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Asq Worcester Network Power Public
1. Networks are the hidden social structures within organizations that facilitate the movement of information. They can accelerate or hinder organizational improvement efforts. 2. Understanding an organization's networks and leveraging critical connectors can help change initiatives succeed where formal structures and job titles fail. 3. Leaders can tap into networks to support change through techniques like understanding information flows, building networks for the specific change effort, and using informal leaders to promote the change. This helps spread new ideas faster and overcome resistance.
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Asq Worcester Network Power Public
- 1. Network Power! TappingHidden Social Networks to Accelerate Improvement American Society for Quality Worcester Section June 18, 2009 Presenter: Maya Townsend, Partnering Resources Contact: 617.395.8396 o [email_address] o www.partneringresources.com
- 2. The Point Companiescan accelerate improvement initiatives and increase likelihood of success by tapping into existing hidden networks Image: Partnering Resources
- 3. Why It MattersData: McKinsey (2005). Only 29% of change initiatives are completely or mostly successful improving performance.
- 4. 1. What isa network? 2. What do networks have to do with change? 3. How can you leverage networks to improve organizations faster and more effectively? Agenda
- 5. What is aNetwork? Networks are about movement Computer networks move data from location to location Public transportation networks help people travel in cities The circulatory system carries oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from our cells
- 6. The Simplest WorkNetwork Sam knows how to answer the question so Mary connects you to Sam Human networks are also all about movement: The movement of information You have a question You ask Mary at the next desk She doesn’t know the answer and calls Sam for advice Problem solved!
- 7. People Form Networkswithin Teams
- 8. More People, MoreComplexity
- 9. We Work throughFormal Systems… Jane is at the individual contributor level on the org chart
- 10. … And Missthe Networks Jane is a critical connector in this network. Without Jane, the organization separates into 3 unconnected factions
- 11. Measuring Critical ConnectorsCritical Connectors comprise only 5% of the organization Three Critical Connectors Hubs Gatekeepers Pulsetakers Image: © 2005 NetForm, Inc. Used with permission.
- 12. The Hub Highlyand directly connected with many people Communicate and disseminate knowledge through the organization Gary Harry Patty Paula
- 13. The Gatekeeper Linkdepartments, functions, and groups together Act as information gateways and broker knowledge between critical parts of the organization Gary Harry Patty Paula
- 14. The Pulsetaker Havemaximum influence using minimum number of direct contacts Work through indirect means Gary Harry Patty Paula
- 15. It’s Not Justthe Grapevine: Organizations have Multiple Networks Social Decision-Making Innovation Expertise Improvement
- 16. 1. What isa network? 2. What do networks have to do with change? 3. How can you leverage networks to improve organizations faster and more effectively?
- 17. About Change Gartner,2001 * Of which 45% are never used Standish Group Standish Group Changes Completed On Time and With Minimal Disruption: 5% Average Project Cost Overrun: 43% Percentage of Originally Defined Features Delivered: 54%*
- 18. Healthy Networks: Adaptable& Resilient Networks can… Adapt quickly to change. Withstand stress. Reorganize without significantly affecting productivity. Diffuse information easily. Grow quickly. Case studies: Plastrik & Taylor (2006) and Evans & Wolf (2005).
- 19. Unhealthy Networks CanCause Failure Nearly 80% of senior executives surveyed believe that effective coordination across boundaries is crucial for growth… … yet only 25% say their organizations are effective at sharing knowledge across boundaries Graphic: NetForm. Used with permission. Lack of connections between two key departments caused a major gaffe at the LA Philharmonic
- 20. Leaders Can LeverageNetworks Situation: Monopolist culture impeded growth, cost-cutting, and quality improvement programs. Actions: Leaders identified and engaged critical network connectors in "Pride Builders" meetings. Results: Dramatic increases in satisfaction metrics: Increase of 71% in employee satisfaction in comparison to control group. Increase of 35% - 245% in customer satisfaction in comparison to control group. Case: Reingold & Yang (2007).
- 21. 1. What isa network? 2. What do networks have to do with change? 3. How can you leverage networks to improve organizations faster and more effectively?
