Network orchestration: the heart of a compassionate (and successful) business

Book Review: The Network Imperative: How to Survive and Grow in the Age of Digital Business Models, by Barry Libert, Megan Beck, and Jerry Wind

I believe this is one of the most compelling and insightful business books of the decade, arguably about the most important topic facing the global economy or any individual business. Ostensibly, it’s a book about how business leaders and organizations can pivot toward what its authors call “network orchestration,” taking advantage of new technologies to leverage the value created both inside and outside the enterprise, including by customers, suppliers, distributors, employees, consultants, and connectors of all kinds. The argument is that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in, AirBnB, Uber, and Lyft have demonstrated the essential value of social networks for businesses of all types, from car manufacturers to insurance companies to software firms. So the book is deeply researched and carefully planned to shake up a set of prevailing assumptions among business leaders. It offers a blueprint for how any business can begin to take advantage of the power of networks to revolutionize its business model, gain valuation, increase profits and improve sustainability. However, I think I can detect an underlying message in the book that its authors nowhere state explicitly. As a business person, and as founding CEO of the Charter for Compassion, I’ve been pondering and asking: What would it mean to cultivate and support a movement for compassion among businesses? What, exactly, would a compassionate business look like? For many business leaders that may sound like a silly question. After all, isn’t the message of compassion just that we should be nice to other people, but otherwise disconnected from the practical requirements of running a business? With help from this book, I think I can answer: A compassionate business is at heart a network orchestrator, recognizing the power of human relationships, focused on creating value together with all of its partners and for its whole community — not merely for its shareholders. A compassionate business is driven by a sense of higher purpose, called into being by the opportunity to create a world, a market, a community, a neighborhood, that works for everyone. A compassionate business recognizes and accounts for its intangible assets, grounded in people — our ideas, our relationships, our advocacy, our experiences, our talents. Perhaps unexpectedly, as our global economy evolves, as new technologies allow us to recognize and leverage the power of networks, doing so becomes more and more essential for the long-term profitability of any business. Ultimately, we begin to see compassion as an essential requirement for competing in a networked world.