What Jewish Leaders Can Learn From Twitter's Changes
Part 1 of the Navigating the Changes in Social Media Series (2022)
Read time: 5 minutes
As someone who works in communications strategy and the Jewish world, I’m paying close attention to Twitter and thinking about how it impacts our work. Each day seems to bring an onslaught of changes.
There is so much noise coming from Twitter. From staffing changes, the relaunching of previously banned accounts, and the increase in relatively unmoderated hateful content. It is easy for many to put it aside and say: “good riddance.” However, we would miss out on recognizing the complete picture of what is happening.
Twitter can be used for a lot of good and has made a tremendous impact.
Twitter has helped political movements form like the Arab Spring, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter. It has been a powerful tool for political discourse and truth-telling. Who knows if these movements would have happened with another tool?
Twitter has helped individuals share their stories and make connections across the world. News is made and shared on this platform.
Twitter is a rare place for journalists, politicians, scientists, leaders, authors, and us lowly individuals to interact horizontally. Can you think of another platform where this has been true?
With social media changing quickly, I’m starting this series of posts by unpacking three fundamental questions.
Leadership: Jewish institutions require good leadership. How can Jewish institutions avoid the same traps as Twitter’s CEO?
Communications: Twitter and other platforms have made siginifcant changes in the second half of 2022. What might we do to adapt to those changes?
Strategy: Many Jewish leaders utilize Twitter to reach an audience. How might they adjust their strategy?
Part 1: Leadership
As we continue to read news articles about Twitter, its leadership, and the company culture, it is an opportunity to learn a few lessons on how to lead in our modern world.
Too many changes create instability.
The goal is to make the right changes at the right time. A good leader will be willing to experiment with changes without attempting to transform the organization overnight. Making too many significant changes will likely overwhelm your core people and alienate them.
For Twitter, the tone, tenor, and implementation of changes to the platform were immediate and haphazard.
But be warned, the status quo never leads to growth.
It makes it much more essential to recognize what change threshold your people will manage comfortably and successfully.
Focusing on the loud, small, and aggrieved population leads to the alienation of the whole.
Every community has its core people who are deeply committed and are well served. While a loud, upset group is worthy of our attention, we should understand deeply why they are upset before taking action.
While vocal minorities should not have their needs ignored, we have to step back and see what is best for the community in general. Far too often, loud, entrenched groups in our institutions prevent needed changes and growth from happening due to fear or ego.
To be clear: minorities in our community should be treated with kindness, justice, and have their needs met.
Trust the team and their expertise.
It is important to understand the expertise that surrounds us. We hire experts to do their work when we don’t know how. They do the work for a reason, and we should understand and learn from them.
We should also listen to the users, for they are part of the team too.
Firing half a company is not a strong start. Ignoring the engineers’ warnings and their concerns as they were being fired has led to Twitter outages and errors as the systems break down, and there is no one there to maintain them.
The clergy, staff, and educators inside our institutions are trained experts. They are trained and there for a reason. Ignoring their expertise wastes everyone’s time. Boards should take their staff’s recommendations with serious weight and avoid micromanaging.
While good leadership isn’t guaranteed, a strong partnership between staff and lay leadership makes a tremendous difference.
Twitter is in the relationship business, and so are we.
Think of Twitter as the after-services kiddush of the internet. The advertisers paid for the spread and we got a chance to chat. Food or people alone does not make kiddush, it is the combination of the two.
Although its revenue comes from advertising, the users are the platform's core. The human connections element is the key to success.
What matters is understanding the business we are in. While Amazon might sell products, it is in the convenience business. Google might offer search, but it is in the advertising business.
Congregations, for example, offer minyan and Shabbat services as a part of their suite of “products and services,” but they aren’t in the prayer business. Congregations are in the relationship business. People come to congregations to be together.
What can we learn?
I recommend that leaders take this as an invitation to ask themselves about the nature of their work.
Looking forward: Are we crafting a powerful vision for the future of our institutions? Where are we leading our people?
Changes: Are we solving the right problems? Are we making changes in sustainable, inclusive, and meaningful ways?
Teamwork: Are we allowing the best leaders to do what they are good at? Are we each taking on the roles we can best play?