A second pathway to resilience is to analyze and strengthen the health of your networks. Herminia Ibarra in her book, Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015) writes that there are three kinds of networks. The first is an operational network which helps you manage current internal responsibilities. The second is your personal network which boosts your personal development. The third is your strategic network which focuses on new business directions and the stakeholders you must get on board to pursue these directions. This network is made up of relationships that help you to envision the future, sell your ideas, and get the information and resources you need to exploit these ideas. As she explains, “A good strategic network gives you connective advantage: the ability to marshal information, support, or other resources from one of your networks to obtain results in another.” And when we step back and look at all three networks, we realize they all are social networks.
Now before we proceed any further, we need to use some common language around this subject. In simple terms, a network is an interconnected group, system, or an association of people. A network is made up of a variety of nodes or points of connection where two things or people within a network intersect. A network is not a singular node or a singular point of connection, and a node is not a network. For example, in a communications or computer network, a node is a connection point that can receive, create, store or send data along distributed network routes. Nodes connect different devices to a network.
Whenever I teach about networks, it reminds me about some of the key information I teach people about coaching. Barry Oshry in his book, Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life (Berrett-Koehler, 1995) says that many people suffer from spatial blindness, namely we see parts of a system but often do not see the whole system. With this in mind, I believe many leaders suffer from network blindness, namely we see parts of our networks, but we do not see the whole network. Furthermore, when we dive more deeply into this concept, we realize that many leaders see some of the nodes or connections within a network, but we do not see the whole network of interdependencies. When we do not see our interdependencies, we are missing some key information.
The skill in perceiving and analyzing the world in terms of social connections are not innate to humans. They must be learned. I believe we are blind to our connections and sometimes our networks. This is because we do not perceive ourselves in relationship to people who are connected to other people. Often, we are totally unaware of what is happening elsewhere in our social networks that can directly or indirectly but powerfully affect our lives. Routinely, we mistake our one to one relationship as the whole network. And thus, we lose perspective and miss the context within the social network in which seemingly isolated events or decisions occur.
Our challenge as leaders right now is understand the social geography within our networks. Most leaders do this by building and maintaining relationships. However, I found that they often get caught in the narcissistic principle of network development and node creation, i.e. the tendency to prefer interacting with people who are similar to ourselves and only tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear.
The best leaders I meet approach networks from a very different angle, namely how they change our time. To explain this insight, I need to dive into a concept called Shifting Baseline Syndrome which was discovered two decades ago in the fisheries industry. Over time, knowledge is lost about the state of the natural world, because people don’t perceive changes that are actually taking place within it. This is perpetuated when each new generation perceives the environmental conditions in which they grew up as “normal.” It also describes how people’s standards for acceptable environmental conditions are steadily declining.
When we translate Shifting Baseline Syndrome to the business world, the best leaders understand that each new generation defines normal by what it experiences while not knowing what normal once was. This is further perpetuated when each new generation perceives the work environment in which they “grew up in as normal.” It also describes how people’s standards for acceptable work conditions are steadily declining or changing over time. This is an incremental lowering of standards or redefining of standards which results in each new generation lacking the knowledge of the history or previous conditions within which people worked.
In order to prevent Shifting Baseline Syndrome from happening in your organization, I encourage you to understand the strategic history of your company. In particular, recognize that past historical contexts or environments have significantly influenced past strategic choices. And these choices have created current operational relationships, systems and networks. Next, understand the health and history of relationships and networks within the company. And finally, understand the current context and current strategy which will influence relationships, systems and networks for the next 3-5 years.
This week, analyze and strengthen the health of your networks. It will make a major difference during the rest of this calendar year and help position the company for recovery and growth in 2022.
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