The Role Of Networks In Organizational Change – One of the most exciting trends in people analytics is the rapid growth of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), which, although not new, is seeing a resurgence thanks to developments in the technology, new ways of working and changing business needs.
When I meet with people analytics leaders, ONA regularly comes up in the conversation as one of the techniques they have already started using or plan to implement in their organizations.
The Role Of Networks In Organizational Change
Indeed, research conducted by Insight222 towards the end of 2017 (see Figure 1 below) found that ONA was the analytical technique that people analytics leaders wanted to know more about.
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Organizational network analysis is the technique that HR & People Analytics managers want to know more about (Source: Insight222)
The role of the ONA in the analysis of people was the topic of my presentation at UNLEASH in Las Vegas in May 2018. The slides that I used during my speech are included below. The purpose of this article is to answer the following questions that I am regularly asked about ONA:
If you Google “Organizational Network Analysis”, you’ll find a lot of dry and technical descriptions of what ONA is, which are mostly a variation of “
Organizational network analysis is a structured way to visualize how communications, information, and decisions flow through an organization.
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I prefer Michael Arena’s description in his excellent recent podcast with Al Adamsen, where GM’s Chief Talent Officer defined ONA as providing “
Similarly, in his article “What is ONA?”, Professor Rob Cross, arguably the world’s leading expert on the subject, explains that “
ONA can provide an x-ray into the inner workings of an organization – a powerful way to make visible invisible patterns of information flow and collaboration in strategically important groups.
“. In the same article, Cross provides a perfect example to illustrate this point of view and how ONA allows you to see what is going on in a company.
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The example in Figure 2 is of an ONA project undertaken by Cross with the exploration and production division of a major oil organization. Identify middle-level managers critical to the flow of information such as Mitchell, who is the only point of contact between members of the production division and the rest of the network. It also highlights that Senior Vice President Mares is peripheral to the network and is essentially an untapped and underutilized resource, while the Production team is isolated and separated from the network. None of this is visible from the unfortunate old org chart.
The way organizations work continues to move from the traditional hierarchies and bureaucracies prevalent in the 20th Century to more agile businesses founded on teams and networks of teams. ONA can provide a new lens into how these teams and networks actually collaborate and behave, and how work actually gets done.
Additionally, ONA provides insights that can unlock innovation, drive productivity and improve performance while at the same time enhancing employee experience and well-being. These are all areas that are in front of CEOs and business leaders as they seek to create the climate and culture that drive competitive advantage and business success.
As Greg Newman writes here , ONA adds the dynamics of “Social Capital” to the typically static “Human Capital” data that HR and people analytics teams have traditionally relied on. As Figure 3 below shows, social capital includes networks and relationships that employees build to help them get work done. These cover a diverse range of areas such as networks for expertise, innovation, social, learning, strategy and day-to-day work. Social capital has a great impact on individual, team and organizational performance, which is a significant reason why interest in ONA has increased and why this is the technique that managers of the analysis of the people want to know more.
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As highlighted earlier in this article, ONA is not new. The likes of Rob Cross have been pioneers “Active” ONA for more than 20 years and have made significant steps in the progress of science.
What is “new” is the addition of “Passive” ONA, which thanks to the rapid advances in technology has helped propel a renewed interest in the subject while in parallel expanding and advancing the field. Much of the subsequent debate seems to have centered on whether organizations should adopt an Active or Passive strategy, while as is invariably the case in either/or debates like this, perhaps a combination of both approaches should be employee
For the uninitiated, ONA “Active” surveys allow organizations to understand how employees (or groups of employees) feel about their colleagues, their relationships and their place in the organization. “Passive” ONA provides a different and complementary view as it works continuously – often throughout the company. It provides an objective and unbiased view of how people actually work and collaborate. It can also be used to automatically measure changes in network behaviors after a corporate initiative or event has occurred, such as after an M&A or a significant restructuring.
From talking to experts in the ONA space, I believe that combining Active and Passive ONA is the way forward. The use of ONA Active based on the survey can produce great insights and results, but it can take a significant investment in time and resources, it is “point in time” and at risk of low response rates. Adding Passive ONA to the mix adds scale, continuous and real-time capabilities. When combined, the two sets of data provide a revolutionary 360-degree view to understand how people feel and what they do.
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When I spoke to Manish Goel, CEO of TrustSphere, he confirmed that many of their customers use both active and passive data sources. For example, TrustSphere clients who have implemented ONA to improve leadership development use “
Active surveys to identify those key leaders who exhibit the types of behaviors that organizations seek to replicate. Passive ONA is then used to continuously measure these long-term behaviors and measure the ongoing impact these leaders have on their teams and their wider informal networks. This creates a series of insights and coachable moments that were previously invisible.”
Whether you decide to use active, passive or both a great consideration is around privacy, not least with the advent of GDPR, which if you need to remember come into force on May 25, 2018. using passive data sources like ‘and email metadata, this means clear communication with employees (which data you want to use, for what purpose and what is the benefit for employees), working closely with legal groups, IT and employee representatives and establish clear governance. around data collection, access and storage, communication, opt-in/out, anonymity etc.
As interest and adoption of ONA continues to grow, vendors operating in the space are diversifying and expanding as well. Since I am regularly asked who these vendors are, I thought it would be helpful to provide a summary (see Figure 5). I have grouped 14 vendors into those operating in either “Active” (mostly survey-based) or “Passive” (eg email/calendar metadata, in/out social media and collaboration platforms, wearables etc.) areas – with two sellers identifying themselves. as operative in both. At this point, it is important to say that it is not necessarily a case of Active or Passive, since the best solution could be a combination of both.
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First, let’s debunk the myth that ONA is all about beautiful network visualizations for the sole purpose of highlighting key influencers in an organization. While it helps you identify positive and negative agents of change in your company, ONA is not a one trick pony.
Figure 6 below highlights a sample of use cases for ONA in an organization – there are many more. A later article will go into more depth about each of these use cases and others. The key premise here – as with any analytical project of people, is to start with the business question and try to apply ONA where appropriate to help identify actionable insights.
This is a question that is often asked, which not only provides evidence of the huge interest in ONA, but also that the technique (at least when it comes to passives) is relatively new. There are plenty of case studies available if you look hard enough – especially in the active category (check out Rob Cross’s articles here for example). When it comes to examples in the passive space, most are currently provided by vendors, but hopefully this will change as the practice matures and organizations feel ready to share their stories.
One of the most powerful examples of ONA is how GM used it to stimulate innovation and effectively disrupt from within. The case study and the academic research behind it are documented in the wonderful MITSMR article How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization, which was co-written by Rob Cross and Michael Arena among others.
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The article outlines the different roles that brokers, connectors and energizers (see Figure 6) play in a network in the discovery, development and diffusion of innovation in an organization and
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