Where Busy Bees and Business Converge

The striking similarities between ecological and organizational networks. Based on the Research of Serguei Saavedra, Brian Uzzi And Felix Reed-Tsochas

Brian Uzzi

A simple rule of thumb is that a team of specialists or generalists doesn’t really work, especially with messy, creative problems. You really need a mixture of specialists who see one part of the problem with a whole lot of depth and a generalist who can help integrate the views of the individual specialists.

Brian Uzzi, Jennifer Robison

Teams with too many overlaps in their social networks are less creative — the team members all know the same stuff. Teams that aren’t networked at all, however, aren’t good at sharing what they do know. The most successful teams are those in which everyone knows one or two others but not everyone — and not no one.

For that reason, organizations should subvert the “proximity … [ Read more ]