Unleashing Organizational Potential: Employing Social Networks to Drive Efficient Execution
Aligning an organization—both as a collective team and as individuals—behind a purpose and strategy plan is a challenge strategy leaders are met with time and again. While idea generation and crafting a plan may come to fruition, the execution of it takes a separate set of techniques in getting buy-in and getting your team to feel both able and inspired to take action.
Rob Cross has studied the underlying network dynamics of effective organizations and the collaborative practices of high performers for more than 20 years. As the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College and co-founder and current research director of the Connected Commons, a consortium of over 100 leading organizations accelerating network research and practice, he has spent his career understanding how to break down the barriers organizations face in fostering effective organizations. In his book, Driving Results Through Social Networks and his most recent book, The Microstress Effect, Rob explores in depth the ways in which organizations can empower individuals to be released from the undue stress caused by the organization, and leverage the capabilities of the individuals within it. In this Roundtable discussion, he will discuss with us:
- How one of the biggest challenges for CSOs is execution, oftentimes slowed down by an organizational culture that operates very linearly—and how networks within an organization could improve culture, management and transformation efforts.
- How to create and effectively use data points across the organization to collect valuable insights on how it is working across these networks.
- How to minimize the unexpected impact of mismanaging networks, which often create microstresses that culminate in employee burnout and loss of motivation
