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Using network analysis to build an agile organization
Create organizational collaboration in a remote workplace
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed organizations to find new ways of boosting workforce productivity and engagement. A recent collaboration between Deloitte and Slack revealed how network analysis can help create agile organizations that better understand their work, proactively plan for changes, and foster more organizational collaboration.
Organizational collaboration is more important than ever
COVID-19 has shined a spotlight on the importance of collaboration in building a resilient and agile organization. An organization that can adapt to new ways of working will be better suited to return to the same (or even higher) levels of productivity they had before the pandemic. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a significant decline in organizational collaboration, leading to decreased engagement and performance. People already on the periphery of organizations are becoming more isolated. Work hours are up on average, but business results haven’t shown a commensurate increase in productivity. However, some organizations that have been able to harness networks and intentional collaboration have reported significant increases in interpersonal connectivity.
These agile organizations are examples of how changing the ways work gets done can offset current and future shifts in the world. Organizations should be able to flex and change around new organizational goals and aspirations. This means the workforce should unite in new and dynamic ways. Network analysis can provide an organization with the insights to architect intentional collaboration, and collaboration science can bring this to life. The ability of collaboration science to democratize access to information and decision-making enables connectivity across the organization.
We collaborated with Slack to understand what this looks like in practice, how organizations can leverage network analysis insights to understand the way they work today, and how they can architect organizational collaboration in the future.
Mastering the pivot: Using network analysis to architect collaboration
Harnessing the power of collaboration science
Organizational charts and graphs are not a proxy for how humans interact and collaborate. Networks hold the key to understanding how work gets done. Using network analysis, organizations can unlock previously hidden insights around collaboration, productivity, and wellness. These insights can help organizations assess the value of changes they’ve already made, or are planning to make, to fully visualize a transformation. Using network analysis after you have undertaken a transformation effort can help you understand how collaboration science changes how work gets done. Before a big shift, it can help organizations improve productivity and connectivity during period of remote work. And overall, it can identify silos and how to create meaningful connections—even in a giant organization.
Collaboration science and the role of intentional connectivity
There’s a suite of collaboration tools available, but the real game-changer is architecting an intentional collaboration strategy to support your business. Slack is one of the channel-based messaging platforms that democratize information and enable intentional collaboration across networks. Many companies never progress past organic usage because they provide a platform for their teams to work differently, but don’t actually drive change in how work gets done. Mature use of a collaboration platform and transformational change requires understanding how work is done today and intentionally rearchitecting workflows within the platform. Rearchitecting workflows and collaboration allows people to form and re-form networks as organizational goals or needs change. This helps organizations to be intentionally collaborative in times of change. Entire organizations can pivot and direct their energy toward new or refined goals seamlessly.
This purpose-driven collaboration will help push organizations to new levels of adaptability that were previously thought to be unattainable. Understanding your organization’s networks and utilizing those networks should allow you to move from simple communication to transformational collaboration.
Ready to bring your organization to a new bold place? Check out the next chapter in our series on how networks have helped organizations see and take meaningful action toward inclusivity.
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