The Importance Of Informal Networks

Informal Networks
The article written by Richard McDermott and Douglas Archibald talks about informal networks in companies. Informal networks are more a kind of informal groups that are automatically formed in a company. The main motive behind forming this socially based informal group is to share knowledge. These informal networks have many names peer groups, communities of practice, functional groups etc. Informal employee networks are inexpensive. This is a way of experts to share knowledge and ideas. Formals groups are groups that are controlled by senior officers. The people in that group doesn’t have much informal communication between them but the informal networks are the best in tackling problems. They are independent too.
Informal

The networks can cut through formal procedures to start initiatives and meet deadlines. Learning how to map these social links can help managers harness the real power in their companies and revamp their formal organizations to let the informal ones thrive. It is said that if the formal organization is the skeleton of a company, the informal is the central nervous system driving the collective thought processes, actions, and reactions of its business units.it is designed to facilitate standard modes of production. Some examples explaining how these networks breaks are given in the article.
The article also talks about how to set up these communities strategically. The four principles that govern the design and integration of effective communities are as follows:
1. Focus on issues important to the organisation: the people in these networks talks and discusses about the important issues happening in a company. By discussing all of the people in the groups could get a clear idea about what is going on in a company.
2. Establish community goals and deliverables: other than exchanging ideas and information, formal goals and deliverables energize

Set high management expectations: intangible management expectations have high influence on communities.

How communities differ from teams?
Communities are different from teams in four distinct ways:
1. The long view: they are responsible for the long term development of a body of knowledge .
2. Peer collaboration and collective responsibility: Community leaders establish the direction of the community, connect members, and facilitate discussions, but do not have authority over members.
3. Intentional network expansion: Communities deliberately seek to expand the internal and external resources and experts available to individuals.
4. Knowledge management: Communities steward the knowledge in their domain with a view toward solving problems that have not yet been discovered.
Maximising communities impact
Traditionally, organizations paid little attention to the operations of communities because they saw participation in them as a marginal activity, intended to benefit the members and not necessarily the company. But our research reveals that companies can increase the operational effectiveness of communities in four