Guiding Process Networking
The process of organising (=organisation) must regulate its networking density. Therefore, constant decisions must be made which regulate whether the network should be increased or reduced. The guiding question is: “Do we want to link this decision to other decisions or do we want to uncouple them?” It is thus all about what builds upon what, who must talk to whom, what can be worked upon independently and which feedback processes should relate back to other service providers in the organisation. Whenever change is required, complex organisations need to change their networking, rather than only improving single aspects of it!
The frequent manoeuvring between centralised and de-centralised organisational concepts attests to the significance of the guiding process. As with all guiding processes the organisation, with a view to decision poles, can be too strongly, as well as too weakly networked, or it might oscillate unfavourably between the two poles. The latter indicates how difficult it is to find the fitting answer to circumstances. Once autonomy and influence are granted to parts of the organisation, there is a reluctance to give them up. This is why networking patterns are frequently so stable and can often only be broken by massive reorganisations.
Who can interrupt whom during work, change boundary conditions, define success factors? Where does the necessary overview originate? How much networking can an organisation afford, seasonally, socially and factually, without being overextended with the resulting complexity? What is decided centrally; what is decided locally? Who should be conferred with, about what and when? As all these questions are also dependent upon the situation, many organisational conflicts and dysfunctionalities arise within this guiding process.