- 22. Four Techniques Buildstrong personal networks Understand your organization’s networks Build networks to support change Use multiple techniques
- 23. 1. Build StrongPersonal Networks Image: Barry Wellman, “The Network Community: An Introduction to Networks in the Global Village.
- 24. Successful Projects haveStronger Leadership Networks 93% of completely successful change initiatives were led by people with very strong / strong personal networks 73% of less successful change initiatives were led by people with moderate / weak networks Data: NEHRA / Partnering Resources study (2009).
- 25. Key to BuildingYour Network Photo: Sizumaru’s Photo Stream, Flickr. Building networks requires more giving than receiving
- 26. The Minimalist ApproachSchedule 1 coffee meeting / month Forward 1 email / week Walk around the office and talk with people 1 time / day
- 27. 2. Understand Your Organization’s Networks How does information flow through the organization? Who are the critical connectors? Who are the ad hoc decision-makers? Who can make things happen? Image: Nancy Margulies (www.nancymargulies.com)
- 28. An Example Images:Partnering Resources using NetForm™ Connectors software. The loss of only two people causes major gaps in this nonprofit organization. The diagram on the left shows the organization today. The one on the right shows the organization without 2 critical connectors.
- 29. How to UnderstandNetworks Map them by hand Map them using ONA software Ask 10 people you trust: Who do you trust to get things done? Images: Partnering Resources.
- 30. 3. Build Networksto Support Change
- 31. Case Study: BuildingNetworks to Support Change Situation: IT projects consistently failed to meet time and budget constraints. Actions: Leaders seeded the Implementation Team with critical network connectors. Leaders created a Learning Team also comprised of critical connectors. Results: The organization achieved its goal and implemented CMM Level 3 processes in 50% the time recommended. Learning continues to this day. © 2009 Maya Townsend
- 32. How to BuildChange Networks Get the right people in the (virtual) room Define the purpose Give them a forum Encourage give and take Listen Give them the power to act Image: Charis Tsevis.
- 33. 4. Use MultipleTechniques Ask informal leaders to help support the change Brainstorm or explore ideas associated with the change with people outside the change team Strategize how to overcome planning or implementation obstacles Get feedback on documents, approach, and aspects of the initiative before rollout Understand what the grapevine has to say about change Leverage personal contacts to help get things done Data: NEHRA / Partnering Resources study (2009). Strategize how to overcome planning or implementation obstacles Get feedback on documents, approach, and aspects of the initiative before rollout These two techniques are positively correlated with the success of change initiatives. In other words, if you do nothing else, do these!
- 34. 1. What isa network? 2. What do networks have to do with change? 3. How can you leverage networks to improve organizations faster and more effectively?
- 35. Let’s Leverage ourNetworks! What from this presentation stands out as most relevant to your work? What questions do you have? Image: Nancy Margulies (www.nancymargulies.com)
- 36. For More Information…Articles & Research Kleiner, A. (2002). “Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust.” strategy + business. Available at www.strategy-business.com . Reingold, J. & Yang, J. L. (2007). “The Hidden Workplace.” CNN Money . Available at www.cnnmoney.com . Patton, S. (2005). “Social Network Analysis Helps Maximize Collective Smarts.” CIO.Com. Available at http://tinyurl.com/64wtu8 . Stephenson, K. & Zelen, M. (1989). “Rethinking Centrality.” Available at http://drkaren.us/KS_publications01.htm . Townsend, M. (2008). “The Three Most Important Positions You Don’t Know About Yet.” Available at www.partneringresources.com/resources.html . Townsend, M. (2009). “Leveraging Human Networks to Accelerate Learning.” Chief Learning Officer. Available at http:// tinyurl.com/ccftsu . Townsend, M. & Yeung, S. (2009). “Survey: Informal Networks Linked to Success of Change Initiatives.” Boston.Com. Available at http://tinyurl.com/oql7d9 . Books Anklam, P. (2007). Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World. Cohen, D. & Prusak, L. (2001). In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work. Cross, R., & Parker, A. (2004). The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations. Network Analysis & Mapping Software See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis_software for full list. Recommended freeware: UCINet & Visone . Recommended commercial software: Connectors , InFlow , NetMiner . Websites www.partneringresources.com
- 37. Network Power! TappingHidden Social Networks to Accelerate Improvement American Society for Quality Worcester Section June 18, 2009 Presenter: Maya Townsend, Partnering Resources Contact: 617.395.8396 o [email_address] o www.partneringresources.com
Editor's Notes
- #2 How many have heard of ONA? How many have identified how information flows in the organization? How many have mapped out relationships within the organization? How many have alleviated bottlenecks and other barriers to successful improvement efforts? Created networks deliberately to support improvement efforts?
