Fueling Innovation with Collaborative Relationships

As a new divisional leader, how do you quickly uncover and leverage knowledge, experience, and specific expertise across the different parts of your organization in an effort to not only retain your best customers, but also to expand your mind share and wallet share within each of your most profitable client companies? First, map your relationship dynamics chart by learning who individuals go to for information. Who has deeply rooted departmental, divisional, or companywide information specifically focused on getting things done? Don’t just map the subject of the content of e-mail exchanges – map the connections. Look at who is copied and the frequency of exchanges compared to others in the organization. Beyond a charming personality, who is functionally missed when he’s not there? With objective information, you can identify not only those who are most connected, but those who collaborate instinctively and as a daily course of performing their functions. Most of our clients are surprised by this phenomenon, yet it somehow reaffirms their intuition that social networks are often much more valuable than systems or databases of learning and sharing information. Silos, despite efforts by leadership to the contrary, are very much alive and well established within many networks and there are hidden revenue or cost-saving opportunities that could be derived through strategic relationships. Of particular interest to several clients has also been the fact that some of the most connected people are those that rank lower in the company’s traditional hierarchy. But as leaders, they are well served to prioritize those relationships because of their influence within the group. Other defining characteristics of social networks are individual roles including realm of responsibilities, length of time at the firm, current position, and nature of their department of functional role. Innovation should be promoted across the entire organization. It is the proven value of collaborative relationships that fuels innovation and advancement. Remember that it is not necessarily the best ideas that rise through the company’s bureaucratic ranks and become market leading products and services, but rather the ideas backed by the most influential relationships in the organization.