Having considered the insights from network theory on the increase in complexity as we grow or reorganise our institutions, I’ll now explore how we might do things differently instead. In particular, what might be the impact if we centred our efforts at change on growing social capital instead, and consider what this might mean for the way we organise and manage our institutions? 

Social capital is considered a measure of the strength of the relationships across a network. Communities or groups with low social capital will be more atomised with people more isolated and disconnected from others. This is how social isolation might show up, for example. At the other end of the spectrum we might consider a commune where everyone knows almost everything about everyone.

In some early work I commissioned^⁠ back in the 2000s, we looked at a community through a social capital  lens. While most people in the network are connected to a few others, the theory predicts some specific types of node (people) in a human network, which we found in practice. These were Hubs, people who were the most connected to others in the network; Gatekeepers, who as the name suggests were the ones you had to go through in order to reach a certain part of the network; and Pulse-takers, those who had the widest diversity of connections and could therefore offer insights about the state of the network as a whole. Not everyone falls into one of these categories, of course; but if you wanted to get some core messaging out to the maximum number of people in the network (work with your hubs), or generate insights as the morale of an organisation (listen to your pulse-takers), it’s helpful to have a sense of who these people are. Network analysis can provide those insights. 

Indeed, organisations will often try to define or mandate the culture they want to see: bold, innovative, trusting, and so on. But where does that culture come from? When you spend a day in a new company or turn up to a community meeting you can often feel it. But where is the culture hiding? Sometimes you can sense it, sometimes you can see its outward manifestation through behaviours or artefacts or processes. But where is it located? It’s from the sum of the interactions between people within a group or organisation from which the culture arises – regardless of those mandates. In my archery club of 110 people that was almost six thousand relationships. No one can control that web such that the desired culture is enforced. Culture is an emergent property of the team or organisation, one that can’t be predicted from an analysis of the individual parts nor one that can be commanded. But it is one that can be shaped by the custom and practice that we demonstrate in our work or behaviour. 

We can further think of two forms of  social capital (the definitive text on this – or at least the best known – is probably Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone¹). Bonding capital represents the strength of the relationships that join people together across a network and is important for connection, cohesion and communication within a group. I once had a team member who was early career and a little rough around the edges but he brought particular value to the team in his ability to foster group cohesion: he had a gift of engaging with anyone, on anything, and diffusing potentially tricky situations with just a comment or well-timed social interaction. 

Bridging capital represents the idea that different parts of the network can be linked together (or potentially isolated from each other), together with the ability to link with other networks. You might think of some of your staff who are particularly adept at developing links between teams or organisations, collaborators, convenors or connectors, who add often invisible value in facilitating and nurturing these links. Through their connections they might spot changes in your operating environment that others don’t. I’ve also come across this ability to cross organisational divides to be defined as a ‘boundary spanner²‘, a label I’m not particularly enamoured by.

As teams and organisations grow or are restructured, the bonds and bridges between people can be strained or strengthened; sometimes this has little impact, other times it can be critical. It is rarely thought about or considered as part of a management intervention and yet social capital is the hidden strength of any group and therefore also a crucial element of the success of any organisation. 

In my final article I will explore how we might do this. 

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1. http://bowlingalone.com ↩︎
2. See, for example this article by Paul Williams, or the wikipedia overview ↩︎