- #9 Why does this matter?
- #10 Ordinary organizational chart Example: Jane as a quality analyst
- #11 Maps work network: how do people actually get work done Lines represent frequency of relationship Jane has 10 connections
- #12 Organizational DNA
- #13 From Karen: “The first archetype, the Hub, is the most intuitive as in a hub and spoke system. This pattern rapidly disseminates information and centralizes work processes. Hubs can be highly social (although they don’t have to be) and know how to directly connect one on one with the most people. By force of habit, they are excellent multi-taskers and often connect people for the sheer joy of connecting.” Rob Cross: “More apt to be interested than interesting.” Centrality: “Extent to which a person is in the center of a network” (Ehrlich & Carboni (200x): “Inside Social Network Analysis”) To communicate a message to 500 employees, task Hubs with deploying the message
- #14 From Karen: “The second archetype, the Gatekeeper, pops up on critical pathways because it can either create or loosen bottlenecks. Gatekeepers live by the rule “less is more.” Very strategic, they make it their business to know the “right” people and only the “right” people. They are judicious, circumspect, and judgmental. In a healthy organization, they are extremely useful in making sure the right people are connected to move projects and objectives along.” To communicate a message to 500 employees, engage Gatekeepers to make sure the message gets through
- #15 Find only through algorithms – can’t see from the maps From Karen: “The third archetype, the Pulsetaker, is someone who is connected to almost everyone via indirect routes. This is the most abstract of the three positions. Pulsetakers are the Machiavellis of the world, behind-the-scenes, in-between, and unseen persons. They know how to get to the right people using indirect means. In this way, their influence is hard to detect and often overlooked.” Quality, not quanitity To communicate a message to 500 employees, check in with Pulsetakers after 3 months to confirm that the message travelled accurately and successfully. If you haven’t sent the message to them, but they get it, you’ll know it was successful
- #17 Think of the last major project in which you were involved. How many were involved in a project that didn’t finish on time? That went over budget? That produced significant disruption in the organization?
- #19 PINE ST INN An example of creating flexible networked capacity is the Pine Street Inn, a nonprofit that serves more than a thousand homeless people in Boston. For years, the organization provided food, job training, emergency shelter, clothing, and health services. When it faced overwhelming financial problems due to state funding cuts and rising costs, it looked for a way to organize its capacities that would cost less without cutting services or quality. The alternative it found was to stop trying to do everything itself. Instead of internalizing all capacities within the organization, it assembled a set of specialized capacities in several other organizations that added up to the overall capacity needed to serve the homeless. Now Goodwill Industries, which processed 20 times more clothing than the Pine Street Inn, handles the clothing, at a saving of $350,000 a year. Another specialized organization provides the healthcare, reducing costs more than $1 million a year. As the capacity to serve the homeless was distributed to these other organizations, Pine Street became more of a coordinator and less of a direct provider, eliminating 41 staffing positions and saving $2 million a year. But it kept doing one of the functions at which it was especially good. It pays its clients to work in its food service function. The organization got other organizations to contract with it to provide them with food service. LINUX Networks connect diverse people quickly and easily. When a system administrator in the physics department at the University of Trieste discovered a vulnerability in the Linux server that could compromise thousands of files worldwide, he contacted his colleagues. They connected him to a researcher in Atlanta and developers in Australia and California. The chain of people expanded to form a network that, in 29 hours, fixed a problem that could have taken weeks or months. (Evans & Wolf, Harvard Business Review, 2005). TOYOTA Duncan Watts tells a remarkable story of network resilience in the Toyota Production System, some 200 independent companies that cooperate with each other—sharing personnel and intellectual property, and helping each other without requiring formal contracts—to supply the Toyota automotive company with all it needs. When Toyota’s production of cars was stopped overnight by the destruction of one company’s key factory, the sole source of P-valves for automobiles, Watts reports, the network acted immediately: “In an astonishing coordinated response by over two hundred firms, and with very little direct oversight” by Toyota, production was reestablished in three days. “ Because many of the firms involved in the recovery effort had previously exchanged personnel and technical information… they could make use of lines of communication, information resources, and social ties that were already established,” Watts says. “They understood and trusted each other.” Some firms rearranged their production priorities, while others commandeered equipment from all over the world. “They redistributed the stress of a major failure from one firm to hundreds of firms, thus minimizing the damage to any one member of the group.” And “they recombined resources of those same firms in multiple distinct and original configurations” to produce the valve made in the burned down factory. The Toyota system survived a massive shock; it proved to be a “self-healing” system. NOKIA / ERICSSON Networks can withstand stress and adapt quickly to change. In 2000, a fire a Philips Electronics plant threatened to significantly delay delivery of cell phone chips to customer Nokia. Faced with a potential production hit, Nokia quickly dispatched 30 employees to help Philips restore operations. This wasn’t part of Nokia’s plan—no one could have predicted the fire—but the company was able to mobilize staff and integrate into Philips quickly. The results were just want Nokia needed: it got its products to market while achieving sales goals for the year (Reese, Supply & Demand Chain Executive , 2004).
