What+does+it+meant+to+work+with+a+network+mindset?


 * //What does it mean to work with a network mindset?//**

To work with a network mindset means embracing an emerging leadership style that is characterized by greater openness, transparency, decentralized decision-making, and collective action. It means operating with an awareness of the networks you are embedded in, and listening to and cultivating these networks to achieve the impact you care about. It means exercising leadership through active participation. It means sharing by default. It means communicating through a network model, rather than a broadcast model—finding where the conversations are happening and taking part.

Individuals leading with a network mindset are prioritizing activities that are often associated with facilitative or collaborative leadership. They’re seeking opportunities to distribute, rather than centralize, responsibility //and// authority. They’re convening diverse stakeholders, reaching out and engaging new participants in dialogues and projects, and generating coordination, cooperation and collaboration. They’re also working with an attentiveness to the nature of networks by creating and protecting spaces that build social capital (connectedness, trust, reciprocity), by brokering connections, especially across difference and nurturing self-organization, and by genuinely participating in networks and thereby leading by doing.

More concretely, leading with a network mindset might, for a funder, mean:
 * Developing an ecosystem awareness by mapping funding flows or relationships in order to better understand an issue area.
 * Openly asking important questions, like the Packard Foundation did when they hosted their public Nitrogen Wiki for generating input to a new program strategy.
 * Hosting town halls for listening to stakeholders—online and in-person—like Marguerite Casey Foundation has been doing with its Equal Voice campaign.
 * Making and strengthening connections among other funders and stakeholders in an issue area.
 * Pooling funds like the Hewlett, Packard, and McKnight Foundations have done to launch ClimateWorks.
 * Listening to and participating in the blogosphere and Twitter stream related to an issue area, like program staff at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are working to do as part of their Web 2.0 Philanthropy initiative.