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Organisational Network Analysis (ONA) is a way to look at how people and teams connect and work together in a company. It helps you see the real networks of communication—not just what’s on the org chart.
These hidden networks show how information flows, who people go to for help, and where collaboration is strong or weak.
Traditionally, ONA has been too complex to use in everyday work. That’s why we’ve created a simpler, more useful way to measure how well people and teams are working together.
We measure the quality of interaction through one simple KPI: the Net Collaboration Score (NCS). A powerful indicator of system health.
NCS works like the well-known Net Promoter Score. Every connection between people is rated as Excellent, Satisfactory, or Underdeveloped. The score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Underdeveloped ratings from the percentage of Excellent ones, resulting in a score between -100 and +100.
Scores above +30 are excellent. A score around 0 is average. Anything below 0 signals areas that need attention and improvement.
NCS provides a clear, actionable view of collaboration quality — within teams, between teams, and across collaboration types (operational, strategic, and social). And because it functions as a true KPI, you can use it to track and improve collaboration over time.
Traditional ONA tools show you who is connected. NCS shows you whether those connections actually work.
There are two main ways to collect data on how people connect in an organisation: passive and active.
Passive ONA
Passive data comes from tools like email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams, often called “digital exhaust” because it’s collected in the background. While convenient, it has clear drawbacks: It only shows who connects with whom, not how effective or meaningful those interactions are. It also raises privacy concerns and often lacks trust, making it hard to act on. As a result, it’s difficult to use for targeted interventions.
Active ONA
Cophi uses active data instead. We ask people directly through a short, clear survey, just like an engagement survey. It’s trusted, transparent, and includes both quantitative and qualitative insights. This makes it easier to turn data into real, focused action, with the full buy-in of the people involved.
Benefits
You get better, more consistent data. People trust the results more. And most importantly, you get real insights into the quality of teamwork—something passive tools just can’t show. This makes it much easier to spot problems and take action where it matters.
As well as seeing the overall quality of an organisational network, we further explore 3 distinct activities inside an organisational network, that break down into seven distinct network types.
Operational Collaboration:
(Processes and Execution)
These networks focus on "how things are done" — the systems, workflows, and processes that keep the organization running. They are foundational and trainable, ensuring consistency and efficiency.
Project Management: Coordinating tasks, timelines, and resources to achieve specific goals.
Information Sharing: Ensuring relevant data and knowledge flow efficiently across teams.
Problem Solving: Addressing challenges collaboratively using structured methods.
Social Collaboration:
(Human Connection)
These networks foster trust, empathy, and collaboration, enabling day-to-day human interactions that build a positive culture. They require emotional intelligence and self-awareness, often modeled by good managers.
Giving Feedback: Providing constructive, actionable input to improve performance and relationships.
Psychological Safety (Sharing Setbacks/Difficulties): Creating a psychologically safe environment where individuals can openly discuss challenges without fear of judgment.
Strategic Collaboration:
(Vision and Innovation)
These forward-looking networks focus on "where we’re going" and "what will change." They drive long-term success and require visionary thinking, typically honed by experienced leaders.
Clarity (Strategic): Aligning teams around a clear vision, goals, and future direction.
Innovation (Continuous Improvement): Encouraging creative ideas and iterative enhancements to processes, products, or strategies.
Our Methodology
At Cophi, we’ve spent over a decade studying the networks that drive performance. Using factor analysis on thousands of data points, we identified the seven most critical and least overlapping types of workplace networks. These fall into three key dimensions of collaboration: operational, strategic, and motivational.
Our framework builds on foundational research by leading organisational experts, including Ibarra and Hunter, and Krackhardt and Hanson.
Ibarra and Hunter define three core types of networking:
Operational networking helps people get work done through strong connections within their teams.
Personal networking supports learning and development through external relationships.
Strategic networking enables leaders to recognise and act on future opportunities.
Krackhardt and Hanson outline three important work relationship types:
Communication networks show who talks to whom about work.
Trust networks reveal who confides in whom and offers support.
Advice networks show who people turn to for solving problems and making decisions.
By combining these insights with our own research and validation, Cophi helps organisations move beyond surface-level connection maps to truly understand how work happens — and where to intervene.
Team vs Individual Network
Traditional ONA maps relationships between individuals to uncover informal networks and hidden influencers. While insightful, this approach is often too complex, hard to explain, and difficult to act on — which is why traditional ONA is rarely used at scale, despite its potential.
Cophi takes a different route.
The foundation of our ONA solution is mapping team-to-team networks, focusing on how formal teams interact within the existing organisational structure.
Why this approach is more powerful:
Easier to understand and use — Leaders instantly recognise team structures and relate to the findings.
More actionable — Most organisational change happens at the team level, making insights easier to translate into real interventions.
Scalable and repeatable — Works equally well in small units and large, complex organisations.
Trusted and transparent — No sensitive interpersonal data, which builds trust and credibility across the organisation.
This approach delivers the power of network insight in a practical, accessible, and immediately useful format — making it a strong foundation for real, lasting change.
Expand your knowledge with these carefully curated resources on leadership, networks, and organizational dynamics.
Leadership
How Leaders Create
and Use Networks
by Herminia Ibarra and Mark Lee Hunter
A comprehensive guide on how successful leaders build and leverage professional networks to drive organizational success.
Organizational Behavior
Informal Networks: The Company Behind the Chart
by David Krackhardt and Jeffrey Hanson
Explores specific questions for formal and informal 'personal' networks relating to trust and organizational dynamics.
Social Networks
The Hidden Power of
Social Networks
by Rob Cross
Studies the critical impact of informal social networks on organizational quality and how work really gets done.