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But whether or not they succeed will depend on the alignment of a very special trinity: leadership, culture and strategy. Collaborative organisations have leadership models that are open, conversational in style and flat. That’s certainly the style at Tangerine where everyone is a “leader” and everyone can expect to talk to anyone and be listened too.

These organisations also have cultures that are open, high on trust and low on fear of failure. The message isn’t: “What went wrong?” but “What did you learn?”. They have strategies that clearly articulate the benefits of new styles of working. And they create the structures that support, recognise and reward it.

Overall, there are eight ways to spot a collaborative organisation:   Leadership teams model collaborative behaviours Resources are devoted to developing and sustaining this way of working High levels of task interdependence The default setting is sharing information There are high levels of trust Conflict seen as part of the creative process – everyone understands and can deal with it The environment of the company and its technology support collaborative working People don’t have to talk about it – it’s just the way things get done

hy forward thinking? Because I think that hierarchical learning isn’t conducive, in fact is obstructive to creating businesses fit for purpose for innovating within disruption. I think the behaviours it creates slows down people’s learning as they go higher up ‘the ladder’, limits their behavioural flexibility and creates a culture where people are afraid to challenge the status quo. And what do I mean by networked learning? I think this has something to do with letting go of words like ‘expert’ and accepting that we are all learning, all of the time. And I think if we can do this, and ask any question without fear, we can shake things up and make things happen.

So how could companies themselves encourage and create a safe environment for networked learning? A few ideas: 

Cultivate a culture of celebrating failure

1. Learning arcs

2. The importance of reflection

Without trust there’s less innovation, collaboration, creative thinking, and productivity, and people spend their time protecting themselves and their interests – this is time that should be spent helping the group attain its goals.

Social media listening is not a new idea. But it’s usually done in the interests of marketing, reputation, research or customer service. Here – from a serious government body – is recommendation that organisations could use social media listening as real data to inform and assist with operations. It’s recognition that the data shared online, in realtime, by passengers, has more value than as mere reputational currency or customer service fodder.

How much useful information is being offered that might not be formally addressed to an organisation’s Twitter or Facebook presence?

witter gives us many ways to find relevant conversations. There are a range of searches, lists, groups, hashtags and apps to help us navigate to the people and the comments that need our attention. For most brands, the simple ‘following’ mechanism (great for personal users) is just too clumsy a tool to have much meaning or utility in itself, so more nuanced forms of listening have to take place. To judge an account by a ‘following’ number is to draw conclusions about the ways a person or brand uses Twitter to listen.

And I think that’s probably a result of how it was initially rolled out. In some places it’s led to a lack of understanding around how everyone can make an ESN work for them – using it to meet their specific challenges and in a way that best suits each individual. It’s definitely not a question of trawling through a live feed to find something that may or may not be relevant to them, an ESN, used properly, is so much more than that. And it’s up to us in our team to really bring that story to life for each employee. A mammoth task with over 100,000 of us! 

One word: COLLABORATION. With our size, geographic scale and employee numbers an ESN, with all the opportunities for collaboration that it affords, is a game-changer.