social-networking, strategyWhat would you do if you had a Facebook page for a company with 3 partners of the company as admins. One of the partners is the main party who deals with all the technical side of the business and has all the other passwords and server details.
One partner has fallen out with the others and removed them as admins. Then after some ‘kissing and making up’ they are all friends again and everyone is admin, but now there is a need to make some changes and this childish option of removing the admins may occur again. It is not possible to rule out.
Is it better to try to maintain the status quo, everyone happy and trust that it wont happen again, or to be ‘once bitten twice shy’ and take the opportunity to remove that person as admin so they cannot do it again.
A significant following has built up on the facebook page and it leads to some business. This other partner has in the heat of the moment threatened to take the page for themselves and run things by themselves.
This company is based in a former soviet union country where it is difficult to enforce things and copyright laws are lax.
This process is part of an going process to pivot the company offering. It is in an early stage and the partners don’t agree on their visions for the future of the company. Due to communication barriers / culture clash it is not possible to discuss the difference in visual. The main source of customers is from the technical side- website / facebook etc. Therefore the strategy is mainly focussed around altering the website.
The main thing is not to create an atmosphere of conflict but to smoothly transition to a new position “development of new ideas”. Oddly enough the Facebook page has become very politicised because it is the only way for the non-technical directors to seize power from the others in a ‘non-official’ ‘off the books’ way but still in a palpable, real way.
A reasonable way to approach this is to require that all “critical company accounts, usernames and passwords” are shared and stored with each partner and/or securely but commonly known and accessible. At least two people have access to anything critical at any time. That means at least two FB admins.
Despite your arguments, what if you allowed this “childish” person to be the sole admin and then the person is hit by a truck? It sounds like you would lose access to Facebook and that is not acceptable or reasonable for the rest of you and your families that depend on the business.
But there is the more critical problem: you do not have trust. Even with these approaches, a person can still revoke Facebook access and it sounds like you do not have a way to legally resolve that - or the threat of legal action is insufficient to prevent it. Assuming that is the case, then this person needs to be restricted from having authority to prevent access. In other words, you remove them as an admin as a part of the policy, because they are not to be trusted with the authority granted in that role.
You should still be able to operate and maintain the business. However, if this person is that critical to the business, then perhaps this person is more valuable than you recognize. Not feeling valued could be the root cause of this issue and none of these actions will really solve anything. If this person overvalues their worth to the company, then these actions are prudent and beneficial to the company.
Since only you and your partners can place value on the situation realistically, you need to determine if you can live without this person. If not, you need to value them more highly - but also make it clear that the behavior is not to be tolerated. Threats make mutual trust impossible - and if you don’t have trust, then you need to rethink all of what is happening anyway. All roads are more difficult if you need this person and you don’t have trust.
I agree with Jim’s answer. But I would also add this.
I think it’s time to either fish or cut bait. Meaning, either resolve this issue now. In a way that’s acceptable to everyone. Or decide one or more people need to leave the group. Since there are 3 people involved. Two can decide to work together without the other one. And, effectively, kick the other out.
One technical point on Jim’s answer.
Two people who have access to the passwords and admin details solves the hit-by-a-bus problem (to some extent, unless they are walking together and both get hit simultaneously or, more likely, on the same plane that goes down) but it does not solve the trust problem. In other words, if more than one person has the passwords, then ANY of the people with passwords can at any time decide to change the passwords and lock the others out.
The above fact underscores the necessity to resolve the situation now. If you don’t, it will likely recur again later after you have invested even more time and money than you have now. And the cost of failure will be higher later as a result.
As a practical matter, you can raise the issue easily now in the aftermath of the most recent event by pointing out very bluntly and directly that trust has been breached by behavior. Therefore, it is impossible to rely on trust alone as the basis for moving forward.
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