DigitalNow: Association Leadership in the Digital Age

Afternoon Keynote: Dr. Karen Stephenson
Leveraging and Measuring the Network

Key Points

Is the structure of your association hampering innovation and the delivery of your value proposition? This presenter examined models that demonstrate where the power really lies in an organization.

Two structures: the formal "Hierarchy" and the informal, invisible "Network."

• Research into the concept of "Network" began about 30 years ago.
• Hierarchies start orderly and become a tough mess of ideas and mismanagement, because communications are managed indirectly through the network and not recorded as procedures and processes. Eventually these indirect means of getting business done become a huge barrier for business - bureaucracy.

Different types of communications and knowledge

• A network should be clean lines - confirmed relationships between divisions. Other departments communicate among themselves and create silos of knowledge.
• Finally there is tacit knowledge - held totally within the individual - not part of anyone else - and stored only in their brains.
• The consequence? The organization can be undermined because the folks at the bottom have huge amounts of data, sharing it with no one.

The "kite" structure of networks

• Hub — Every network has a lynchpin that holds the organization together. This person is centrally connected to the greatest number of people in the network.
• Gatekeeper — Gatekeepers control the flow of information. They are either information "brokers" or "bottlenecks.
• Pulse-takers — The Machiavellis of the organization; unseen but all-seeing.Have been around for many years and are connected to make people - and indirect path. Have the maximum connections with the minimum connections

Relationships between networks and hierarchies

• Any network can unravel a hierarchy.
• Any hierarchy can crush a network
• Hierarchial knowledge in your organization:
  • Explicit
  • Authority based
  • One-way, not two-way
  • Breadth
  • Heterogenous
  • Glacial rate of change
  • Impersonal
  • Stable
  • Rigid
  • Tradition
• Knowledge Networks in your organization:
  • Tacit
  • Trust based
  • Reciprocal
  • Differential
  • Deferential
  • Primodial
  • Propinquitous
  • Personal
  • Stable
  • Flexible
  • DNA

Social Capital

• The space of knowledge between individuals.
• Tacit Knowledge is invisible, shared on a trust basis only and usually not measured. This social capital is like DNA — embedded in the organization.

"Shift Happens"

• Micro network positions infiltrate macro cultural shifts
• Hub/gatework/pulsetakers

Hierarchy and networks react totally different with the same set of features

Example:

*These people must be nurtured and made happy

Use your networks to your advantage

• If taken too far, networks can close out people because people like to mix with people that look, act, react all the same.
• The goal of management is to mix-up the network often. There can be betrayal when this occurs. When it happens, you must realize the relationship is damaged and cannot be repaired. The hierarchy will keep it together, but the network is broken.
• Keep the heretics and mavericks moving often. You need them for innovation but they will collapse your hierarchy.
• Must look at the network and make sure it works to the success of the organization.
• Do not mistake Instant messaging for an indication of trust.

Creative ideas to "stir the pot"

• Rotate members so that new people can come in and learn the old job. The "old" team member is moved to a "new" job.
• Can use a methodology to pair up a hub with a pulsetaker to make sure a message gets out. Can also build walls around gateworkers / hubs / pulsetakers.