- #21 From Reingold & Yang, Fortune , 2007: In 2002: new CEO Michael Sabia 122-year-old company that needed to banish its monopolist mentality in order to compete. Worked with Jon Katzenbach (www.katzenbach.com) Cultivate change from within. Using surveys, performance reviews, and recommendations from executives, it scoured its nearly 50,000 employees to find 14 low- and mid-level managers who embodied the mentality the company sought: committed, passionate, and competitive. Katzenbach and staffers in the HR department interviewed the 14 extensively. They found that the subjects shared the ability to get people to trust them and to solve problems rather than complain about them. The initial group then recommended another 40 associates. September 2004: Organized an all-day meeting in Toronto for "Pride Builders" - CEO asked them to lead a cultural transformation. Group grew to 150 people Actions: Created their own "community of practice" Worked on problems identified during company-organized gripe sessions Determined future conference topics Handed CEO list of "pain points“ such as the bureaucracy associated with bringing in new hires. Helped shorten the process from as much as six weeks to five days. Today: 2,500 people in 25 local chapters; 3 full-time staffers take care of administrative tasks Fall 2005: Company measured the impact of "pride behaviors" on customer and employee satisfaction in its small and medium-sized business call centers. Relative to the control group, employee satisfaction rose dramatically, as much as 71 percentage points. Customer satisfaction jumped too: Percentage increases ranged from 35% to 245%.
- #24 Egocentric networks LinkedIn Facebook Why is this important?
- #29 43 people in the organization. Took out 2
- #30 Software: NetDraw, InFlow, Connectors, Visone By hand: Let me know and I’ll send
- #33 40 percent of all Americans received news and information about the primary campaigns from the web, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project developed in June. January 2009: On election day, Obama had 3M supporters and McCain had 600,000 on Facebook; On Twitter, Obama had 100,000+ followers and McCain has a little over 3,000. My.BarackObama.com is an instrument of organization for Obama. Its 1M+ members planned 50,000+ events with the help of the site’s innovative tools (not campaign officials) and contributed to his record-breaking $600 million in fund-raising . “ Social networks exist to facilitate dialogue between passionate people. Their passion might be for a particular product, a cause, a celebrity or a football team, but they're all in it together and they want to find other like-minded people to share their feelings with. If your business isn't the kind of organization that people are passionate (or at least mildly enthused) about, creating a social network around yourself will only serve to highlight that fact. At best, you'll get a few staff members and cousins join, at worst, you'll quickly find out no-one actually cares, which can end up looking rather embarrassing.” Matt Granfield, Marketing Magazine
- #35 Think of the last major project in which you were involved. How many were involved in a project that didn’t finish on time? That went over budget? That produced significant disruption in the organization?
- #36 Not just me as Expert Draw on our own network here: experts, improvement Pose questions generally
- #38 How many have heard of ONA? How many have identified how information flows in the organization? How many have mapped out relationships within the organization? How many have alleviated bottlenecks and other barriers to successful improvement efforts? Created networks deliberately to support improvement efforts?