Social Media. Another 24/7 Work Culture?

This is a question that’s been on my mind for a couple of weeks now.

Especially since a few uncharacteristic mistakes in my client work brought into focus how much time I was spending online and how tired it was beginning to make me feel. Not good for one whose raison d’être is about living a whole life of which work is part, but not all. And whose coaching differential is strong energetic presence.

There’s much to love about blogging, Twitter, Facebook and all things social media. It’s such a “now” phenomenon. It opens you and your business up to people, information, products and services you simply would not otherwise access. And for the solopreneur, it’s a way of creating your virtual office of self-selected colleagues.

But if you imagine you’re swapping a 24/7 environment for one that’s less so, think again. It’s entirely possible that, without the kind of self-monitoring I did recently, you might recreate virtually what you’re leaving behind.

Here are 4 key characteristics of 24/7 corporate cultures. See whether any of them are playing out in your social media driven business world.

Focus on external performance measures

Most workaholic organisation cultures have performance management ethics that reward the achievement of “things”. Sales targets; fee revenues; customer satisfaction statistics: these are all valued beyond how they are actually achieved or what impact achieving them has on people.

The locus of control for such measures is often outside of you. You wait for others to confer their approval. Your sense of yourself is predicated on how well you meet their and your own arbitrary measures. You feel in control and powerful when the numbers are good. Bad when they’re down.

Using social media to fuel your business can suck you into this kind of thinking too. Your sense of yourself becomes based on blog traffic, how many subscribers or Twitter followers you have, how many posts you can knock-out.

Sure, measures have their place in focusing and building your business, but it’s about balance. Give yourself psychological swing space by reframing your success measures and remember that you are responsible for determining how well you’re doing.

Fuzzy boundaries between work and life

It’s great to make friends at work. However, 24/7 organisation cultures often confuse collegiality with more intimate relationships. Social contagion has the effect of having you hang around the office for longer than you might because you enjoy the chumminess.

An extreme example was when I worked for Gemini Consulting. They openly spoke of “The Gemini Family” and indeed in our consulting teams we both worked and lived together on locations across the world. We saw more of one another than our partners, children, or long-term friends. When a “family” disbanded at the end of one assignment, another would spawn during the set-up of another.

You can make real and enduring friends via social media. I am delighted to have a sense of belonging to a number of different online communities. But don’t make Twitter and Facebook “home”. Discipline yourself to take time away from your pc or Mac to do offline things, and to give due attention to those closest to you. That way you can keep a healthy harmony in your different relationships.

Excessive workloads

Another enduring aspect of full-on organisational cultures is that what they expect staff to deliver is not often achievable within the confines of a contained working day. Hence people find themselves working into evenings and weekends – through the night – just to keep up.

Accordingly, when we begin working for ourselves and using social media, the chances are that we’ll set our own workloads in a similarly burdensome way.

It’s a tough one because, when you’re starting up or changing direction, you often want to put in more hours in order to build your platform and get established. The thing is to do this knowingly, and also to decide for yourself when you will be quieter.

Hook for obsessives and perfectionists

The truth is, of course, that 24/7 organisation cultures wouldn’t exist if they weren’t staffed by the kind of people who perpetuate them.

Obsessives and perfectionists can be the most successful people in our society. Their vision, drive and commitment to excellence pushes them to achieve things that Joe Bloggs just wouldn’t attempt. But taken to extremes, such behaviour can be punishing, primarily of themselves.

In the social media work culture too, you can get so mesmerised by the endless possibilities that, day after day, you push yourself to do more and more. But if it’s not supported by appropriate rest and revitalisation, that passion isn’t limitless and can burn out.

As I was starting to get a taste of a few weeks ago.

I’d really love to hear what you make of this. In what ways can you get caught up in the enthusiasm of social media? How do you draw the line for yourself and enjoy the best of social media?

Related posts:

1. How to stop employees taking sickies during the swine flu pandemic
2. Lost heart with your current job? Don’t rush to escape