Networks function differently from traditional organisations because they are inherently more complex and not amenable to top-down leadership. 

The more a self-organising network becomes, the more impact it can have on transforming the systems operating in it. When the conditions are right, transformation happens very fast. And conversely, when conditions are wrong, the people in it waste time, energy and resources while accomplishing very little. Hierarchies can survive these disruption’s whereas weakness in the network can lead to breakdown. 

Sometimes, there are tensions within the system that can dramatically change when and how this happens. Understanding dynamical change is crucial to being able to respond effectively. Networks can exist in hierarchies as hierarchies need networks to innovate and deal with interrelationships where there is no formal control.

Implications for Leaders

Leading in VUCA environments requires a paradigm shift in thinking and behaviour, to engage, empower, facilitate, and bring ‘connectedness’ to an otherwise unwieldy mass of disparate elements. The focus on supporting emergence and self-organisation. It’s a style that seeks to build trust, not control; promoting the achievements of others, not yourself; and build strong teams, not stars.

Success lies in developing cultures in which different kinds of connectivity between individuals are encouraged, particularly in response to changes in the environment of all types of organisations.

Knowing how to generate the conditions for positive transformation, and knowing how to read and respond to systemic dynamics are key skills for anyone seeking to transform any networked system. Skills will need to be dispersed, practiced and constantly upgraded throughout the transformation networks, not just held in the minds of a few experts and key leaders.

Intentional networks themselves teach us that if we’re looking for systemic transformation, we can’t just change the system goal (i.e. end world hunger, end racism, seriously address climate change, etc. . .) we have to update our understanding of systems. They teach us, through simple trial and error if nothing more, that we need to let go of the old top-down, linear-planning, simple-system assumptions about change. We need to stop attacking problems as if the solutions were simple and within the control of any one source of power.

Leadership Practices

So network practice itself is a process of learning about systems and how to build in redundancy. Mapping the interconnections is a perfect tool to enhance and amplify that learning, but the uncertainty and unpredictability is a feature of all complex systems.

“Paradigms are the sources of systems. From them, from shared social agreements about the nature of reality, come system goals and information flows, feedbacks, stocks, flows and everything else about systems.” Ralph Stacey

Leading simple systems is profoundly different than managing in complex adaptive systems. Yet, our modern dominant western cultural norms tend to treat all systems as if they were simple linear systems – hence our unsolvable problems. Seeing systems as complex and adaptive is effectively a paradigm shift. 

Ralph Stacey offers a matrix that explains the different system conditions , which is reflected in Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framework. Both explain how simple systems achieve easy agreement and certainty, whilst complex systems exists far from agreement and certainty of operation.

A more detailed explanation can be found at the Academy for Systems Change.

Leaders of organisations can be confused when the logic of networks becomes counter-intuitive. For example, when new trail lines or roads are added to ease transport congestion, it gets worse and the average speed reduces.  

When the connections are reduced flow increases. The opposite can also be true when links in a community are removed, the connectivity can disintegrate. To revise and rearrange  the connections, is best achieved by  reflecting and responding on  continuous feedback from the environment. 

“The world will become more networked, but hierarchies will not go away – they just wont dominate the way they have in the past” Lipnack and Stamps