We are who we are connected to. The seventh sense is about the ability to look at any object and see how it changes through connection. Systems take on new forms through connections, networks provide complex adaptive systems. The intelligence in the system increases because it is spread over the entire network system. The trick is to transfer that intelligence into the implementation of change processes that lead to an innovative work environment.
Network structures
If you ensure open communication, it appears that the participants automatically want to contribute. In an open atmosphere, people impose standards on themselves; rules come from someone else. Standards instill trust and provide a sense of community. That is the reason that we work with freelancers from the platform Evergreen Wealth Formula. The standards of entrepreneurship form a good basis for network structures.
Complex coordination at a low cost
Due to the digital possibilities, investing in a network leads to (complex) coordination at low costs. In healthcare, for example, the low transaction costs make it possible for professionals and clients to create practice communities (for example in the form of a healthcare cooperative). Customer comments leading to improvements are invaluable.
Connection gives power: the more users, the more benefits (Google). The network effect is the overall increase in value of the network with the addition of each new member. Each additional user makes a network worth more.
That is why we are starting a client portal on November 1, which makes it easy for clients to communicate with professionals themselves. This gives clients (consumers) more power over products and services because they influence opinion in social networks. Professionals will increasingly focus on each other and less on their own organization. This site said it best and you can now know it too.
Position management in network structures
For management, it is therefore about thinking through networks and arriving at effective designs. One form is contributing to platforms so that (physical and virtual) meeting places are created for people inside and outside the organization.
When setting up a care network, it is important to have insight into possible tensions from the start:
- Degree of autonomy: how do I ensure a contribution to the community based on my own identity and what does that mean for my own autonomy?
- Healthcare chain structure: what does the agreement system look like with regard to investments, cost distributions and revenues?
- Organization of a partnership: who will be involved and who will be excluded?
Network structure as a means of innovation
In addition, it is not only about developing innovations, but more about how the invented innovations are organized. Keywords here are: self-organization, close social networks and collaboration with customers.
Network structures are defined as partnerships between autonomous organizations with a common goal, common risks, costs and benefits and joint decision-making. It is about virtualizing organizations. This concerns the choice to open up the boundaries of an organization by means of technology, the internet and digitization and to blur the distinction between employee and customer.
