Managing the Advantages and Tradeoffs of Collaborative Structures
Description
To solve complex problems, organizations must both collect facts and use them to solve problems. In one study, my coauthors and I show that increased connectivity—measured as network clustering, or the degree to which people overlap in their connections—has opposite effects on “facts” (looking for information) and “figuring” (looking for solutions). The search for facts becomes more efficient, because information travels fast in a clustered network, creating less redundancy. But the figuring often suffers, because theories and interpretations circulate quickly, too, reducing the diversity of alternatives. Hyperconnectivity can be bad, then, for generating solutions—and boundaries blocking that connectivity can actually be productive.
Solving complex problems also requires the ability to adapt to a shifting environment: as the problem changes, so, typically, does the best solution. It is widely assumed that decentralized organizational structures (with people connecting more through individual and small-group interactions on the front lines than through a “core” system or process) are more adaptive than centralized ones, but that is often not the case. My research shows that centralized communication networks can, when information flows in both directions, achieve the benefits of connectivity (promoting learning and knowledge sharing, for instance) without incurring the costs (such as succumbing to groupthink). But hierarchical structures aren’t necessarily the answer, either, because they often constrain information flow. So adaptability isn’t a matter of having a flatter or less-flat organization, but rather a more nuanced question of “leveling the flatter playing field” in particular ways.
Adaptive organizations experiment with different network structures when solving problems, with the understanding that networks play different roles for different individuals and groups. When individuals use them to search for solutions they could not find on their own, they can tap weak, diverse ties to generate more options and strong ties to understand particular options more deeply (which they may need to do when dealing with thornier challenges). At the collective level, as one would expect, things get more complicated. Although groups coordinate both within and beyond their membership to search for, evaluate, and converge on solutions, in complex problem-solving they benefit most (given their tendencies toward internal bias) from a network structure that maximizes external input and slows down consensus.
Such structural flexing to meet collaborative challenges is akin to some of the practices of great improvisation. It requires managers to have a “jazz mindset,” which allows room for spontaneous, organic interaction. As they improvise, looking for just the right amount of connectivity for each setting and situation, managers inevitably discover the tradeoffs associated with having too much or too little and must try to break those tradeoffs or at least work around them. My research suggests intermittency can help: rather than constructing fixed organizational structures and making minor adjustments every several years, managers can intermittently foster connectivity and provide quiet “focus” time for employees to meet needs as they arise day to day.
Together, my findings suggest that the future of management will involve utilizing both traditional and new ways of organizing work, along with emerging tools and technologies, to effectively focus and refocus the collective attention of employees.