I have been on the winning side of this SharePoint adoption battle for years, and our usage reports reinforce that those I support are not just checking the weather, reading a Dilbert cartoon, or viewing pictures of a co-worker’s baby. When I say usage, I mean SharePoint is integral to how we do business.

The following chart is from one of our most active team sites. On average, the employees there are hitting their site 230 to 260 times a day; maybe that isn’t so impressive until it is revealed that there are only 13 distinct users on the site, nearly the same number employed in the department.  

Still not impressed?  What if I point out that 99 percent of the solutions we’ve built are completely out-of-the-box?  SharePoint Designer is not allowed here.  And don’t expect to find a single Excel sheet, and these employees do not have any need to collaborate on documents; this group’s focus is sharing knowledge and communication.  This is an extremely functional team site with one very impressive site owner!

Oh, so you scoff?  “One little department? Not corporatewide wins….” I can hear the jeers from the back of the room.  So, how does that translate to business success?  Well, this group represents our frontline staff; the added efficiency in their communication is conveyed directly to our customers as a highly competent and knowledgeable first impression of our organization.  That is a huge win.

Today SharePoint is integral to how they work, but a year ago their sites were devoid of content.  In only one year’s time this team has abandoned their paper notes in favor of a completely electronic procedure manual.  They have automated many of their processes, significantly reducing both email and phone communication, and they are currently in the process of implementing methods to track and monitor overall service quality. This group is leading SharePoint maturity in the organization, and right on the heels of their success are the other nine departments I support.  We’ve got that adoption ball rolling now at a nice steady pace.

Lessons Learned That Got Us Here

Looking back, I know exactly what shifted our momentum from stagnating to skyrocketing. It was that rare occasion when I had the good sense to listen to some sage advice: stop micromanaging every aspect of the development and start leading it.  This from someone I consider a visionary, a very bright fellow who believed some crazy idea I told him about how SharePoint would be good for his newly reorganized division: my boss.

From a business perspective, he was seeing our increasing adoption and recognized that the demand for my services was growing beyond what I could supply.  In hindsight it seems perfectly clear; not only was I obsessing about the control, but I wasn’t building any long-term sense of ownership because I was failing to engage the users.

The fix was easy and quick.  Within the week he had sent an encouraging note, a few volunteers stepped forward to receive his admiration, and by month’s end we had launched our own divisional SharePoint group.

Since the shift in ownership, there has been a significant upswing in site usage across the division, and my workload has shifted into a technical leadership role, one that suits me well.  Now what I find is that these site owners are their own best evangelists over lunch, in meetings, and directly with co-workers, and they do a far better job selling their “product” than I ever could! 

I was very fortunate that I happened to work for someone who believed I could make it work.

Only recently I stumbled into the business section at the library and found hundreds of books stating that the fundamentals for business success hinge on effectively leading change.  SharePoint is change; no one implements SharePoint to maintain the status quo, and the expectation is to enable change that ultimately improves business process.  Now, make that statement SharePoint specific: the fundamentals for SharePoint success hinge on effectively leading change. The concepts in these business books translated perfectly to my work with SharePoint and gave clarity to the setbacks I had experienced in the past.  It seemed I was on to something!

SharePoint Adoption Is About the People

I’ve spent some time now consuming these business experts’ books and reflecting upon how techniques used to achieve business success seem perfectly suited to some of our biggest challenges with SharePoint.  Every book in this classification has a principle, a methodology, or an idea that can translate directly to increased user adoption.  The concepts in these books have nothing to do with the technology of SharePoint but everything to do with the people who use it. 

Up until now I hadn’t given much thought to the people element, but if the goal is to get people to use it, then the people part is kind of important, isn’t it?  Business experts sure seem to think so. The other aspect these folks seem to have a handle on is how to influence change; in fact, that theme comes through in nearly all these books, and they seem to hold one group in particularly high regard: those who embrace change and face it head-on, in other words, leaders.

Leadership vs. Management

As it turns out, the characteristic that distinguishes a leader from those who follow has been a philosophical question that can be traced as far back as Plato’s Republic. There are leadership theorists who point to specific personality traits, but after having read a number of leadership books, I would define a leader as someone bold enough to take risks to influence change, possessing both the charisma to sell an idea and the technical know-how to bring people together to achieve a common goal.  I see leadership as a blossoming or unfolding of ideas that promote progress.

Management, on the other hand, generally describes the controlling and administration of resources and/or people.  Management implies some acknowledgment of power and authority to make decisions in an effort to achieve a goal.  If leadership is the blossoming, then management is the pruning.  If you know anything about gardening, you would know that in order to optimize blooms, you have to know when and how best to prune. A heavy hand with the pruners has the likely effect of stunting growth and eliminating new buds, while the effect of no pruning may allow blooms to flourish at first, but the vine can become invasive, grow beyond sustainability, and even choke out its own blossoms.  SharePoint success can be viewed much the same way; it takes a knowledgeable balance of both resource management and people skills to achieve the goal.

SharePoint the Technology vs. SharePoint the People

“SharePoint the technology” is managed, which means governance and all that boring but oh-so-necessary stuff that goes with it.  The rules and guidelines that safeguard against potential risks are meant to keep the platform scalable and sustainable for the future.  Management of the platform is paramount to success, and I certainly support and appreciate every effort to develop brilliant governance policies, but keep in mind there is a fine line between empowered manageability and debilitating restrictions. 

“SharePoint the people” are led, and a leader touts the role of governance as good stewardship where everyone has the opportunity to participate in the responsibility and is thereby held accountable in the effort.  Knowing how to present constraints as opportunities is the key to getting users aligned to the goal of compliant adoption.

To be led infers free will, while being managed implies control or restraint.  Lead with a vision and a promise of making things better, and others will follow.  However, if you manage the platform with restrictive, inflexible, single-minded governance, be aware that the only message you send users is “You aren’t welcome or trusted here.”   The complexities of SharePoint require a sophisticated management approach and a healthy dose of creative leadership.

The Bottleneck of Adoption

The bottleneck in SharePoint adoption is education.  It is the single biggest success stopper in the process.  Training is a great first step, but look beyond training to the model the SharePoint community has provided. 

Get the SharePoint leaders within the organization together regularly to share knowledge and to encourage a healthy dose of competitive spirit.  Recognition is a powerful incentive, so never miss an opportunity to extend a compliment and draw attention to the innovators.

Check Out Those Experts

Not everyone is born a leader, and if you have had the unfortunate history of having started your professional career in IT, there is a good chance you’ve been trained to manage.  Don’t just manage SharePoint adoption, lead it!  If you are uncomfortable in your leadership skin, find those around you that take to it naturally. 

Reading a few of the aforementioned business success books is a great way to help identify your management hang-ups but also to help you appreciate the skills others seem to possess so effortlessly and  that they themselves may not even recognize. Being able to identify these traits in others is the first step in mimicking them, and bestowing effective feedback encourages more of the same behavior.  In the case of SharePoint, leadership and technical ability can both be learned; the only prerequisite is the desire to improve. Here are a few of my favorite books on this topic to get you started:

• Leading Change by John P. Kotter (Harvard Business School Press, 1996)
• Beyond Luck: Practical Steps to Navigate the Path from Manager to Leader by John E. Langhorne, Ph.D. (Corridor Media Group, 2010)
• Alpha Project Managers: What the Top 2% Know That Everyone Else Does Not by Andy Crowe. (Velociteach, 2006)
• The Oz Principle: Getting Results through Individual & Organizational Accountability by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman (Prentice Hall, 1998)
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox (North River Press, 1992)

The phenomenon surrounding leadership is that it is not dependent upon authority.  You may wonder how much power a single site owner might have to influence change; well, I wouldn’t put a limit on it if I were you, because that’s exactly where I started, and I know I haven’t yet reached my full potential.  Successful SharePoint adoption takes a strong leadership initiative at every level, from executives down to the site owner, so cultivate that from the beginning. Those are the seeds of big wins!