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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How do managers and companies quickly transform new hires into productive employees, a process called "rapid on-boarding"? Contends that companies that are more successful at rapid on-boarding tend to use a relational approach, helping newcomers to establish rapidly a broad network of relationships with coworkers that they can tap into to obtain the information they need to become productive. Most organizations realize the importance of integrating new employees, but many fail in this regard, often because of pervasive myths about the process. Because of those misconceptions, managers frequently rely on practices that can actually hinder new employees from becoming productive.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. People in organizations commonly talk about the energy associated with a project, team, or individual. But is energy related to performance or learning in organizations? And how is it created and transferred in groups? To answer those questions, the authors assessed energy within seven large groups in different organizations. They collected data that allowed them to map social networks and, more specifically, determine who the "energizers" and "de-energizers" were in those groups. Their analyses, supplemented by interviews with network members, also reveal why energy is important for performance and learning and how it is created (or destroyed) in organizations. And they gave rise to a set of questions that can help managers and the people they oversee increase the energy they generate in their interactions with colleagues. By mapping relationships, managers can see where energy is being created and where it is being depleted. They can then take action, encouraging simple changes in behavior to increase energy in places where its absence hinders the progress of important organizational initiatives.

Managers invariably use their personal contacts when they need to, say, meet an impossible deadline or learn the truth about a new boss. Increasingly, it's through these informal networks--not just through traditional organizational hierarchies--that information is found and work gets done. But to many senior executives, informal networks are unobservable and ungovernable--and, therefore, not amenable to the tools of management. As a result, executives tend to work around informal networks or, worse, try to ignore them. When they do acknowledge the networks' existence, executives fall back on intuition--scarcely a dependable tool--to guide them in nurturing this social capital. It doesn't have to be that way. It is entirely possible to develop and manage informal networks systematically, say management experts Cross and Prusak. Specifically, senior executives need to focus their attention on four key role-players in informal networks: Central connectors link most employees in an informal network with one another; they provide the critical information or expertise that the entire network draws on to get work done. Boundary spanners connect an informal network with other parts of the company or with similar networks in other organizations. Information brokers link different subgroups in an informal network; if they didn't, the network would splinter into smaller, less effective segments. And finally, there are peripheral specialists, who anyone in an informal network can turn to for specialized expertise but who work apart from most people in the network. The authors describe the four roles in detail, discuss the use of a well-established tool called social network analysis for determining who these role-players are in the network, and suggest ways that executives can transform ineffective informal networks into productive ones.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Over the past couple of decades, management innovations have pushed companies toward the ideal of the "boundaryless" organization. As a result of these changes, formal reporting structures and detailed work processes have a much diminished role in the way important work is accomplished. Instead, informal networks of employees are increasingly at the forefront, and the general health and "connectivity" of these groups can have a significant impact on strategy execution and organizational effectiveness. Many corporate leaders intuitively understand this, but few spend any real time assessing or supporting informal networks. And because they do not receive adequate resources or executive attention, these groups are often fragmented, and their efforts are often disrupted by management practices or organizational design principles that are biased in favor of task specialization and individual rather than collaborative endeavors. The authors initiated a research program two years ago to determine how organizations can better support work occurring in and through informal networks of employees; they assessed more than 40 networks in 23 organizations. They discovered in all cases that the networks provided strategic and operational benefits by enabling members to collaborate effectively; they also found that managers truly wanting to assist these groups had to overcome six myths about how networks operate. Explains the six myths and why they are harmful; in place of these assumptions, the authors offer reality checks that can be implemented to help networks become more effective.

With efforts to de-layer organizations and reduce functional boundaries, coordination increasingly occurs through networks of informal relations rather than channels tightly prescribed by formal reporting structures or detailed work processes. However, although organizations are moving to network forms through joint ventures, alliances, and other collaborative relationships, executives generally pay little attention to assessing and supporting informal networks within their own organizations. Social network analysis is a valuable means of facilitating collaboration in strategically important groups such as top leadership networks, strategic business units, new product development teams, communities of practice, joint ventures, and mergers. By making informal networks visible, social network analysis helps managers systematically assess and support strategically important collaboration.