MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Game Changers

Do you know who the innovators are in your organization? These aren’t just the creative product designers or the strategists devising new business models. They are also the people who make an end run around established processes, who lobby to do things differently, who proactively make connections across silos and build informal networks to get things done.

Most of them aren’t in the C-suite. In fact, in researching the impact of organizational networks on cultural change, Peter Gray, Rob Cross, and Michael Arena found that the top 50 informal influencers at one organization had network ties with nearly twice as many employees as the top 50 senior leaders. Identifying and making allies of these game changers can help leaders who are finding it difficult to drive innovation in operations, the authors tell us.

About the Author

Elizabeth Heichler (@eheichler) is executive editor at MIT Sloan Management Review.

Learn more about MIT SMR.