The Organizational Network Fieldbook: Best Practices, Techniques, and Exercises to Drive Organizational Innovation and Performance

2.1. Excellence Networks at ConocoPhillips

In 2004, ConocoPhillips faced these questions and many others as it launched a large initiative to create internal communities of practice that would enhance knowledge sharing within the firm. For this international integrated energy company with thousands of job sites (often quite remote) spread across 30 countries, the challenge of sharing knowledge was very real—and the potential payoff was large. Facing fierce competition on all fronts, ConocoPhillips knew that to continue on its success trajectory, it needed to rapidly and effectively harness the knowledge of its highly skilled but geographically distributed workforce. Instead of assuming that technology either was the solution or was irrelevant ...