When it comes to innovation, the myth of the lone genius dies hard.
Most companies continue to assume that innovation comes from that individual genius, or, at best, small, sequestered teams that vanish from sight and then return with big ideas. But the truth is most innovations are created through networks — groups of people working in concert.

The misperception has never been more damaging, as companies pour more money into generating ideas and then end up frustrated as innovations simply don’t develop. To lay the groundwork for innovation, organizations must make it easy for their employees to build networks — talk to their peers, share ideas and collaborate.

After studying networks in more than 20 organizations, we’ve found three problems that stifle innovation. They share a couple of common themes: the failure to effectively leverage the expertise of employees (or their peers in partner organizations) and the failure to react effectively when new ideas do arise. But we’ve also found five steps companies can take to clear those barriers and start producing big ideas.

Here’s a look at the network problems and how to solve them.

THE PROBLEMS

1. No Communication In any organization, there are many people who could almost certainly team up to produce new ideas — but often the structure of the company keeps them apart. The problem could be simple logistics: The workers may be in different departments or physical locations, for instance, or company bureaucracy could keep them from knowing they’re working in parallel on the same task. Or their bosses may dislike each other, making collaboration tricky.

These problems can afflict even relatively small groups within a company. Consider the plight of a partner in a well-known accounting firm who was leading a group of 50 experts to