EP 136: Victor Bilgen on Influence and Operations — The Emergency Mind Podcast

I joined Dan Dworkis on The Emergency Mind Podcast to talk about something that sits at the center of a lot of the work I do: the gap between how organizations think work gets done and how it actually does.

Dan's framing, work as imagined versus work as done, maps almost perfectly onto what organizational network analysis surfaces. The org chart describes the intended system. The network map shows the actual one.

We covered a lot of ground in a short time:

• Why the informal network exists independently of the hierarchy, and why that gap matters more during periods of change

• The difference between central influencers and brokers and why brokers are the ones that usually surprise people

• How nodes and edges can be defined from data you already have, including 360 reviews and email metadata

• The three network signatures I look for first: silos where connection should exist, over-reliance on a small group of individuals, and the gap between where leaders name each other and where the rest of the organization actually sits

• Leverage points versus choke points and why the same person can be both depending on how well-structured their role is

• Collaboration overload: what happens to your most connected people when the structure around them isn't defined, and why they're often burning out before anyone notices

Listen on Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud.