Impact Networks — David Ehrlichman

Collaborative networks may be called many things: associations, alliances, coalitions, collaborations, collective impact initiatives, consortia, and more.

Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving, by Valdis Krebs and June Holley, a white paper about how we can strengthen our communities by recognizing and cultivating the networks of connections that underlie them.

handbook Net Gains, by Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor, an early resource for network builders seeking social change.

RE-AMP Network, a massive collaboration of more than one hundred organizations working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the midwestern United States;1

Lawrence CommunityWorks, a citywide network that engages thousands of residents to improve their community;

KABOOM!, a nonprofit that uses a network approach to mobilize low-income communities to build their own playgrounds.

Two advocates, one promoting charter schools and the other supporting public schools, came into the network seeing each other as the opposition. But after taking time to hear one another’s motivations, they began to have more honest and open conversations about their vision for Fresno.

NetworkWeaver, Interaction Institute for Social Change, Monitor Institute, Change Elemental, CoCreative,

What got us here is not going to get us to where we need to go. “A new type of thinking is essential if [humanity] is to survive and move to higher levels,” as Einstein famously said.

Complex issues are experienced very differently by different people. As a result, it’s difficult to get people to agree on even what the issue is, much less what the solutions might be.

Most people love the idea of collaboration . . . as long as it promises to do exactly what they want it to do. But that is not how collaboration works. Collaboration (as we talk about it) is not forced or coerced. It requires you to give up control. And because it’s not predetermined, it requires you to give up certainty.

We need collaborative structures that are flexible enough to shift on a moment’s notice, that are resilient enough to withstand turbulence and disruption, and that bring people together as equals to share leadership and decision-making.

Ferguson goes on to assert that “the problem is that networks are not easily directed towards a common objective. . . . Networks may be spontaneously creative but they are not strategic.”7 This is where we disagree. While networks are not inherently strategic, they can be designed to be strategic.

Of course, networks can have positive as well as negative effects. Economic inequality and the advantages and disadvantages of social class, race, ethnicity, gender, and other aspects of individual identity are in large part the result of network effects: certain types of people form bonds that increase their social capital, typically at significant social expense to those in other groups. Much of the world has become acutely aware of the harmful network effects arising from social media and the internet. This includes the proliferation of online echo chambers that feed people what they want to hear, even when it means rapidly spreading misinformation.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,

tied in a single garment of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. —MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Beneath a forest floor, mycelia (the vegetative part of a fungus, comprised of web-like threads known as hyphae) provide pathways for communication and resource sharing among different life forms in the soil. The trees and fungi in a forest have a symbiotic relationship—trees need nutrients that the fungi can reach but the trees cannot, and fungi need carbon offered by the trees. Linked together, mycelia compose what’s called a mycorrhizal network.

family networks, friend networks, professional networks, school networks, community networks, religious networks, and online social networks.

Networks can be loose and unstructured, as most social networks are, or they can be formed to fulfill specific functions and advance a specific aim, as impact networks

impact networks are a special kind of network that connect individuals and organizations together to advance learning and action for a common purpose. Whereas social networks often form naturally as people become connected with one another through proximity or shared interests, impact networks require greater levels of intentionality to fuel their development.

Movement networks link many other learning and action networks together, creating a network-of-networks.

People are represented by nodes (also known as elements or actors), and the connections between them are represented through links (also known as edges or ties).

The groups within which some connections do exist are called clusters (also known as communities).

Clusters are an extremely common phenomenon in networks, forming quite naturally as people gravitate toward those with whom they share similarities. People in distinct clusters tend to be more like-minded, have shared language, have similar conversations, and be located in the same region.

clarify the purpose they held in common and to develop meaningful relationships of trust.

“We’re afraid to say how important relationships and trust are,” says Kellyx Nelson, executive director of the San Mateo Resource Conservation District, “but the relationship building is where the magic happens. The relationships lead us to look for the ‘yes.’”

