The McIntire School of Commerce
Presents

The 2008 Spring Symposium

 Leading in a Connected World

April 25, 2008

Old Cabell Hall Auditorium, The Lawn

Firms are typically organized as mechanistic systems of formal hierarchy. Business value, however, actually emerges from the organic formation of effective networks of people, expertise, resources, and decision-making authority. Unfortunately, standard business models and performance-improvement methodologies fail to recognize these underlying networks and the unique ways they affect value.

In fact, conventional organizational structures often operate as a sort of “black box,” obscuring leaders’ understanding of the ways in which value is actually created within their organizations. Such structures leave leaders simply to hope that the right interactions are occurring between the right people at the right times. The result is that leaders either underutilize the expertise and resources available to them or make untenable and poorly conceived collaborative demands, trying to connect everybody to everybody through the imposition of artificial matrices or team-based structures.

By taking a network approach, however—that is, by recognizing the functionality and power of sub-structural networks—leaders can pinpoint those collaborations that are value-adding and those that are value-depleting. The ability to make such fine distinctions in turn makes it possible for leaders to undertake performance-improvement efforts through precise interventions rather than massive structural realignments. In short, knowledge of how networks function within an organization gives leaders significantly greater leverage with which to enhance employees’ performance and innovation.

The 2008 Spring Symposium will show leaders how they can apply these insights to systematically improve their organization’s performance. McIntire Professor Rob Cross, who has worked closely with executives from more than 120 companies and government agencies over the past decade, will offer a transformative new perspective from which leaders can “see” their organizations. Cross will show that the way that organizations actually function cannot be accurately represented through traditional static “organizational charts” (below, left). Rather, organizational function must be depicted as a dynamic network of interactions (below, right) that defy the boundaries of formal organizational structure.



The 2008 Spring Symposium will highlight work coming out of McIntire’s Network Roundtable research center and will illuminate the ways in which those ideas are having direct and measurable impact on the scores of companies (in industries as wide ranging as consulting, pharmaceuticals, software, electronics and computer manufacturers, consumer products, financial services, heavy equipment manufacturing, chemicals, and government) that have participated in this research program.

Research emerging from the Roundtable has had a significant scholarly impact and has also proven to be of great interest to practitioners. Roundtable-related ideas have been published in top practitioner journals, including Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and The McKinsey Quarterly. Indeed, the Roundtable’s ideas on the network perspective are of interest to popular audiences and have been featured in mainstream business publications such as BusinessWeek, Fortune, The Financial Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., and Fast Company.

This year’s spring symposium promises to be a stimulating showcase of the ways in which ideas developed at McIntire have a substantial impact in the business world. We encourage all members of the McIntire community to attend, as we are certain this year’s symposium will be highly educational and enjoyable.

Agenda

Old Cabell Hall Auditorium, the University of Virginia

8 - 8:45 a.m. Continental breakfast

8:45 - 9 a.m. Welcome and opening remarks by McIntire Dean Carl Zeithaml

9 - 10:15 a.m. Interactive presentation by Professor Rob Cross: "Leading in a Connected World"

10:15 - 10:30 a.m. Break

10:30 - 11:45 a.m. Panel discussion: "How Leading Companies Are Driving Results with Network Ideas"

Tracy Cox, Director of Performance Consulting, Raytheon Professional Services LLC, a subsidiary of Raytheon Company

Ted Graham, Practice Associate, McKinsey & Company

John Helferich, Executive-in-Residence, College of Business Administration at Northeastern University, and Batten Fellow, Darden School of the University of Virginia

Lisa Vertucci, Managing Director, Global Head of Talent Development, Lehman Brothers
 

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