11 Comments
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David C Morris's avatar

Check out Organizational Network Analysis

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Benedikt Kantus's avatar

Thank you! I knew the topic but not the term. I’m going to read a bit about it!

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David C Morris's avatar

I like your strategy. Sometimes keeping it simple and easy to maintain is the best plan.

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Mike Watson's avatar

I love this concept. Earlier in my career, I remember loosely hearing about this kind of idea and drawing out my own map of influence just to highlight to my boss all of the teams across the organization to which I was connected to within my big org.

I work more autonomously than most to get things done and showing my boss this for the first time gave them an "ah ha" type moment.

Like a - holy crap, how does anyone get anything done? - type moment.

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Benedikt Kantus's avatar

Well, THAT moment should happen much more often!

goodidea to show this map also to others!

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Elena Calvillo's avatar

This is a great idea, I naturally do this for stakeholder mapping, but I never thought about how this can help connect the dots of who influences what across the org.

I’m willing to even try this to astonish on my next performance review. 😃

Thanks Benedikt!

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Benedikt Kantus's avatar

That’s great to hear! Let me know how it works for you!

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Uwe Mierisch's avatar

This is a good point. Behind the phenomenon you describe is the difference between personal power and organizational power. If people follow your lead without formally reporting to you, you have personal power. If your boss is a good boss, he will recognize and promote you. This will add organizational power. This, in turn, leads to the effect you describe. Some people in boxes have more influence than others. Maybe we should talk about what creates personal power?

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Anton Zaides's avatar

Interesting concept! Do you have any concrete methods for building/maintaining it? Or how it’s useful day-to-day?

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Benedikt Kantus's avatar

That's a good point! I use the common stakeholder map format for this purpose (example here under section 3: https://miro.com/blog/stakeholder-mapping/ )

During everyday business, I decide how, when and whom to inform based on this map.

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Anton Zaides's avatar

Interesting, thanks! I didn't know there was such a methodical approach to stakeholder management 😂

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