The creative, knowledge economy is based – at least in part – upon the abilities of individuals and teams to leverage their collective information and ideas into new innovations.
But, how do ideas and information get shared? Does information flow along traditional corporate hierarchical and team division lines? Apparently not, according to research reviewed and summarized by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail last week:
From his summary:
Organizational network analysis charts resemble a spider’s web, with endless crisscrossing strands that show who collaborates with whom….Often, the most important individuals are lower down in the organization, known to colleagues for their knowledge or the speed with which they respond to queries, while formal bosses prove to be bottlenecks, unreachable or not considered of much use in everyday work…
The most valuable knowledge workers, therefore, need to know who has information that they need – and, they themselves need to be a source of key information for others (which could simply be, who knows what).
The most successful senior managers would also know how to leverage this internal network of problem-solving and innovation-creating ability. This might mean knowing how to divide staff into teams such that there is not too much duplication of internal knowledge networks among team members.
Many workplace design firms now also try to design space to encourage organizational networking and internal idea sharing. This is one reason private, assigned offices are becoming less common in some industries as four walls and a door can discourage interaction.
How does information and knowledge flow where you work?