“just pick up the phone and talk”

relationships expanded their perspectives and caused them to pause before making assumptions about other people’s intentions.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. —BUCKMINSTER FULLER, A Fuller View

network mindset shift. To adopt a network mindset is to embrace the reality that everything is connected—that the actions of individuals, organizations, and sectors affect one another in profound and often-unexpected ways.

way, the network mindset shift can also be characterized as an evolution of focus from me to we, or from “ego-system

Rather than trying to scale up an individual organization, building an increasingly large and efficient machine, they instead seek to scale out, developing stronger connections to generate impact through collaboration.

four principles championed by Jane Wei-Skillern.3 Leaders who have adopted a network mindset focus on the following: Scaling impact, not growing their organization or function Being part of an interconnected system, not the center of it Sharing leadership and credit with peers, not hoarding power or trying to be a hero Building trust-based relationships, not systems of control

command-and-control model where decisions are made by a small group of leaders and passed along to those lower in the chain of command. Hierarchies, defined as “a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority,”4 have an extraordinary capability to efficiently pursue and accomplish specific, well-defined ends, such as producing goods and services. They are most effective when addressing what Ron Heifetz calls “technical challenges”—those in which the problem definition, solution, and implementation are clear.5 Hierarchies are preferred by many for their predictability and stability—workers and leaders know what they can expect, and activities can be forecast well in advance.

The more you control, the less people are able to self-organize to advance work on their own. The more you are needed, the less resilient the system is in the event that you are unavailable.

When the organizing structure is predefined and inflexible, there is little room for collective discovery, spontaneous collaboration, and unforeseen innovation. Hierarchies are good at achieving the specific ends they were set up to achieve, but they are not well suited to addressing complex issues that have no readily apparent solution.

The most effective collaborative efforts we’ve seen feature a highly connected network organized around shared purpose and relationships, with flexibility embedded in the network’s structure.

This points to a hybrid implementation—an impact network is created for process and action, while the hierarchy contributes to administration and reporting.

Intra-organizational networks can create a sense of belonging among employees, even when they work in different departments or at different sites.

the examples above illustrate, networks and hierarchies are not at odds with one another. They can work alongside each other in harmony. Although we are distinguishing the network mindset from the hierarchical mindset, in practice hierarchies and networks overlap and interact in important ways. All organizations—even hierarchical organizations—contain organic and informal networks that connect people and departments together. These networks are “intricately intertwined with an organization’s performance, the way it develops and executes strategy, and its ability to innovate,” write Rob Cross and Andrew Parker in The Hidden Power of Social Networks.

Likewise, all networks contain natural hierarchies. Rather than having a single hierarchy dictate authority, networks have multiple flexible hierarchies that arise according to the specific context. This is what’s known as a heterarchical structure. In a heterarchy, formal power and decision-making is distributed—nobody has a baked-in, structural advantage over others. At the same time, some people may have more influence than others on specific issues based on their knowledge, experience, or role.

Hierarchical Mindset Network Mindset Mechanistic worldview Living systems worldview System seen as a hierarchical pyramid System seen as a web of interactions Organization at the center of focus Purpose at the center of focus Top-down, directive leadership Distributed, servant leadership Centralized decision-making Collective decision-making Impulse to command and control Impulse to connect and collaborate Information restricted Information shared Task oriented Relationship oriented Bias toward deliberate strategy Embrace of emergent strategy

Fundamentally, the role of network leaders is to help diverse groups find the shared purpose that unites them, to foster self-organization, and to coordinate the actions that emerge so that they inform and reinforce one another

Learning networks are focused on both connection and learning. Action networks are focused on connection, learning, and action. Movement networks connect multiple learning or action networks together to coordinate a broader movement. An overview of each form is provided below.

Participants may also form learning circles, gathering together to hold conversations, share knowledge, and collect information on a specific topic related to the network’s purpose.

The difference between learning and action networks is not so much in their structure as it is in the primary orientation of their focus: to facilitate the flow of information and knowledge, as in a learning network, or to advance collaborative action, as in an action network.

Core teams (sometimes called leadership teams, steering committees, or governance councils) consist of a group of participants who volunteer or are elected to guide the work and activities of the network.

Action networks have been called many things, including alliances, coalitions, collective impact initiatives, consortiums, innovation networks, and more.

Albert Einstein, “‘The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men,’” New York Times, June 23, 1946, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/06/23/107138385.pdf.

Network Weaver Handbook: A Guide to Transformational Networks

Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact

“Networks as a Unifying Pattern of Life Involving Different Processes at Different Levels: An Interview with Fritjof Capra,”

Networkologies: A Philosophy of Networks for a Hyperconnected Age—A Manifesto

Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies

“Four Network Principles for Collaboration Success,” Foundation Review 5, no. 1 (2013), https://doi.org/10.4087/FOUNDATIONREVIEW-D-12-00018.1

The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations