Article at a glance:

The role of networks in organizational change

• When companies experience organizational pain, their first response is often a structural fix, such as decentralizing, breaking down silos, or shifting to a matrix organization.
• Many such efforts have only limited success because formal organizational charts mask the invisible networks that employees use to get things done.
• Investing time and energy to understand networks can help companies measure the effectiveness of major initiatives and make organizational changes stick.
• In many cases, a key to success is focusing on “brokers,” who serve as bridges across a number of subgroups in a network and are easy to overlook because they occupy the “white space” of organizations.