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Collaborative Adaptive Action Networks (CAANs)

By Glenda Eoyang and Royce Holladay
Business & Industry Collaborate to Create Community

Ten years ago, the business world couldnt stop talking about teams. (Remember all those slightly cheesy posters that showed rowers rowing in perfect sync or maybe just close-ups of interlocked hands?)

As we saw it then, teams of smart, innovative people were how work would get done in the organization of the future. Well, here we are in the future, and teamsat least as we knew them thenare becoming as obsolete as fax machines and desktop Rolodexes. Why? In HSD, we believe that, like antiquated office tools, teams were set up to fit a workplace environment that no longer exists.

In the past we played finite games, where boundaries, goals, rules, and winning could be constant and reliable. Back then it made sense that teams had rosters of members, regular times to meet, specific goals, schedules, plans, and predictable products. Today, this kind of stability is rare. Therefore, teams built on that stability are anachronisms. They just dont work.

Collaborative Adaptive Action Networks are the alternative, and this article will describe your team of the future today.

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