Suddenly Hybrid

Chapter 5The Complex Communication Network Environment

When you hear the words “communication network,” what comes to mind? Maybe you first think of the technology involved – telephone lines, broadcast signals, or perhaps the internet itself. If you're like Karin, you think about people and how they communicate with each other in an organization. For a meeting scientist like Joe, the immediate thoughts are about the channels, patterns, and flows of communication that we will be discussing in this chapter.

When it comes to hybrid meetings, that communication network can look more like a bowl of spaghetti than a series of straight, orderly lines. This thought is echoed by Jared Spataro, CVP at Microsoft 365, who said, “We've figured out how to get things done when everyone is working from home. Now we need to rethink how to handle that messy middle—when some people are together in person, and others are remote” (Microsoft 2021).

The first step in figuring out how to manage the “messy middle” is gaining a better understanding of the elements that make it so, and how the patterns or networks of communication may impact the effectiveness of a team or group. For those leading hybrid meetings, a functional knowledge of communication networks is both instructive and potentially essential for the success of future working in groups and teams. So that's where we'll begin – with a bit of a primer on the changing communication paradigms. Once you are steeped in the science, we will move ...