News flash: Organizations consist of people. How well an organization works depends on how its people interact and work together. Thus, every organization is “social.” But so what? How do we make use of this universal fact?

Organizations work top down through social interactions structured around the organization chart, or hierarchy. And they work end to end structured around their business processes. These two dimensions — hierarchy and process — shape the way organizations see the world, its challenges and, more importantly, the portfolio of potential solutions to those challenges. There is nothing wrong with hierarchy or process. They are effective organizational approaches to managing complex operations.

But there is a crucial third dimension to organizational effectiveness. We see this when people get things done by working in the so-called “white space” in the organizational structure, or by working across the “seams” of a business process. In their ways of working and connecting with each other, they do more than just what they are told top-down and more than what is defined as their job. This is the social dimension.

Every organization has a social dimension. The challenge is that the social dimension is not accurately reflected in either the organization’s hierarchy or its process flow. For years, social systems were described not as valuable systems to tap into, but as limits on innovation and change. We gave these systems names like culture, core beliefs, norms, tradition, shared thinking, or “just the way we do things around here” — each term describing factors that are so slow to change as to become assumptions that limited either strategy or operations. This was great if you had a positive and successful culture, and a death sentence if you did not. In response, executives relied on organizational command-and-control or process prescription to run the enterprise and effect change because there was no way to readily and repeatedly access the power of the organization’s social systems.

But what if leaders could create a future where customers, associates and suppliers are no longer seen as objects in the system but as valued sources of innovation, ideas and energy? What if they could truly tap into the creativity, knowledge and experience of their organization’s people? What could possibly enable such a transformation?

The answer is social media. And before you roll your eyes, let us say that we know very well that accessing your social potential requires moving beyond simple social media solutions such as blogs, wikis, etc., to truly changing the way your organization works. This means becoming a social organization.

A social organization mobilizes its people — from associates to customers, suppliers and others without regard to hierarchy or position — and their interests, passions, knowledge and experience. Tapping into the collective wisdom of everyone creates a new source of competitive advantage, agility and future innovation.

A social organization is one that is able to address significant business challenges and opportunities through creating this “mass collaboration.” As we show in our new book, this collaboration extends well beyond common social media to enable employees, customers, suppliers and all other stakeholders to participate directly in the creation of value.

We have seen companies across industries and sectors — from healthcare to high-tech to manufacturing — that have increased innovation, enhanced efficiency and created competitive advantage through effective use of social media. We will highlight many of these examples in future posts in the coming weeks.

We will also describe a new class of leader working out how to apply social media in ways that move the enterprise from being merely an organization that is social to truly becoming a social organization.