Netarchy and Organizational Change

Netarchy as a complementary structure to hierarchy makes possible new frameworks of contribution in organizations, not necessarily linked to occupying positions of power and authority in the organizational chart but to the credibility and added value of people.

My professional experience has confirmed to me that despite the enormous literature on change management and the excellent contribution of John Kotter with his book “Leading Change” in 1995, organizational change is usually a long and tortuous process that in the vast majority of cases, does not achieve the expected results.

Reality is often harsh and painful. After many months of work, many hours of meetings and major change initiatives, the process culminates with the distressing feeling that we are still doing things the same, at best, or, at worst, that our innovation initiatives have ended up becoming just another process, which in the end is the “brown” of the corresponding functional manager.

In today’s conversation I want to offer you a surprising exploration of the new avenues of organizational change opened up by the new means of social communication.

Organizational change as an adaptive challenge.

Most change management programs fail because they start from the same erroneous premise, which is none other than thinking that we can approach change as a technical problem that must be managed, like any other operational problem, starting from the top of the organizational pyramid, in cascading mode through the hierarchy and based on mass communication programs and change initiatives that aim to reach all stakeholders. corners of the organization.

The harsh reality of the data, more than 70% of organizational change programs do not achieve their results, shows us that any organizational transformation or cultural change is an adaptive challenge. In other words, their success is linked to the change of habits and behaviors strongly rooted in the organization.

Just as there are operational change initiatives and concrete business process improvements are possible and can be addressed through the hierarchy in cascade mode based on “command and control”, when we want to make really significant changes in our organizational culture, our business model, change our approach to the customer, that is, when we face adaptive challenges where people are part of the problem and the solution, Hierarchical structure is not the best way to address these changes.

Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that hierarchy allows for such changes, let alone actually facilitates them. That is why I agree with the thesis of Leandro Herrero in his latest book “Homo Imitans” in the sense that the failures of change management programs come largely from the misunderstanding and ignorance of two different orders that coexist in our organizations, the world of hierarchy and the world of redarchy.

The world of hierarchy.

The world of hierarchy is a world built on the principles of standardization, specialization, control, and the primacy of shareholder interests.

As Professor Herrero says very well in this world, currency is information. It is the world of facts, of logical and rational arguments, of data and of seminars, training and powerpoints. The more information, the better, the more I “command and command” the better. It is the world in which traditional management spends most of its time and in which, due to its apparent predictability, it feels most comfortable.

The world of Netarchy.

Netarchy is a world built on the principles of collaboration, the added value of people, trust, and the primacy of community interests. It’s not about a better world or a worse world, it’s just a different structure for coordinating human efforts.

In this world, currency is the action, the added value of what you do. It’s the world of everyday behaviors, visible behaviors, and real change. In this world, behaviors do not cascade from the top down, but throughout the network by the power of imitation and social copying.

The need for a new balance.

The formal hierarchy and the informal network thus configure two worlds within organizations with different spheres of contribution, each with its own rules and its own rhythm. The world of order imposed by delegation of authority and the world of order emerging as a result of day-to-day relationships and conversations.

Obviously, there can be nothing inherently wrong with hierarchy since it is the traditional structure of our organizations, and it has shown over the years its ability to coordinate the work of thousands of people in the production and distribution of all kinds of products or services. And it has been able to do so effectively, efficiently, and cost-effectively, year after year. Undoubtedly, hierarchy gives us greater control of workflow and specialization.

However, there is increasing evidence of the inability of hierarchical structures to adapt to the changes needed in the Age of Collaboration. Reality shows us every day that in a volatile, complex and uncertain environment such as the current one, hierarchy has a very high cost in terms of people’s initiative, creativity and commitment. Its fundamental purpose as a precision machine tends to overvalue legacy and previous experiences at the expense of innovation and the organization’s adaptability to new challenges.

Reality also shows us every day that a large part of the hierarchy does not add any value to organizations, and there are many hierarchies that have ended up becoming authentic power structures, that have ceased to serve the interests of their organizations and, on many occasions, have gone on to defend the interests of a caste of unscrupulous leaders.

The organizations of the future will therefore have to find A new balance between hierarchy and Netarchy. While hierarchy will continue to be relevant in achieving efficiency and scalability in organizations, the redarchy will make it possible to coordinate human effort without sacrificing people’s initiative and creativity.

As adaptive leaders we must understand and manage both worlds, respect their differences, and find a new balance between organizational needs for efficiency and scalability and people’s needs for purpose and meaning in what they do.

Organizational success in the coming years will depend on organizational capacity at all levels to manage leadership dilemmas and paradoxes. Short-term gains and long-term growth, competition and collaboration, control and trust, planning and emergence, discipline and freedom, community and the individual, the interests of the people and the interests of shareholders. The ultimate goal must be to create organizations that combine the exploration, adaptability, and learning capacity of networkarchies with the predictability, scalability, and efficiency of hierarchies.

Netarchy as an engine of change. Which side are you on?

True change in organizations is not about preaching the need for change, the importance of change, or the consequences of change, but ultimately about changing behaviors. In organizational reality there is only change if there is a change in behaviors.

In the Age of Collaboration, the Netarchy must be the primary vehicle for driving organizational change. As in hierarchical change , the organizational leadership sets and communicates the objectives of the change, aligns the different levels of the organization and communicates the changes in a cascading way massively throughout the organization. In the Netarchy Change The objectives of the change and the initial communication are set by the management, but the change is created and propagated through the network based on corporate activism, social imitation and the influence of a few individuals, bearers of desirable behaviors, who act as nodes for the diffusion of new behaviors based on their connectivity. closeness and high credibility in the organization.

Netarchy change integrates social media practices into organizational change management, facilitating the scalability and sustainability of change and eliminating many of the constraints and pathologies of formal hierarchy. Netarchy as a driver of organizational change allows us to:

• Reduce fear of change and increase trust, facilitating collaboration and collective innovation.
• Avoid overvaluing legacy and the status quo, making it possible for new perspectives and realities to emerge that generate the energy we need for change.
• Develop new indicators of progress based on the diffusion of new behaviors.
• Promote the emergence of true organizational activists who defend changes that neutralize the usual “passion killers”.

In the Netarchy change, most of the conflicts between the redarchy and the hierarchy will be along the lines that separate those who want to preserve their privileges and power, from those who aspire to make innovation and leadership the work of all. Which side are you on?

In future conversations, we will delve into the principles and practice of redarchic change and its implications for leadership.