Okay, I admit it. My Org Chart is certainly not bigger than yours. As a solo recruiter, it’s just me – one lonely, little box. “One man, alone . . . betrayed by the [Org Chart] he loves . . . ”
And, while I’m confessing today, I also admit my Org Chart is most certainly not as beautiful as yours, either. There are no other boxes around; nowhere to draw perfectly straight lines to. Nope, no ego-boosting or self-gloating just because my little box sits above your little box on 500-lb poster stock for the world to admire.
But, it’s not the fact that you have many more boxes and lines that I’m most envious of. It’s your “white space” I want. The problem is that white space is abundant for one fraction of a moment and sometimes scarce the next. And your white space, while slippery and nebulous by nature, is something nobody (or no organization) can take from you. It’s all yours . . . and we can’t have it.
At this point, you’re probably thinking I’ve floated over into the deep end of the pool . . . without my floaties on. And while I can’t argue that point, let me take a stab at illustrating the beauty of white space.
The image here shows a typical Org Chart ‘smashed down’ (image courtesy of OrgNet and Valdis Krebs). As you can imagine, the purple node in the middle is the Sr Manager, while the green nodes are Middle Managers, and the blue nodes are the Worker-Bees making it happen. The dark black lines are beautiful, sure. But they simply illustrate authority and hierarchy.
If you look a little closer, however, you’ll see the thin, gray lines. These lines show directional flow. See, if something flows through a network, we can map it. These network contagions include happiness, information, gossip, germs, trust (no kidding, trust can be mapped), violence, etc. . . and in this case, information flow. What the thin gray lines show us is invisible to the human eye, and in some cases, even the trained anthropologist. And the thin, gray lines show us what cannot be seen through the beautiful boxes and lines of the Org Chart.
And even though I can try to steal your nodes by recruiting them away, and I can try to take your contagions (or spread my own through your network), the one thing I can’t take from you is the “white space”, or the medium in which the contagion flows.
So, in closing today, stop ignoring your white space and treating it like a red-headed stepchild. Love your white space. Embrace it. Coddle it and give it some “TLC”. You just might be surprised at the good things that come out of showing your white space a little love this year.
josh, to be frank, i both like and don’t get what you’re saying.
it’s fascinating to see how information flows through any organization. and tapping into who is at the nexus of that information is very powerful.
in your example, wouldn’t the contagions be dependent on the nodes — and if i stole your nodes wouldn’t the contagions radically differ, potentially for the worse? finally, if your premise is that it’s the white space that is distinctly special, what comprises it that makes it special? and what does it deliver?
f
Fran, great questions
You are right that tapping into who is at the nexus of a given “flow” (in this case, information) is very powerful. There are several network positions that are significant; ironically, most Leaders don’t know what individuals occupy such positions as it’s invisible to the eye. (Note: In teams less than 15 or so, we can intuitively guess, but as the teams grow in size, it’s increasingly difficult).
So in all honestly, I was playing about “stealing the white space” 
A contagion is anything that flows through a network, such as an idea, information, a virus (H1N1), happiness, trust, and even obesity (I know, it’s a crazy concept – The book, “Connected” blew me away about this!)
When I say “stealing your nodes”, I mean recruiting the individuals away . . . so you’re definitely right if you’re suggesting that ‘targeted attacks’ (particularly recruiting away “Hubs”) can shake the foundation of the network (just as happens when central systems are hacked). Consider, for example, how old-school karate flicks used to almost always be about the “Hub” (the sensei, or “master”) being killed, which destroys the network/school outside of one lone node (ninja) who comes back for revenge!
So if we can “steal the nodes” (i.e. recruit them away), we’re not necessarily ‘changing’ what is flowing through the network (the “contagion”). However, we are certainly changing the path or trajectory of the “flow”, because when we take a node away, we also take away all their links, or relationships. So if Bob is linked to Jim and Sue, and we remove Bob, then the link to Jim and Sue is also removed. So it’s not so much that we can change the contagion itself (i.e. ideas are still ideas, and H1N1 is still H1N1), but we can certainly shift how it is flowing through the network by removing certain nodes.
In terms of what makes “white space” special, I mention that because everything flows through it (the “flow” is shown by the light grey lines in the white space above). So, it’s special because nobody can take it away – we can take nodes (recruit people), and we can try to influence contagions (say, by implanting a mole into the company), but we can’t take away the white space in which everything flows.
As far as what it delivers, this is a great question. White space doesn’t deliver anything, but without it, nothing can be delivered. I know that’s a crazy answer, trust me!
Note: Our federal intelligence agencies are using Social Network Analysis to identify certain network positions within Terrorism Networks, so “removing nodes” is a targeted approach to collapsing networks, just as is with Criminal Networks. We also try to influence contagions by spreading bad intel and false information. Interesting, right?
Great article! Thank you!
I love it! I found myself in a sea of white space a couple of years ago with a specific goal and project to accomplish.
This was a new thing in my organization and I ended up learning quite a bit about how to manage projects, influence people and get things done without a formal staff hierarchy. Utilizing all this white space in my organization chart was an interesting challenge!
Thanks for your view on this subject!