp of the next truly transformative innovation: the cloud. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco Cloud Connect, cisco live, cloud, collaboration, communication, Computing, IBSG, innovation, services, transformation

Rebecca Jacoby, Cisco Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, highlights Cisco’s transformation in the areas of communication and collaboration. Pervasive video has made communication and knowledge sharing extremely efficient and effective at Cisco. Both virtual events and the Integrated Workforce Experience (IWE) internal collaboration platform have been especially influential in enabling greater, more effective communication. Read More »

Tags: aaron chiles, CIO, Cisco, Cisco IT, cisco on cisco, coc-collaboration, collaboration, communication, information technology, iwe, Knowledge Sharing, pervasive video, Rebecca Jacoby, video, virtual events

On May 8^th and 9^th, come to Cisco Headquarters to learn advanced social practices, mingle with old friends and make new ones at the 2012 Advanced Social Media Strategies for PR, Marketing and Corporate Communications Summit. Hang out with us and other attendees in the real and virtual worlds as we explore topics like how to:

• Adapt to the social business model: the key to real culture change
• Hone in on the “social” aspect of social media
• Build a collaborative case for social media to persuade your C-suite
• Use carrots—not sticks—to get buy-in for a social media marketing strategy
• Take risks, measure results and meet marketing goals using social media
• Track the ROI of social media Read More »

Tags: advanced, best practices, Cisco, communication, events, marketing, PR, Ragan Communications, social media, strategy, tips

Consider your enterprise communication strategy. Now consider the role of video in that strategy. Is video critical, best effort, nice to have, or outside the scope of your communication strategy?

Business video comes in different flavors, shapes and sizes and there is no one answer for everybody.  Your video requirements will vary depending on the size of your company, what you want to do with video, and how you want to do it.  Let’s examine different types of business video and how the latest trends are impacting the future strategies of business video as it relates to communications across mobile and social platforms.

Read More »

Tags: business video, collaboration, communication, growth, innovation, mobile, productivity, social, strategy, TelePresence, trends, video, visual, vni