Ecosystems: they're not just for entrepreneurs anymore

Thanks to those of you who attended my webinar on Future Ready Planning last week! Look for more on that soon.

My next webinar will be on ecosystem building -- not unlike the subject of this article! That will be Thursday, August 6, at 3:00 Eastern. Save the date, and look for more on that soon.

We hear the word “ecosystem” thrown around in almost every business environment, from tech startups to major corporations to local economic development agencies. But too often, our outdated and simplistic practices get in the way of what that word actually means.

An ecosystem is not just a passive collection of people, departments, programs, or organizations occupying the same space. Simply gathering people together, or listing them in an organizational directory, doesn’t change the ground conditions of your businesses… or your community. If those pieces are just sitting in their own separate silos, you haven’t built a resilient network; you have accumulated a crowded room of independent actors who are still looking out only for themselves.

The single dimension that makes any ecosystem valuable is the quality and the reliability of its connections. The true value doesn’t reside in the individual components themselves but in the active mesh of relationships and data exchanges that happen between them.

When an outside supplier collaborates deeply with a contractor, or when a new business moves from one resource to another smoothly in a manner that accelerates its growth, that intersection is where real agility, real effectiveness, and a real opportunity to move the needle forms. Those pathways allow businesses to share information, adapt fast, and survive massive universal flux. Without the strength of those interconnected web filaments, each individual component remains vulnerable when the sea change hits.

The biggest challenge, though, lies between our own ears.

Connections happen intentionally, not magically. A thriving network does not spin itself out of thin air just because you put people in proximity or hand out a new piece of collaborative software. An open microphone in a meeting room, or a hype competition, or a casual happy hour ain’t gonna cut it.

Building a Future-Ready ecosystem, one that actually creates a whole larger than its parts, requires active, deliberate design and the bravery to build trust across differences.

We have to intentionally create structures, evaluate and adjust our actions, and support/challege each other authentically every single day.

If we don’t, our organizations will just fall back into the old, comfortable ways of doing things.

And those needles we wanted to move will stay where they are.

Or sink.