Net-work, not more teamwork (1)

This is the title of one of the chapters of my new book DISRUPTIVE IDEAS which builds upon Viral Change. Disruptive ideas will be available by the end of this month, May 2008. Organisations have become proficient in team management and teams have become the natural structure for collaboration, the default position. But in these days of inter-dependence between roles and jobs, many collaboration solutions can be found in informal networks, not in designed, cohesive teams. Let me inject another contrarian idea: you don’t need any more teams. I know, I know, teamocracies rule the waves. We all talk about teams and how to make them stronger, more effective, etc. Teams are at the centre of organisational development and somehow we have equated them to ‘collaboration’ or people working together. Teams are here to stay and I’m not going to waste any more space justifying their existence. But what we really need to do is not to refine the team machinery, but to exploit the net-work one. The organisation is composed of a number of collaborative spaces. Some of them are relatively rigid and designed - teams, task forces - while others are composed of looser connections between individuals, with different degrees and nuances of the word ‘looser’. Some communities (of practice or interest) are semi-loose, with a more or less defined membership. There are other networks of connections of a much looser nature, represented by people who sometimes know very little about each other and/or only communicate from time to time. There is a wide spectrum of connections available, but traditional management has only focused on one end; the one where structures are designed and borders given: the teams. In recent years, people of different disciplines interested in organisational life have begun to suspect that the structure of teams may not be as universally desirable as we first thought, particularly when the organisation needs to tap into intellectual capital wherever it is. We need more and more people who are able to navigate, to ride the looser informal connections where many answers to innovation lie. Teams are too predictable in their capability to answer questions such as, “is there a different way?” Even if the answer is yes, chances are ‘that way’ is to be found within the confines of the team. We need to favour looser network structures, even if we won’t have the same command and control capacity as we do with teams and taskforces. This is the price to pay. It is from those sometimes un-structured conversations that true innovation originates; it is there that many answers to questions can be found. What can you do? Next post!

Difference in conduit of change

That brings me to item 7 on my list: the difference between traditional change management and Viral Change concerning the conduit of change, i.e. how change flows through the organisation.

Following the conventional approach, the primary vehicle for the change is the management tree/structure represented in the organisation chart. VPs fire the shots and take care of directors so they are on board. Directors repeat this at their level, involving managers and their groups, sections or divisions. Managers take care of their own trees. Change is created by a sequential cascade down, via ‘the plumbing system’ of ‘burning platform signals’, communications and activities, training and review processes. Buy-in is assumed as part of the rational process. All people are equal under the tsunami!

However, in Viral Change, networks of people are the primary conduit. Signals (language, strategy, ‘burning platforms’ and directions of change) may have been started at the top, and indeed communicated down via hierarchical ‘pipes’, but change is created by social imitation in networks of influence and driven by few individuals who act as key nodes. They constitute either an informal, natural network, or they may be aided by a designed network of ‘change agents’ or ‘Change Champions’. Viral Change does not subscribe to an egalitarian view: there is no point in communicating to all and cascading down as the only mechanism to spreading change.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

Formal process of ‘the change management programme’

In this item – item 6 on my list – we take a look at how Viral Change differs in its process, its approach on the change management programme.

The conventional approach's formal process is consistent with the assumed and lived model of the organisation. It stresses sequence: create a ‘burning platform first, communicate strategy, plan, distribute tasks, train, roll-out, check. It relies on processes above behaviours.

Viral Change approaches the formal process of change with the understanding of the organisation as a living, adaptable network. It stresses multi-directional influence and creation of stable change by the combination of four elements:

(1) language
(2) behaviours and their reinforcement
(3) creation of tipping points (with emphasis on ‘social imitation’)
(4) establishment of new routines or ‘cultures (see later).

In Viral Change mode, the emphasis is on behaviours above processes.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

Different processes and systems

In item 4 of my list, I want to talk about how both Viral Change and traditional change management view the organisational processes and systems.

In the conventional approach, processes and systems are kept inside and well-defined so that the majority in that distribution can repeat them and ensure consistency. Predictability is key.

Viral Change, on the other hand, acknowledges formal processes and systems, but management in Viral Change(TM) mode are very sensitive to the risk of those processes and systems taking over organisational life. Emphasis on behaviours is needed to support processes, versus processes creating behaviours.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

Viral Change distributes people differently

The third item in my list focuses on how different the distribution of people is as seen from the two angles: conventional approach and Viral Change.

In the conventional approach, everything from ‘quality of the components’ to ‘flow’ assumes a bell curve distribution. Management practices consistent with this: communication reaches (or has to reach) the majority of people; change practices need to involve the majority under-the-curve acknowledging that there will be sigma deviations at both sides, for example, casualties of people who ‘will never change’.

