The Role of the Manager in Goal Driven Social Networks

Research done within Hewlett Packard by Dennis Sandow under the Knowledge and Innovation Network branch of SoL reveal that the social networks required to achieve goals extend far beyond the company rim to include those who bring passion and purpose to the task. Nick Zeniuk calls it follow the joy.

At the same time this raises the whole question of what the manager's role is. This is a question that Nick found himself facing with the Lincoln Navigator project. He realized that he was in a space of confusion over what he was supposed to do as the wildly creative team around him took off to create. Rather than step in, Nick chose to stop and reflect. This point of awareness is critical as it creates the space for conscious choice to be made rather then leaping first and looking at the results later...if that happens. Fortunately he was in a position to do so. it does not always happen that way. When Fujio Cho, President of Toyota was asked about the difference in culture between plant start up in the U.S. and Japan he replied that the biggest challenge in improving quality was to stop the line. Stopping the line had previously been a sign of doing a bad job.

It is interesting to note what we associate with action. Sometimes the best action is none at all. That opens the space for emergent knowledge by creating receptive space. Much of this rolls back to underlying beliefs and habits around how things work. The patterns tell you everything. It might work to do an organizational habit check every once and a while just to see how hard it is to let go of habits that no longer serve.  One tribe would regularly trade habits just to make sure they were overly attached to them. Not a bad idea.