Deciphering trust: How cigarette breaks, gossip and other informal networks influence your capacity to innovate March 20, 2009

This highly engaging and interactive seminar will explore the meaning of trust, how trust operates and its importance in enabling or hindering successful innovation.



The power of informal networks, and how they channel trust, influences our ability to manage and lead - and ultimately to innovate. Attending this session will provide you with a framework and language to identify the roles played by people in your team or organisation, providing you with a more holistic view of how they operate. This understanding will enhance your capabilities as a leader or manager and help you to develop efficient networks that maximise productivity through trust-based relationships.

Dr. Karen Stephenson, an influential social network theorist, will argue that the association between trust and learning is an instrument of vast, if frequently untapped organisational power. “People have at their very finger tips…tremendous amounts of tacit knowledge, which are not captured in computer systems or on paper. Trust is the utility through which this knowledge flows.”



Topics we will explore:

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Trust and its relationship to tacit knowledge and learning
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Forms of trust and the power of informal networks
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Organisational networks; what they are and how they work
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Innovation as a social activity and its implications on open innovation
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The need for new types of leadership in harnessing network power
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How to measure trust and maximise tacit knowledge in building cultures of innovation
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Examples of how organisations have measured trust and the impact it has had on their organisational success



The event will be of particular interest to:

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Senior Leaders & Managers across public & private sectors
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HR and Organisational Development Directors
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Academics and those interested in the emerging science of network theory
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Anyone responsible for, or with an interest in, innovation and culture

entheo are proud to be sponsoring this event with NESTA. As innovation pioneers entheo are constantly looking for ways to help organisations grow their people and their culture to drive dynamism into the everyday. They use the latest thinking, combined with old wisdoms, to help their clients develop a strong innovation capability. Through collaboration with thought leaders, such as Dr Karen Stephenson, they are able to offer a unique service to their clients to really drive innovation into the heart of strategy.

Presented by Dr.Karen Stephenson CEO of Netform who was hailed in Business 2.0 as “The Organisation Woman”, is a corporate anthropologist and lauded pioneer in the growing field of social-network business consultants. In 2007, she was one of only three females recognised from a distinguished short list of 55 Random House’s Guide to the Management Gurus. www.drkaren.us

Organised by NESTA the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. It is the largest single endowment devoted exclusively to supporting talent, innovation and creativity in the UK. Their mission is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation. They invest in early stage companies, inform innovation policy and encourage a culture that helps innovation to flourish. www.nesta.org.uk