10 lessons for organisations about supporting more networked innovation

Interesting lessons for organisations about supporting more networked innovation, based on our experience of working with the RSA on their networks project*. See here for more details about the project and videos (more to be uploaded shortly).

1. Start with relationships, not transactions

If the goal is to encourage people to work together on issues about which they feel passionate, organisations need to provide platforms for people to meet, build relationships and earn one another’s trust. This approach, centred on building relationships, will be more fruitful in the long run than thinking in terms of new products and services.

2. Be clear about the invitation

Even when the focus is on building relationships, there needs to be a clearly stated invitation that explains to people what is on offer, how they can get involved, what is being asked of them, and what they stand to gain from becoming a participant. This can take time to develop, but it is well worth the effort: an unclear invitation creates anxiety and frustration, which in turns leads to disengagement and disillusionment.

3. People need to be seen and heard

When people do decide to get involved and give freely of their time and energy, this effort needs to be recognised. In the culture of networks, such recognition can come in the form of a thank you as much as a paycheque, a new set of connections as much as a job title. Generosity and mutuality lie at the heart of networks and failure to ‘see and hear’ people will result in the failure of any network-based initiative.

4. Follow exciting leads

The best ideas can be found in surprising places, and networked innovation is not a linear process. There should always be space in the plan to follow unexpected leads, and it should be made as easy as possible for people to bring in their own connections and networks to increase the chances of a new idea emerging.

5. Understand an online presence as integral to the mission

Online spaces for networking don’t work unless they are clearly connected to a wider set of activities that mix face-to-face meetings with virtual discussions. Once created, sites need to be easy to amend as people’s requirements change. If they are for a large and diverse audience, the needs of both the intensive and the occasional user must be catered for in equal measure.

6. Understand patterns of participation

Any organisation that sets out to get everyone participating all of the time is doomed to fail.Participation needs to be understood in terms of when and how, rather than as an either/or question. This is an important principle and must be reflected in every aspect of the change project’s design, including its success criteria.

7. Not every networked idea is a good idea, or appropriate

Networks are not the same as a free-for-all where anyone’s idea carries. There is still ample room for judgement in networks: the difference is that the criteria for judging are shared, transparent, and consistently used. Networks centred on innovation need to allow for the fact that ideas arrive at different states of development, and therefore there should be a number of ‘ways in’, depending on how developed the idea is.

8. Revel in reflected glory

The most successful networked approaches to change think about their mission, not their organisation – and this in turn requires a degree of humility and a willingness to share in success rather than claim it all to the organisation. Commitment is what drives people on to achieve social change – and people are more excited by missions than by organisational goals.

9. Let networked innovation models change the hierarchy

The true potential of new networks will not be realised unless they can be integrated with the hierarchy, rather than be grafted on to it. The goal is not necessarily to eliminate the hierarchy altogether – but it does need to change if it is to successfully and meaningfully support the action being carried by new networks. This can be challenging work.

10. Don’t lose the human touch when going to scale

Networks are based on relationships and trust, both of which still require a ‘human touch’. Scale can only be achieved organically, and from the ground up: a decree from head office will not create a sustainable model. Networks need to be imagined as a series of connections or nodes, rather than one central hub around which everything else revolves, and this must drive the growth strategy.

*Many thanks to Sophia Parker, Ellie Ford and Simone Jaeger for all their hard work on this project over the past year