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"Collaborative advantage is the wave of the future. Lipnack and Stamps show how to catch that wave and ride it triumphantly. With memorable wit and wisdom, their book provides numerous valuable lessons for the challenging changes ahead: how to see further by sitting on boundaries, organize teams that really get something done, and loosen hierarchies without losing control."
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Author of When Giants Learn to Dance and The Change Masters
"A great book on how to go about building a strong and entangled web of relationships--person-to-person or organization-to-organization. It shows, using brilliant examples of success, just how to add network structure while preserving the best elements of tried-and-true styles, e.g. hierarchical and bureaucratic. Learn how to connect, catalyze, and create teams that work at whole new levels of capability. It's already proven successful in reinventing government and can make a world of difference in businesses large and small."
Dr. Harry J. Saal, President and CEO Smart Valley, Inc.
"A very stimulating, visionary account of how networks and networking are organizational structures and processes of the future."
Edgar Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus MIT, Sloan School of Management
"Networking-practical and down to earth, easily understood descriptions of how others have obtained a competitive edge."
William R. Johnson, General Manager, Networking Hardware Division, IBM
"In our business at The Acacia Group, the concepts of shared leadership, trust, cross-functional teams, and networks are major catalysts to achieving competitive advantage. The principles found in The Age of the Network are right on."
Charles T. Nason, Chairman and CEO, The Acacia Group
"The opportunity of a lifetime-all in one extraordinary book. Common purpose, vision, independence, leadership-the future is at hand. Networks are the vehicle; customer satisfaction is the result."
Gary E. Wheeler, FASID, President, American Society of Interior Designers
Organizations and managers around the globe are embracing what has been called "horizontal management," the "virtual corporation," and the "modular enterprise." Few companies, however, are enjoying a high degree of success in rapidly reshaping their organizations to meet the challenges of fast-paced change and tenacious competition.
In contrast, The Age of the Network offers leaders, managers, and teams a new, practical view of how to think about their companies and reinvent them without losing the value and knowledge that's embedded in their current organization. Authors Lipnack and Stamps point out that most organizations are trying to grow with a 19th century chassis in a 21st century world. This disconnect has led many leaders to bemoan the difficulties of creating and sustaining nimble, competitive organizations.
Lipnack and Stamps contend that only truly "networked" organizations can move beyond mere survival to consistent success. Based on proven concepts developed by the authors and employed in organizations such as Hyatt Hotels and Malcolm Baldrige award winner Eastman Chemical, The Age of the Network reveals how today's leaderscan create organizations and teams that are defined by speed, agility, and a web of interconnected relationships.
In this new "Age of the Network," organizations can break through impenetrable challenges and recognize entirely new business opportunities through the creation of interlocking, boundary-crossing teams. From Eastman Chemical's "pizza and pepperoni" organization to Al Gore's National Performance Review, leaders are learning the incredible value of creating "links" inside and outside their organizations.
The Age of the Network delivers a rich array of advice and insights for starting the vital process of creating a networked enterprise. Lipnack and Stamps show managers how to focus on five essential teamnet (networks of teams) principles which include establishing a clear purpose and creating communication links. Next, they offer a guided tour describing how organizations can turn these principles into practice and evaluate their real potential for creating a networked organization.
Leaders are challenged to create "islands of trust" through the careful design and development of networked teams. This new "social capital" will be essential to maintaining the critical connections in every networked organization. Lipnack and Stamps also offer a glimpse of the future in the current trends driving change in almost every enterprise. Their advice on navigating rapid change will give leaders new insights on sustaining their networked organizations well into the 21st century.
Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps are co-founders and principals of The Networking Institute, a consulting company specializing in organizational networks. Founded in 1982, TNI helps people work together better across boundaries including geographic, organizational, corporate, industrial, and government boundaries. The company has a global reputation for its work with corporate, nonprofit, and grassroots networks. Clients include organizations such as Vice President Gore's National Performance Review, the United Nations, AT&T; Universal Card Services, Hyatt Hotels, KPMG Peat Marwick, CSC Index, Steelcase, The Acacia Group, and British Petroleum Exploration.
Frequently on the speaking podium for groups such as the World Future Society, Jessica and Jeff also co-authored The TeamNet Factor: Bringing the Power of Boundary Crossing Into the Heart of Your Business (Oliver Wight, 1993), The Networking Book: People Connecting with People (Viking Penguin, 1986), and Networking: The First Report and Directory (Doubleday, 1982). Between helping the federal government reinvent itself and conducting highly acclaimed workshops, Jessica and Jeff enjoy their own private network, including two daughters, located in West Newton, Massachusetts.
