Networks
Networking is a concept that has been around as long as the hills. At the same time it is an area that is receiving current attention with a view to using it to improve the ability of organisations to achieve their objectives. This opportunity has come about due to some conceptual thinking in the USA, the ever developing abillities of computers and the forward thinking of some key innovators with the UK.
Given that there is new thinking in this area it is worth trying not to depend too much on the meanings that you may attach to some of the words used here and instead look for the meaning behind them.
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Network relationships - An individual will have a number of relationships and those relationships could be seen to be of a number of different types. For example a structural relationship such as that between a team leader and a team worker. It could be also be a support relationship, an informal relationship or it could be an informative relationship. And there are others.
Egocentric networks - one persons networks. If we look at one person we could establish who they rely upon for support and we could call that their support network. Similarly we could establish who they talk to about their work in general and we could call that their work network.
Levels of relationships - Depending upon how those individuals interact we could classify each relationship at a different level, from say 0 to 3, where a 0 denotes and absent or dysfuctional relationship and a level 3 is the strongest and most functional relationship from the point of view that we are considering.
Network maps - If we put that information into the form of a map then we get a quick snapshot that gives us a lot of information:
Develop appropriate network relationships - A person who has a helpful hetwork relationships will be better placed to do a good job than soomeone who does not have helpful network relationships. The egocentric network map will tell us a lot of information about that person very quickly. Comparing egocentric network maps may tell us why some people seem to know what is going on and some don't, which people are regarded with most respect .....
Complete networks - Rather than looking at an Egocentric network map, ie one person's network map, we can look at complete networks where we look at all the network relationships between the individuals in a team or community. Once again this will give us a lot of information very quickly. We will start to see who the key people are for support or information and therefore who is potentially overloaded for reasons other than their work load.....
To learn more about Networks and how you, your team and your organisation can develop through coaching and training: