Follow the Lines, Not the Boxes: Mapping the Social Architecture Where Change Takes Root

When a client reaches for the org chart, OD practitioners can offer a better question: who do people actually turn to when the formal channels don't work? The answer reveals an organization's social architecture, the web of relationships, trust, and influence where work actually gets done and where change either takes root or withers.

In this interactive virtual session, Dr. Liz Scott, author of The Ripple Effect, moves from why reorganizing rarely fixes the culture to how to work with the networks that do. Participants will map a real client system and locate the connectors, problem-solvers, and culture carriers already shaping it. They'll practice bringing those people into a change effort before it launches, not after it stalls.

Come ready to draw, annotate, and work in small breakout groups. Have pen and paper and a current or recent client in mind.

Participants will leave able to:

• Shift a client conversation from "what's the right structure?" to "who do people actually turn to?"

• Run a quick, low-tech network scan using five diagnostic questions.

• Identify the connectors, problem-solvers, and culture carriers in a client system, and know how each one spreads or stalls change.

• Build a "starting lineup" of the five to seven people to engage in the first thirty days.

• Use a one-page network mapping template with their next client.

Presenter — Dr. (Liz) Elizabeth Scott