Why
Networks? The 30,000-foot View - download
pdfFrom
Nomads to Networks: The Four Ages of OrganizationTurning
Hierarchy On Its Side: How Smart Organizations Keep the Baby and Throw out the
Bath Water A
Pocket Tool for Teamnets: Applying the Five Principles at all LevelsRx
for Monday Morning: Turning Principles Into PracticeThe
Hinge of History: Assessing Your Teamnet Potential"Only
Connect:" The Imperative of the 21st CenturySocial
Capital: New Wealth Based on Trust, Reciprocity, and NetworksNetworking
Trends: A Window to the FutureExtended Contents
Riding the Transitional Wave
- From the 19th to the 21st Century
- The CIA Needs a New Mission
- The Network Age Hospitality Company
- Taking the CEO Viewpoint
Four Ages of Organization
- From Boxes to Pepperoni
- Expanding in a New Dimension
Organizing Principles Put into Practice
- Conceptual Tools for Networks
- Believe in the Credo, "Those Who Do, Plan"
- Match the Work with the Right Organization
The Difference of Expanding Links
- Come in, Madras, India
- Networking Falls to the Bottom Line
Fasten Your Seat Belt for Take-off
- Trends Rising Above the Horizon
- Purpose as a Natural Resource
- Focus on People
- The Technology of Social Capital
- Everyone a Leader
- The Strange Benefit of Hierarchy
The 21st Century Bucket Brigade
What's Old, What's New
- What is Your Small Group?
- From Status to Hierarchy
- Bring on the Boxes: The Bureaucratic Specialties
- "Only Connect:" Linking in Networks
Network the Organizational Ages
New Ways to Manage
- The New in the Not-So-New
- Out of Sight, Out of Mind
- On a Personal Level
Eastman : A Teamnet Company
- Eastman's Story
- Looking Through the Teamnet Glasses
- Purpose
- Members and Levels
- Leaders and Links
- Turning Theory to Practice
The Inevitable Use of Hierarchy
- The Innovators
- Putting Pieces of Complexity Together
Thinking the Network Way
- Teamnet Principles Across the Ages
- Sitting Around the Campfire: Small Group Boundaries
- Pyramid Power: Climbing the Hierarchical Levels
- The Systems We Love to Hate: Bureaucratic Purpose
- The Ties that Bind: Network Links
Winds of Change
Eastman Turns Hierarchy on its Side
The Four-Dimensional Organization
Bolting into the Future
- Applying Common Sense
Five TeamNet Principles
- A Pattern Language for Organizing
A Pocket Tool for Teamnets
- The Purpose of Purpose
- Declaration of Independence
- Link City, Planet Earth
- Climbing through the TeamNet Vines
- The Hierarchy and the Lower-archy
Up the Organizational Scale
- The Large Life of the Small Group
- Making A Large Organization Seem Small
- The Elegantly Networked Enterprise
- Alliances Not Mergers, Thanks
- Beyond Alliances: Megagroups
Life-Long Learning
Taking the First Steps
- Startup: Assessing the Situation
- Common View?
- Colleagues?
- Connections?
- Voices?
- Inclusive?
- Launch: Planning the Work
- Clarify Purpose
- Identify Members
- Establish Links
- Multiply Leaders
- Integrate Levels
The Five Phases of Flight
- The Flight
- The Five Phases
Thinking Through the Phases
- Checking It Out
- Delivering the Goods
Reinventing Government with NetResults
- A Review of National Performance
- Launching NetResults
Your Teamnet Potential
Size and Scope: The Hierarchy Ruler
- Getting a Grip
Moving to the Next Mach
- Scale in the Long View
- Pace Impacts Pattern
- What Is Your Pace of Change?
