The Agile Organization: From Informal Networks to Complex Effects and Agility

245 Pages·2006·3.17 MB·English

Information Age Transformation Series
THE AGILE
ORGANIZATION
FROM INFORMAL NETWORKS
TO COMPLEX EFFECTS AND AGILITY
SIMON REAY ATKINSON
JAMES MOFFAT
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The Agile Organization. From Informal Networks to Complex Effects
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and Agility
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Simon Reay Atkinson
This book is dedicated to my wife Susie
and my son Samuel John-Reay:
to a better future for our children.
James Moffat
This book is dedicated to my wife Jacqueline
and my daughters Louise and Katherine.
This book reflects the personal views of the authors only, and
does not represent the official position of any organization.
Both authors would like to acknowledge the debt they owe to
loyal, ever constructively critical, friends in the U.S. Depart-
ment of Defense, other agencies, and academia. These
professional American military and civil servants, academics,
and scientists from many different backgrounds, having suf-
fered from 9/11 and more recent events, continue to believe
in the spirit that made America great and which, despite
many setbacks, mistakes, and adversity, has so much to offer
the world in the future.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of
the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any
man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee.”
John Donne
(1572-1631)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures...................................................................xv
Photography Credits......................................................xvii
Foreword.........................................................................xix
CHAPTER 1
Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!........................................1
Globalization .....................................................................4
Idealism and Realism, trust and rules................................7
Post-Modernism and Post-Belief........................................9
Networks and organizations in partnership.....................12
What works......................................................................13
The future into which we gaze........................................14
CHAPTER 2
Complexity: New Insights into Systems and Networks.........19
Open systems...................................................................24
Self-organization..............................................................27
Power laws.......................................................................32
Fractals and power laws...................................................33
The sandpile model .........................................................34
Where have we gotten to so far?......................................36
Self-organizing social groups ..........................................37
The conceptual framework of complexity.......................41
Complex networks of interaction.....................................42
Random Networks...........................................................43
Percolation.......................................................................44
Small World Networks.....................................................46
Scale Free Networks ........................................................47
Network vulnerability......................................................48
Patterns of interaction......................................................49
xi
Complexity and cascading effects: A real example..........50
The attack on Port Stanley Airfield:
The Falklands War, 1982...........................................51
The cascade of effects......................................................53
CHAPTER 3
Policy through Change..........................................................57
Institutes of state..............................................................59
Back to the future and out of the wilderness....................63
Returning to power..........................................................66
Into office and all at sea...................................................71
Effects Based Operations and the Battle of the Atlantic..78
Break out..........................................................................84
Experimentation..............................................................86
CHAPTER 4
Informal Networks ................................................................89
What is an Informal Network?........................................89
Who decides?...................................................................91
Can we prove that Informal Networks add value?..........94
A simple example.............................................................95
Types of Informal Networks............................................97
Random Networks...........................................................97
Small World Networks.....................................................99
Scale Free Networks ......................................................100
Complex Networks and Formal Organizations.............102
Getting nearer or further?..............................................116
CHAPTER 5
Social Linkage and Dynamics.............................................119
Social organizations.......................................................119
Policy making in government:
A defense policy-related example.............................120
xii
Stakeholder perception space........................................120
The effects space............................................................123
The Influence Network and management roles............124
Management agility: The range of options available....126
Enterprise agility and integration..................................128
Directive and emergent management and control........130
Directive versus emergent management and control....131
Influence Networks as complex systems
with emergent behavior............................................132
Base level classification of network types ......................134
Cascading failures at the median level...........................135
CHAPTER 6
New Order: New Effects.....................................................137
The six aspects of Effects Based Operations..................138
Complexity, effects, and experiments............................140
Effecting all things possible............................................146
That he should not be able to command the rain.........152
Effect of command.........................................................160
The importance of agility ..............................................163
CHAPTER 7
Back to the Future...............................................................169
Bounding command......................................................169
Stovepipes to communities............................................175
From consent to concessive............................................180
Institutional friction.......................................................184
Trust exchanges.............................................................188
Final thoughts................................................................191
About the Authors...............................................................197
Simon Reay Atkinson....................................................197
James Moffat..................................................................198
xiii
Bibliography........................................................................199
Index....................................................................................205
Catalog of CCRP Publications......................................CAT-1
xiv