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

Chapter 2. NETWORKS OF EXCELLENCE

Peter Gray and Dan Ranta

Smart managers intuitively understand the importance of the problems that knowledge management efforts are often designed to address: sprinkled across most organizations are people doing similar kinds of work, but they often remain unaware of one another's expertise, successes, and failures. Some of this lack of awareness is the result of waves of downsizing, reorganizations, leadership changes, and new acquisitions. But even in the best-managed large organizations, employees who could benefit from one another's experiences are often isolated by formal structures and mechanisms that subdivide work into different reporting channels and focus employees on local rather than global goals. ...