- Gauge the Environmental Speed
- Evaluate the Type
- Combine Time and Type
- Teamnets: The Organic Successor to Hierarchy-Bureaucracy
Social-Technical Networks
- Technology of the Information Age
Making Your Assessment
The Internet Worm
- VirusNet Self-Organizes
- Press and Perceptions
Governing the Internet
A Few Hours in the Life of an Online Junkie
- Do Not Even Think of Touching This Modem
- "Dead Too Soon"
- Cruising to Big Questions
All the Way to New York to Buy a Modem
- Lisa's Interview
The Social Sciences Meet Networks
"The Coordinator," Starring Mrs. Dewar
- "Finding" People
The World with all its Complexities and Beauty and Mystery
Two Paths, Two Societies
- Community States and the Invention of Credit
- Emilia-Romagna: The Reprise
- The Hunt for Civic Community
- Social Capital: The 21st Century Source of Wealth
- Open and Closed Logics of Cooperation
New World Regional Advantage
- Two Regional Business Cultures
- Corporate Comparisons
Eastman's Path to Higher Trust
- "We Just Said No"
- Little Things Count
Islands of Trust
- When the Velocity of Trust Accelerates
- A Matter of Survival
- The Biological Internet
FROM Hierarchy-Bureaucracy TO Team-Networks
- Metatrends: Currents of Change
- Terra Firms Meets the Unpredictable Future
- Learning Organizations
- "Create Constancy of Purpose"
- Visions of Two Worlds
Navigating Rapid Change
- Shifts in Purpose
- Members Need a New Look
- Getting Links in Synch
- Leading Trends
- Leaping Levels
On Holonomy
- "Holons" are Wholes and Parts
Soul Search
Introduction:
"The Network Comes of Age"
The network is coming of age as a mature, useful, and widespread form of organization. Networks have been around for a long time, but now they are moving from the informal to the formal, from dealing with peripheral concerns to engaging the "real work" of getting things done and coping with complexity.
Life has become too much for hierarchy and bureaucracy. With change as the underlying driver, organizations need more speed and flexibility, greater scope and sharper intelligence, more creativity and shared responsibility. Teams offer part of the answer-our collective rediscovery of ancient human knowledge about the power of small groups. Networks-of teams and other groups joined together, which we call teamnets-offer another, newer part of the answer. The rest of the answer to our organizational challenge lies in the accumulated wisdom of hierarchy and bureaucracy, their timeless elements.
Huh? The wisdom of hierarchy?
We feel a little like Nixon going to China for this message:
Don't throw out your hierarchy. Save some bureaucracy.
We have been known as "the networking people" since the publication of Networking: The First Report and Directory, our first book in 1982, the year we founded The Networking Institute. Networks have been our mission, our passion, and our bread-and-butter.
This book puts networks in the context of earlier forms of organization, offering a way to use the new powers of networks together with the best mix of hierarchy, bureaucracy, and small groups.
When we finished the manuscript for The TeamNet Factor just eighteen months ago, we felt strangely unfinished. That book made the case for networks with numerous examples, general principles, practical tools, and exciting possibilities. We still needed to place networks, the emergent form of organization, in a broader and deeper context.
The Age of the Network is the "prequel" to The TeamNet Factor.
Read this book first. It is shorter, has a broader focus, and is more personal, exploring the underpinnings of networks, the links among people, their relationships, and consuming issue of trust. Here, using new examples, we offer an executive summary of the core principles and practices that are expansively detailed in the previous book.
The two books are complements. Each stands alone with unique elements and focus, yet they share a conceptual coherence, spectrum of examples, and writing style. We offer some pointers to the companion text as well as to other chapters in this one, our restrained effort at emulating electronic random-access hypertext in a serial printed book.
The Industrial Age medium of our Information Age message captures again that tricky transitional reality of this millennium-approaching time that we inhabit. The forces of old and new seem equally demanding and the zig-zags of life personally and globally seem more extreme and more frequent each passing year.
This book will help you cope with change, forge your own destiny, and join with others to accomplish together what you cannot do alone.
The Age of the Network has five sections:
I. The introductory overview (chapter 1);
II. The big idea, how all the forms of organization fit together and why this moment is so timely for networking (chapters 2 and 3);
III. Principles and practice, tools for networks and how to use them (chapters 4, 5, 6);
IV. Expanding links, looking in more depth at the network's most distinguishing features (chapters 7 and 8); and
V. Conclusions and trends for the future. (chapter 9).
We all have our personal learning preferences, what we need to feel comfortable with new ideas and information. In both books, we bring out concepts with a rich variety of examples and offer methodology along with vision. This gives you an opportunity to see networks through multiple lenses, since no one view is complete.
Enhance your understanding by comparing examples from your own life with our principles and observations. Think about your most successful team experience, then use your imagination to visualize what's possible.
Most important, remember that "the Age of the Network" belongs to all of us. The future of our organizations-our organic ways of being and doing together-rests in our collective hands.
KMNY-AM 'Vera's Voice', 7/11/95
Personnel Journal, 5/1/95
KCEO-AM 'Money in the Morning', 4/27/95
Secrets of Success, 4/13/95
Solutions, 4/1/95
WILY-AM "Hotline", 3/20/95
KQNA-AM 'Sandy Kenyon Show', 3/13/95
Technology Strategies, 3/1/95
Government Executive, 2/1/95
Quality Digest, 2/1/95
Industry Week, 1/23/95
Futurist, 1/10/95
Western New York Futurists, 1/1/95
Orange County Register, 12/5/94
CIO, 8/1/94
