Introduction:
Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) is a powerful tool that can greatly enhance your efforts by helping you locate champions for your initiative. By visualizing and managing formal and informal influencer networks within your organization, ONA enables you to identify trusted influencers who can actively lead their colleagues in driving change and building momentum. In this article, we will explore how ONA works and provide guidance on utilizing its insights effectively.
Understanding Organizational Networks:
Organizational networks consist of nodes, which are individuals within the network, and links, which represent the relationships between those individuals. ONA helps you analyze these networks, both formal and informal, to identify key influencers and understand collaboration dynamics. By doing so, you can leverage the power and influence of these individuals to maximize the impact of your initiatives.
Benefits of ONA:
Using ONA, organizations can achieve the following benefits:
1. Drive transformation effectively by leveraging highly trusted influencers.
2. Identify disengaged areas or departments at risk of attrition.
3. Distinguish feedback from influencers, which is often more actionable and objective.
4. Identify weak areas of cross-functional collaboration between departments.
5. Develop cost-effective retention management strategies.
6. Accelerate innovation, new product development, and team collaboration.
Conducting an ONA Survey:
To collect insights for ONA, you can conduct a survey using Entromy's platform, which utilizes unique "organizational network analysis" survey technology. The survey consists of questions that help identify key influencers and understand collaboration patterns. Here are the seven key ONA questions that we recommend including in your survey:
1. Which individual(s) provide you with a clear understanding of business and work priorities?
2. Who do you reach out to most frequently for help in solving new or challenging work-related problems?
3. If you had increased communication with certain individuals, could you perform your job better?
4. Who do you turn to most frequently to discuss new, innovative product/service ideas or new ways of doing business?
5. Who do you most frequently turn to for personal support when you're feeling discouraged with certain decisions?
6. Who do you most frequently turn to for advice about your own career development?
7. Which individual(s) are a source of positive energy for you at work?
Interpreting the Results:
Once you have collected survey responses and analyzed the data, you can interpret the results to gain valuable insights. Consider the following steps:
1. Validate your hypotheses: Compare the influencer list with your initial expectations. Identify departments, seniority levels, and individuals that align with your predictions.
2. Department-level analysis: Examine which departments have high influence within the organization. Assess whether they align with your expectations.
3. Seniority and tenure analysis: Identify the titles and seniority levels that are prominent among influencers. Understand the profile of leadership strengths and the reasons people go to them.
4. Individual analysis: Recognize individuals who are driving business outcomes, such as strategy and innovation.
5. Assessing scores: Focus on the top influencers as a group with a sphere of influence, rather than absolute score differences. Scan the total column for material drop-offs in score, indicating the need for stronger connections within the organization.
6. Contextualize the data: Understand that each organization is unique, and the data should be evaluated in the context of your organization's goals and plans.
7. Addressing biases: Acknowledge that biases may exist based on sphere of influence. Consider the collaboration and outreach patterns between groups to evaluate the extent of collaboration within and across departments.
8. Collaboration between teams: Use the visual map of collaboration between departments to assess the level of closeness and collaboration in your organization. Identify departments that exhibit high collaboration and those that require closer connections.
Conclusion:
Organization Network Analysis is a valuable tool for identifying champions within your organization and maximizing the impact of your initiatives. By leveraging the insights provided by ONA, you can drive transformation, improve collaboration, and accelerate innovation. Conducting an ONA survey and interpreting the results will help you make informed decisions and foster a culture of positive change and engagement within your organization.
How to Read Entromy PPT Slides: Understanding Organizational Network Analysis (ONA):
By understanding and analyzing these PPT slides, you can gain valuable insights into the organizational network and collaboration patterns within your organization.
"Top 20 Influencers" slide
- The numbers represent the number of nominations each person received for specific categories like Strategy, Innovation, etc.
- Each category is linked to a question in the Collaboration section, such as "Which individual(s) do you reach out to most frequently for help in solving new or challenging work-related problems?"
- One nomination equals one point.
How to Use the Data:
- Note that this output is intended for CEO/CHRO and not for a large group discussion.
- Start with a hypothesis on who you expected to see on the influencer list in terms of departments, titles/seniority-level, and individuals.
- Analyze the department-level data to identify which departments are showing high influence and assess if they align with your expectations.
- Examine the titles and seniority levels that are prominent among influencers. Look for visible leadership teams and identify the profile of their strengths and why people go to them.
- Identify individuals who are recognized for driving business outcomes, such as strategy and innovation.
- Focus on the top influencers as a group that has a sphere of influence, rather than absolute score differences.
- Scan the total column for material drop-offs, which may indicate the need to strengthen connections within the organization.
- Consider why there is a big drop-off and assess the openness of communication/collaboration channels and the availability of training and mentorship opportunities.
- Contextualize the data based on the organization's goals and plans.
- Understand that bias may exist based on the sphere of influence. Larger teams may receive more nominations.
"Collaboration and outreach between Department" slide
- The chart shows the percentage of nominations within the same department (in group), nominations from outside the department (other group), and nominations from outside other departments (external).
- Pay attention to the nomination per average responder to understand how many people, on average, were nominated from a specific department.
- The slide presents a visual map of the organization showing the level of closeness and collaboration.
- Each dot represents a department, and the line weight connecting two departments indicates the strength of collaboration between teams.
- A number on a line linking Sales & Marketing is calculated as ([Sales people nominated by Marketing + Marketing people nominated by Sales] / Total number of people in Sales and Marketing).
A higher number indicates that the majority of nominations between these two groups were reciprocated.
The data in the "Most influential teams" table represents the sum of all the numbers on the lines.
Key Considerations:
- Each organization is unique, and the numbers can vary significantly.
- Focus on the relative ranking of departments on the table to identify highly collaborative teams.
- Approach the results with a hypothesis in mind and ask questions such as:
- Which department did you expect to see in the center?
- Are there any silos or disconnected groups, particularly after a merger?
- Which teams should be working closer together but are not connected?
"Collaboration and outreach between groups” slide
What the numbers mean:
- Number of recommended influencers: # of people in the department who were nominated as influencers.
Note: Recommended influencers are a subset of individuals that provide the broadest coverage of the organization. Entromy filters out redundant people from the list (e.g., those with overlap)
Outreach patterns:
- In group: % of nominations in a department (e.g., sales) that are for people within the same department (e.g., sales)
- Other group: % of nominations in a department (e.g., sales) that are for people outside of that department (e.g., finance, product, marketing)
- External: % of nominations in a department (e.g., sales) that are people outside of other departments (e.g., finance, product, marketing). Entromy platform allows for write-in nominations.
- Nomination per average responder: For Marketing, everyone who responded to the survey, nominated ## number of people on average.