At Medallia, we believe that the best ideas are generated when everyone has a voice, and today that’s easier than ever with digital innovation and crowdsourcing tools. 

A few weeks ago our team gathered at the Watermark Conference, a women’s leadership and professional development conference in San Jose. This year we decided to find ideas for new managers to make the transition successful – a topic that our Chief People Officer, Mary Ainsworth, was an expert panelist on at the event. So we launched a challenge on Medallia Crowdicity to crowdsource ideas from attendees. 

We gathered contributions from members that span across 30 different organizations, and here are the top recommendations from the challenge: 

• First things First: Start with caring. Take the time to get to know and understand your people. Build relationships and earn trust by understanding what your people value.  
• Listen and Ask: Learn to actively listen and ask good questions, so you can empower your people to solve their own problems. Resist the urge to jump in and do everything yourself! 
• Develop and Define Your Approach to Leadership: Reflect on your best and worst managers. Make a vision statement around how you want to lead- and share this with your direct reports.  
• Get By With a Little Help From Your Friends: Consider creating a personal “Board of Directors”- have a team of peer managers, directors, executives, and HR professionals that you can go to with questions both mundane and sensitive.

Harnessing the collective power of the community to crowdsource ideas on a topic that matters is now easy to do. Thanks to everyone who took part and joined our community. We’re looking forward to the Watermark Conference 2021 already! 

For more examples of how crowdsourcing drives innovation for citizens and businesses browse through the Crowdicity Customer Stories Library or request a demo.