What is network thinking?

Grant Leboff: One of the things you talk about in the book is the importance of Network Thinking, as opposed to traditional Institutional Thinking. So maybe you can expand on that for us?

Guy Rigby: I'm going to name drop here, because this is a concept that was invented by some friends of mine called Thomas and Penny Power and they talked about institutional thinking being the old type of thinking, in that it's closed, selective and controlling. Whereas network thinking is the new modern way of thinking which is open, random and supportive. So that's CSC; Closed, Selective and Controlling, versus ORS; Open, Random and Supportive. I think that we now live in the age when, if we tell someone to go and stand in the corner because they being naughty it's not really an acceptable way of behaving and that's a good example of CSC thinking as opposed to bringing them in and helping them and making them feel as if they're part of a team. So I think that's the nature of it. We're very much around the collaboration and partnership thinking, as opposed to the command and control.

Grant Leboff: And how important is it, do you see for successful businesses today, to look at how they can collaborate with other opportunities, other people, with other companies, partnering with them... Do you see that as a key ingredient to a successful business today?

Guy Rigby: I think it's totally essential. I think there was a saying someone said, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I think that's a very nice analogy because, actually, it applies to everything. It applies to whether you make friends with other companies... Smith and Williams in my firm we talk about strategic alliance partners, and we have a number of partners who do things that are different from what we do. But we regard them as partners, so that when our clients need things, we can say we need that we don't do that, but we've got a man who can. I think Fortune 500 companies have an average of about 60 companies each with which they collaborate. So this is not just linked to small businesses, even large businesses go about it.

Grant Leboff: Does that require certain individuals and businesses having a slightly different take on what competition looks like in the modern world. Obviously we you have direct competitors, but actually you can collaborate. You pointed out with businesses that aren't quite the same but who still compete a little bit.

Guy Rigby: I call it co-opetition and I think that's very true. There are so many areas of life these days that overlap slightly. A lawyer is very different from an accountant but actually, we both do certain things. They'll do certain things and we'll do certain things and we compete. But actually that doesn't mean we can't work together, because actually if we do that they don't. So I agree with that. It's just a question of making sure that the collaborative point is more important than the competitive point. At the end of the day you don't want to collaborate with someone who is going to steal all your business.

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