Finally, cultural values that prize individual accomplishment over collaborative endeavors and behavioral norms that keep people from sharing ideas until they are fully formed can result in sparse network patterns. Who is publicly praised in most organizations? The person who took a risk or overcame the odds to achieve something, or the one who involved others in solving a problem? Typically, the hero is noticed and networks suffer, often invisibly, as a result. Leaders can change that culture over time by publicly acknowledging collaborative work, rewarding those who go out of their way for others, and promoting such people along with the rainmakers.

The key for managers is to begin the process by defining the collaborative behaviors that have strategic importance; only then will they be able to reward people appropriately. For example, the managers of a technology company we worked with were concerned about the “not invented here” syndrome so prevalent among engineers. The organization had world-class expertise, but social network analysis revealed that people rarely reached out to colleagues outside their project teams. One step executives took to begin correcting the problem was asking — in every project review, update or planning meeting — who people on the team had contacted on the outside and what the team’s plans were for continuing to leverage outside experts.

Myth: How people fit into networks is a matter of personality (which can’t be changed).

It’s commonly held that people who are good networkers fit a stereotype: They are extroverted, social and aggressive in the pursuit of their goals. The view that personality determines who is and who isn’t likely to be an important member of a group contributes to the idea that little or nothing can be done to improve the effectiveness of informal networks. After all, executives often say to us, it’s not really possible to change someone’s personality.

Reality Check: How people fit into networks is a matter of intentional behaviors (which can be influenced).

We have mapped personality scales such as the Myers-Briggs test on our social network analyses and found that the link between someone’s personality and his or her position in a network is not as strong as one might think.6 Even highly introverted people can, and often do, have robust personal networks. Managers should focus less on personality and more on the behaviors of people who wind up at the center of networks.

From our interviews with people in networks, we discovered that those who occupy pivotal positions do things differently from those who stay on the margins. Central people don’t focus exclusively on getting tasks done; they also consider how to build relationships and get others involved in the work. In fact, because they realize the future value of relationships, they take the time to systematically build their own networks. Such people often include relationship building as a critical part of their professional development plans and always seem to have lists of people they are trying to meet or planning to call.

Network patterns, then, are a product of intentional behaviors rather than entrenched personality characteristics — and, in contrast to personality traits, behaviors can be taught or encouraged. Managers can take specific steps to leverage the expertise of peripheral network members, for instance, by having them work with better-connected colleagues and by having them answer requests for information directly (so that others will come to recognize what they know and will turn to them in the future). People can also be trained to learn how to assess, develop and support their own networks. (When executives thoroughly analyze their own networks, they often uncover a variety of biases; that is, they find that they turn only to people in the same function or in the same geographic location or of the same gender, and that they generally fail to reach down in the hierarchy, where the best information usually resides.) Thus network development can be embedded in an organization’s routines by making it a critical component of orientation practices, professional development plans, learning exercises and staffing initiatives.

Myth: Central people who have become bottlenecks should make themselves more accessible.

People at the center of an informal network often work long hours at a grueling pace. Their very work ethic has, in fact, made them essential to the network’s effectiveness, and they often feel that they must work harder and be more available, if necessary, to keep it running smoothly. What such people fail to understand, however, is that they frequently become bottlenecks who slow down the whole group.

Reality Check: Central people who have become bottlenecks should shift burdens for providing information and making decisions to others in the network.

More accessibility and harder work on the part of pivotal people is not the solution. To understand why, consider what we learned by examining a global network of 218 people within a technology organization. The executive running this group had six direct reports (managing principals) based in various regions of the world; the rest of the organization reported to these people. One managing principal had 51 people indicating that they came to him for critical information to get their work done and another 48 saying they would be more effective in their work if they were able to communicate more with him. In short, the manager was working at his limits but had become a bottleneck for the group. His immediate world was one of fast decisions and action — things always felt like they were happening at an incredible pace — and he had no idea he was slowing down the group. It was not until we sat down with him and showed him the network analysis and results of our interviews that he became aware of how he was obstructing opportunities and holding up projects. He quickly determined that he could shed responsibility for owning certain information and decisions. As a result, he freed up his own time for efforts that drew on his expertise, and the network itself was less constrained by him.

Although this is an extreme example, we have consistently seen this pattern in a wide range of networks. Senior managers can intervene to correct the problem by reallocating information domains (that is, who’s responsible for what information) and changing decision rights (allowing others to make decisions).

People often become central to a network because they know things that bridge different parts of the organization. But such people have to give up on the losing battle of trying to answer everyone’s questions. Rather, they should learn to point people toward others in the network with the expertise to provide answers. Such action not only opens up the bottleneck, it also draws in peripheral people to the center of the network.

Defining a busy executive’s information domains and considering ways to reallocate ownership of them can usually be done in a couple of hours, even over lunch. Start with the executive’s role in directing the substance of meetings held during the previous month. In addition, it can be helpful to review the subject lines of e-mail messages from the same time period. These quick exercises almost always allow people to identify categories of informational requests that others in the group could own more productively.

Clarity about who gets to make decisions is an even bigger problem than how information flows in informal networks. People frequently let opportunities pass because they feel that the cost of getting a simple decision approved is excessive. Even worse, members of newly formed groups often don’t know where to turn to get a decision made. They end up trying to get an audience with some busy executive, which only slows the process down. It also adds an element of risk: The organization can become too reliant on one decision maker, someone who is frequently too far removed from day-today issues to be able to make a well-informed decision.

The same analysis used on informational requests can be applied to decision categories. Again, many categories can be delegated. For example, travel approvals can easily be handled by an administrative employee or with a policy (a travel budget for each person, for example). Less routine decisions can also be effectively distributed to the experienced people in a network.

Myth: I already know what is going on in my network.

Executives often claim that they have a good understanding of who is in their network and how it operates. As far as their immediate circle goes, that is usually true, but it is false when applied more broadly to include all the people they interact with or manage. As a way of getting them to consider that next level, we ask, “When and how have you had your perception tested?” They usually can’t answer. Studies show, in fact, that managers often have a limited understanding of the networks around them.7

Reality Check: Those who are most adamant in asserting that they know their network are usually the farthest off base.

By virtue of their position in the hierarchy, managers are frequently far removed from the day-to-day work that generates an organization’s informal structure and so may have a limited picture of relationship patterns. The problem is compounded by the fact that most executives do little to systematically assess and support informal groups. They spend vast sums of money for new information systems or to implement better and faster financial-reporting practices but seem less inclined to make the investments that would give them a clear picture of how work is getting done within their organization. That’s usually because executives are bound by myths about informal networks and don’t realize the potential of social network analysis to map important networks and the interventions that might emerge from this perspective.

In today’s knowledge-intensive environment where organizations have been significantly restructured, creating healthier informal networks is a critical job of managers and executives. Collaboration across organizational boundaries is required, as people seek out innovative solutions to increasingly complex and interconnected problems. The key point for managers overseeing informal networks is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, such groups can be supported in ways that produce strategic and operational benefits for the whole organization.

(Reprint #:4337)

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