A networked organization is one where the value you create is part of a contribution to something bigger by default. They are embodied by a mission, a diverse range of membership, and connections to others as a fundamental feature of how they work.
To illustrate, no single organization can ensure the full health of its patients in their care, protect children from harm, offer fulsome education and training to meet the evolving needs of a diverse society, provide food and shelter for a community, or be the advocate for an industry or sector. These are all problems and situations where there is a need and necessity for many different organizations to work together to address them.
This form of working often embodies inter-disciplinary, multi-organizational strategies that connect people, resources, plans and tactics.
This isn’t central planning, nor is it laissez-faire in it’s approach, it’s designing and evaluating organizations for the job they are doing as part of their mission, and it requires a specific approach to leadership, strategy, service design, and evaluation to make it work.
Organizational Similarities and Differences
Nearly every organization providing a good or a service exists within a network. Our communities are networks, our industries are networks, too. We exist in a highly networked world, yet not all organizations are covered by what we’re calling networked organizations.
Supply chains are an example of a network, but they aren’t always involving networked organizations. The organizations rely on others in a supply chain, but their mission isn’t entirely tied to it. Furthermore, an organization could conceivably purchase the means to reduce or eliminate network partners. For example, a manufacturer could purchase and own raw material production, factories, transport and delivery, and sales to nearly eliminate it’s supply chain. Or, it could choose to focus on specific components.
A networked organization is one that requires connection to and diversity in its network to achieve its mission. It can’t simply absorb resources to do that. It doesn’t make sense. And bigger isn’t always better in these situations.
Consider much of the work of community health, which relies on everything from grassroots organizations, patient advocates, disease- or issue-based associations, all the way through small and large institutional service and care providers as well as government help. This diversity ensures that local issues aren’t lost, that trust is developed based on similarity, while reach and impact is achieved through reach and scale within the network.
Networked organizations resist central planning and consolidation, while also providing a means to leverage collective strength from separation and their distinctiveness. It’s a middle space.
Networked organizations resist central planning and consolidation, while also providing means to leverage collective strength from distinction and separation.
Professional Organizations
Among the best examples of networked organizations are professional associations or guilds. These might involve those focused on specific issues (e.g., sector, industry or topic advocacy groups, like industry associations).
These organizations could represent issues that fill gaps that are not supported by governments or community services like health and social charities do.
These could be focused on professional representation, education, mutual support, and advocacy around a specific field of practice or study. Think of the professional associations devoted to different areas of health and medical practice, engineering, finance, and policy or practice within a specific geographical, setting, or population contexts. If you took advanced studies at college or university, you’ll recognize the different divisions of practice and might know many of these have their own professional association.
You probably belong to some.
These organizations are member-based, and often voluntary in nature (including leadership). They have needs for showing value, engaging members, and often require ways of working that are attentive to distance, multiple methods of interaction, tradition, and the many cultural complexities of running an operation that is designed to serve diverse (and demanding) populations.
Regulatory bodies (e.g., Colleges of Practice) are similar, but slightly different as they represent both aspects of networked leadership and membership, but also more centralized authority. Yet, like professional associations, they need to pay attention to the needs of their members and leverage those connections to show benefit.
Non-Profit and Issue-Driven Organizations
One of the first books on the rise of non-profit networked organizations for environmental protection is Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy (2008). He writes about how non-profit, non-governmental, or charitable foundations arose to meet the challenges of the many gaps in our understanding of climate change, and the actions required to address it. Beverly Schwartz wrote on this in her 2012 book Rippling: How Social Entrepreneurs Spread Innovation Throughout The World. In both cases, these books (and there are many others) illustrate how networked thinking, strategy, tactics and organization have been used and is required for achieving impact in complex contexts.
The complex context that requires networked organizations to be what they are is what makes them special, and at Cense we recognize that this requires different approaches to strategy, service design, communications, and evaluation. Non-profit organizations have value propositions that differ from many others in that they are being looked to as leaders on addressing issues, not solving them, yet contributing to their mitigation.
From a strategic perspective, the aim is to determine where they can make the most difference. From an evaluative one, it’s about showing the contribution that an organization’s efforts make to achieving some positive outcomes. Thus, the process and outcomes tied to the work being done require thinking and planning that is both ambitious and reflects what organizations can (and cannot) do. No one organization will solve something like chronic disease, climate change, homelessness, or educating for the future, but they can make a difference in how it’s dealt with.
Approaches and Methods
Working within a networked context means understanding where an organization sits within the system(s) they inhabit. This might mean using networked science models and methods like building network and systems maps, which can help reveal the interconnections between people, resources, processes, and outcomes. Our experience is that this kind of mapping approach can illuminate many of the pathways that organizations can (and do) take to achieving impact.
Many of these are often hidden from sight only to be revealed when explored through systems mapping. These maps — much like any map — reveal the territory and the relationships that tied to actions and outcomes. Without a clear sense of these, how can you expect to know what kind of influence you’re having?
Theories of change can help this process, too. A Theory of Change is a visual representation based on data that connects the story you tell of what you do to how you do it and the outcomes you seek. Sometimes, this story has gaps. Sometimes the story is incomplete. There are also times when the story tells something else that can reveal impact pathways that are new, innovative, unknown, or obscure. As we often say:
We often don’t achieve all we think we do, while we also achieve much more.
It’s also helpful to look at leadership and followership. Are organizations set up to lead through networks, or are they using non-networked (traditional) approaches to leadership in contexts that don’t fit? This happens a lot.
Networks are about relationships, so when we build strategy and look at outcomes, we focus on the number, type, context, and outputs that are generated from relationships. Do you have partnerships? What kind of collaboration is there? How do things get communicated, received, decided upon, and then acted on? These are different when outcomes are rarely tied to individuals or teams, but the collaborative activities of both within and beyond an organization. These can be through designed activities, agreements, and both informal or formalized roles. Communities of practice are one example of a model of collaboration, where many of the roles and processes are self-organized around a theme or topic, not an organizational function.
Organizational design and the sense of community that is created through this process is another important role. Drawing on what we know about successful teams, motivation, and performance, creating a culture that encourages discovery, active communication, and responsive action is essential in a networked organization. Just as a leader can’t possibly have sightlines on every kind of relationship of consequence, we also can’t rely on hard-and-fast rules for decision making. Instead, we focus on the principles that are adaptive and support complexity-oriented action.
Systems Thinking and Action
Strategic design incorporates systems thinking, design, organizational behaviour, and evaluation together. When you see systems, you can act wisely within them. When the relationships are visible in the network you’re in, you can strategically determine the people, resources, and opportunities that are available to you, rather than fly blind. When you know what you’re a part of, you can plan and manage for it, while building adaptive capacity and identifying meaningful, and achievable, goals and metrics.
This all happens by design.
Designing better systems means taking the raw materials you have (e.g., people, ideas, energy) and connecting it to a network that is filled with different or complementary resources to do more. That’s the distinct advantage of what networked organizations bring.
If this is a situation that describes your organization, we have many resources available to help you think through how to develop strategy, services, and evaluations. Our approach to building strategy and coaching leaders in networked organizations is tailored to these contexts and the complexity that comes with it.
To learn more about our services or to speak about what we might to do to support you and your organization, click here to arrange a no-obligation, exploratory call with Dr. Cameron Norman.
Photos by Kaleidico on Unsplash and Trude Jonsson Stangel on Unsplash