A telecommunications company with +600 employees in three countries faced fast-paced changes and high demands from customers.

Organizational agility and access to product and market insights specifically were low.

The telecommunications company had spent considerable efforts on cross-collaboration, formalized cross-functional roles, and assigned two people – the “collaboration brokers” – to these responsibilities.

The company was 25% slower when comparing with Innovisor ONA Benchmark©. This was clearly an issue!

The relationship data revealed six highly connected employees. These employees were not connected with each other but highly connected with other employees in the different parts of the company. Simulations showed us that when connecting these six employees, it could make the company 13% faster.

The relationship data also revealed that the two “collaboration brokers” were clearly connected across the organization. They did what was expected of them. There was however a risk:

If the two “collaboration brokers” left the company, it would make it an extra 7% slower on top of  25% slower than benchmark

This was a risky setup that could seriously disrupt agility in the short term. The more they needed to focus on bringing the six highly connected employees together on cross-collaborative initiatives.

The company ran two actions to move it from being fragile to agile.

1. They ensured that the two “collaboration brokers” were acknowledged. They couldn’t miss them! One of the acknowledgments that helped them to retain the two collaboration brokers was to enroll them in talent programs
2. They connected the six employees – Paul, Peter, Patricia, Emil, Eleanor, and Yana – and promoted them as the exchange hub for product and market insights.

These two actions helped the company to accelerate the most critical knowledge flows in the telecommunications company dramatically.