However, in Viral Change, the organisation is a network and follows the power laws of networks where (1) a few people have multiple connections, (2) those with greater connections and perhaps influence will continue to have more and (3) spread of information, communication, influence, new behaviours new habits, etc., happens via 'tipping points'.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

Different ‘structures’ in Viral Change

Instalment two in the differences between Viral Change and the conventional change management approach shows that Viral Change sees the ‘structures’ of the organisation differently.

In the conventional approach, connections are established in a tree-like way. Organisation of ‘collaborative spaces’ takes place mainly by design: teams, task forces, committees, ‘solid lines’ and ‘dotted lines’. There is acknowledgment of the existence of a looser network of connections but it’s mainly seen as noise, or an informal communication system which is impossible to tap into, quantify or manage.

Viral Change sees the organisation as a complex system of connections, with high adaptation capabilities. Some of the connections have been formalized by design, providing relatively stable platforms of collaboration (teams, etc.) This designed architecture is superimposed to a far bigger and looser, non-designed, (‘emergent’) network of connections, or structure. A healthy dynamics between the ‘designed’ and ‘emergent’ is the key for effectiveness and success.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

Viral Change sees a different, implicit model of the organisation

In my previous post, I told you I’d be looking at the differences between Viral Change and traditional change management. Here is the first instalment: how the ‘concept of the organisation’ is different.

The conventional approach sees the organisation as machinery of bits and pieces linked by a sort of mecano-hydraulic dynamics. Information, guidelines, pressures, support or anything that flows inside, does so mainly top-down. Pushed from one side, it will have consequences on the other side. ‘Corporate goals are my objectives; my objectives are the basis for yours (direct reports)’, etc. Life percolates down the organisation chart or its ‘collaboration by design' spaces (mainly teams). The pre-determined ‘plumbing system’ described in the organisation chart is the communication highway. Influence and power are assumed to flow down the plumbing system.

Viral ChangeTM takes a different view, one where the organisation is better explained as a living organism sharing many of its characteristics. There is a formal structure of authority (represented by the organisation chart) but, beyond this, there is a multi-directional flow of influences and other dynamics. Self-adaptation and re-configuration are key to survival and grow mechanisms. Managerially, it doesn’t discard a structured system of goals, objectives, etc., but it is less concerned with absolute consistency in ‘cascades’ as long as there are a few overriding strategies and directions. An incredibly rich ‘network world’, often invisible, coexists with the plumbing system.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

Viral Change vs. traditional change management

People often ask me, ‘how does Viral Change differ from the traditional view on change management?’ The short answer is, of course, like night from day.

However, in order to illuminate the differences further, I’ll be dedicating my next few posts on clarifying how Viral Change differs from the traditional change management.

There’s 8 items on my list. Watch this space...

Viral Change: a welcome challenge

Chris Rodgers - independent management consultant, business coach and author - welcomes Viral Change's challenge to the traditional view that big change requires big programmes. He posted the following on his blog, Informal Coalitions, and I wanted to share his views with you here as well:


I’ve just finished reading an excellent book on organizational change, Viral Change, written by Leandro Herrero. The cover of the book states:

"Lasting change in the modern organization has less to do with massive ‘communication to all’ programmes and more with the creation of an internal epidemic of success led by a small number of non-negotiable behaviours."

The book was easy and enjoyable to read. And it was pleasing to come across an approach to change that doesn't advocate the top-down, project-based, all-singing-all-dancing methodologies that tend to dominate current management thinking and practice.

Central to Viral Change is the proposition that it is people's everyday behaviours that determine an organization's 'culture', not the formal statements, structures and processes that usually emerge from conventional 'cultural change' programmes. Having established this as a key principle of the Viral Change approach, Herrero identifies 15 conventional assumptions about organizational change. He then sets out to debunk these in the remainder of the book, which is usefully arranged into three complementary sections:

• In the five chapters that make up the first section, Herrero sets out his argument for the Viral Change approach. Here, he explores some of the conventional wisdom on organizational change, before putting forward his own insights into how organizations work and the implications of these for change-leadership practice.
• Section 2, comprises seven chapters which deal with the four main components of Viral Change. These are described as language, new behaviours, tipping points, and rules and rituals (or 'culture'). The framing of the change, the identification of a small set of "non-negotiable behaviours", and the propagation of these behaviours through the organization's informal influence networks provide the main focus of this section.
  
• Finally, Herrero summarises the approach that he tends to use when applying Viral Change in organizations, and ends by revisiting the 15 change management assumptions from a Viral Change perspective.
  

Overall, I found the book an extremely valuable resource as well as an entertaining read. Although it resonates strongly with my own perspective on the dynamics of change, it approaches the subject from a different viewpoint. This provided a healthy mixture of challenge to, and support for, my own thinking, as well as provoking further questions and insights.

Chris Rodgers is an independent management consultant, business coach and author of Informal Coalitions.