Consulting - Rob Cross Consulting

We’ve worked with myriad industries and organizations to apply network analysis to six solutions. White papers, articles, case studies, and example business applications for each area will provide you with a flavor of the diversity of our organizational network projects.

Explore our 6 Solutions below:

Talent Management

Personal networks have a strong impact on overall effectiveness in the workplace today. Research over the past 20 years consistently shows that people with better networks assimilate into an organization faster and stay longer. They tend to be promoted earlier than their peers, and are more likely to be high performers, paid better, more mobile, and more influential in their organizations. However, the key to an effective network is not simply a bigger network. Rather, high performers tend to have networks that both leverage and extend their skills and abilities in important ways. Providing executives with a means of developing and obtaining feedback on their personal network is an effective way to promote the right connectivity.

Learn how to . . .

On-Board New Hires Rapidly
Replicate Networks of High Performers
Improve Leadership Development & Career Planning
Reduce Knowledge Loss from Retirements or Turnover

Leadership

A core function of top executive teams is to acquire information, make sound decisions, and convey those decisions effectively to the broader organization. Organizational network analysis provides valuable diagnostic information to leaders and their teams to streamline decision-making, identify rising stars, and identify how effectively groups are working cross-boundaries such as location, function, role, and hierarchy. By looking inside networks, to assess where value and cost reside, leaders can improve connectivity at points that ensure strategic alignment and add economic value.

Learn how to . . .

Streamline Strategic Decision-Making Processes
Optimize Leadership Development & Succession Planning
Cultivate a Global Perspective

White Papers:

Creating the Right Decision-Making Networks: Driving Decision Efficiency and Effectiveness through Networks

Leading in a Connected World: How Effective Leaders Drive Results Through Networks

Critical Connections: Achieving Higher Performance by Integrating Networks with Team Efforts at the Top

Case Study:

Managing Leadership Transition in a Developing Practice

Example Business Application:

Improving Strategic Decision-Making in Top Leadership Networks

Organizational Effectiveness

Collaboration within and among organizations has become increasing important, driven primarily by increasing specialization of knowledge-based work and globalization. However, effectively enabling or managing collaboration is elusive since it often cuts across functions, locations, business units, and sometimes even organizations. Organizational network analysis makes collaboration visible via network maps of relationships. With quantitative and qualitative data, organizations can not only analyze economic costs and benefits of interactions but identify key interventions to redefine roles, provide incentives, and allocate resources.

Learn how to . . .

Align Strategic Goals with Collaboration in Networks
Reduce Costs of Collaboration
Improve Collaboration Critical to Core Processes
Create Effective Lateral Networks (e.g., Communities of Practice, Alliances)

White Papers:

Critical Connections: Achieving Higher Performance by Integrating Networks with Team Efforts at the Top

Creating the Right Decision-Making Networks: Driving Decision Efficiency and Effectiveness through Networks

Articles:

Strategies for Preventing a Knowledge Loss Crisis

Mapping the Value of Employee Collaboration

Using Social Network Analysis to Improve Communities of Practice

Case Studies:

Defense Intelligence Agency, Applying Network Analysis to Create a Vital Community of Practice

Consumer Packaged Goods: Identifying Opportunities to Leverage Skills and Scale of Expertise Across Communities

Financial Services, Applying Network Analysis to Rapidly Build Effective Communities of Practice

Dominion, Improving Performance of IT Architects

Pharmaceutical Alliance, Two Global 500 Companies Bridging the Divide

Construction Company, Improving Performance of Offices, Teams and Individuals with Network Analysis

Example Business Applications:

Integrating Networks Across Core Processes

Developing Effective Communities of Practice

Effectively Leveraging External Networks

Press:

Less You, More We

The Hidden Workplace

Innovation

Most innovations today are created through networks—groups of people working in concert to introduce or adapt products, processes and business models to changing markets and technologies. Innovation is central to an organization’s success. However, increased complexity of most new products and services, reduced development cycles, and leaner budgets have meant that innovation efforts must bring together a depth and breadth of expertise—from both inside and outside an organization—faster and more effectively than ever before. A network perspective uniquely enables leaders to promote collaborations that generate better innovations with greater likelihood of effective implementation.

Learn how to . . .

Improve Innovation Capacity of Line & Support Functions
Streamline Innovation Processes
Replicate Effective New Product Development Teams

Article:

Driving Rapid Innovation with a Network Perspective

Press:

Together We Innovate

Case Study:

Masterfoods USA, Driving Innovation in R&D with Network Analysis

Example Business Application:

Innovation and Organic Growth through Networks

Change Management

Executives today must implement large-scale organizational change initiatives in ever-tighter time frames with fewer resources. Yet, anticipated performance outcomes often do not materialize as internal resistance slows or derails their change initiatives. An organizational network analysis (ONA), done before a change initiative, can help identify barriers to change and facilitate change initiatives by leveraging people and values in certain network positions such as highly central people and those who broker relationships across groups. An ONA can also be done as a follow-up six to nine months after implementation to evaluate the success of the initiatives and areas where further interventions are necessary.

Learn how to . . .

Manage Large Scale Change & Post-Merger Integration
Align Networks to Ensure Change Programs Deliver Desired Results
Identify & Mobilize Key Network Enablers to Support and Drive Change

Articles:

Managing Change through Networks and Values

Case Studies:

International Finance Corp, Applying Network Analysis for Insights into the Decentralization Strategy

MWH, Transitioning Regional IT Departments Into s Single, Unified Global Group

Keane, Enabling Change During the Company-wide Transformation

Example Business Application:

Facilitating Large-Scale Change and M&A

Revenue Growth

In today’s dynamic, global and knowledge-intensive business environment, the quality of an organization’s relationships with its key clients is a substantial determinant of long-term profitability. Strong client relationships—characterized by a high degree of trust and mutual knowledge—lead to account penetration, lower transaction costs, customization of service delivery, In turn, it results in a superior ability to create and extract value as well as greater relationship stability when client and firm executives change roles. A network perspective can help organizations optimize collaborations within account teams and with clients, replicate the networks of high-performing sales people, and increase revenue-generating interactions.