I have previously described how influence can be measured from data organisations regularly collect. Take a look again at two people: A and B (B reports to A):

You can see how B is starting to diverge from A and loose influence, so what is the underlying cause? The organisation has been undergoing restructuring and reducing headcount which has impacted A and B to different extents. Look at the graphs of their strongest ties, in the diagrams below, the blue nodes are current employees and the red nodes are employees who have, at this point in time, departed the organisation:

A:

B:

Notice how there are more red nodes central to B’s social network when compared to A’s. B may be feeling disconnected form the organisation because so many people they knew well have left but A is just not feeling this to the same extent so might not understand why B is exhibiting reduced levels of engagement with the organisation. I hope you can see that organisational network analysis can provide a way to quickly measure the impact to individuals, when re-organising, in order that action can be taken to support them whilst they rebuild their social networks.

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