Seeing the Social Network
Getting down to work is a very social matter. That's because employees are much more likely to turn to one another for information than to any other source. But managers are often completely in the dark about the design of such social networks. When networks organize themselves, they can drain coordination, learning and performance. The solution, according to The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations, is to make the network visible. By studying workers' interactions and not just the official chain of command, managers can spot such problems as...