Designing The Networked Organization

If you see the network as the organization of the future, then this book is for you. Ken Everett thinks so, too, and he wrote this book to help the architects of such future organizations. Everett started a network of necessity but then encountered surprising benefits. He discovered networked organizations to be resilient, innovative, and leader-full and that these characteristics arise out of the design. This potential, he says, applies equally to networks of independent associates as it does to traditional organizations willing to adopt a new style of leadership a style closer to hosting than commanding. This is a practice-based book: Its developmental model was earned through experience. The model lays out three phases: from connections to communities to coalitions, or from doing fine to getting better to getting better at getting better. Ken Everett illustrates these claims with real-life examples. He describes how a family company with only 3 employees grew to be represented in 30 countries via 300 colleagues. The potential of the networked organization is new, and that's what this book is about.

Ken Everett is the hub of a professional training network that spans 30 countries. His preparation for this was mixed. As a high-school teacher he experienced both the excitement of the classroom and the torpor of a public sector bureaucracy. Over 17 years at IBM he learned about the excitement of international marketing as well as the disciplines of a centrally-managed economy. After a period as Managing Director of Wilson Learning Australia he was enthusiastic about executive training, but also wishing to try it in a business of his own. This he began in 1991, starting to build a network, first in Australia, then Asia and, finally, Europe. In the course of which, he has lived in his Sydney, Singapore, London and Gualdo.