TTL - a Networked Organisation

TTL, like its parent the Transition Network, is a networked organisation (a heterarchy). This organisational structure is a little different from the kinds of structures that most people have experienced – the traditional hierarchical structure that’s found in most large businesses, and most public sector or charitable organisations.

It is a very resilient structure, however, and very suitable for TTL's aims. It is found in private sector, public sector, and third-sector organisations, and some of them are very successful.

TTL is a network of Groups. Each Group is also a network of people and links to other people and Groups. The Groups are connected - see here for more details of how we communicate inside the network.

Such an organisation works well when there are:

  • High levels of individual responsibility.
  • High levels of individual and group awareness.
  • High levels of honesty, openness and integrity.
  • High levels of trust – in ourselves, in others, in processes and in the network itself.
  • Free flows of information.
  • High levels of individual resilience and flexibility.
  • High levels of courage.
  • Lots of proactivity – people taking the initiative and acting in advance of events, rather than just reacting to them.

In a network like TTL power is distributed throughout the network, rather than being concentrated in one or more points.

This means people have to take individual responsibility for:

  • Their actions and the results of those actions.
  • Letting go and actively empowering, supporting and training others.
  • Communication (in both directions – in and out).
  • Learning - seeing everything that happens as an chance to learn.

A networked organisation is not anarchic. The Groups and the people in them are all guided by signing up to and sharing:

  • A clear Purpose or Aim.
  • Clear Principles – which guide how all of us work.

Everyone also takes responsibility for understanding, and applying and refining the Aims/Purpose and the Principles.

A networked organisation can form a hybrid with other more traditional organisations - for example, in the TTL network we also have Ovesco, a local energy supply company, which is a much more traditional organisation.

It is good at spawning new groups and connecting with other groups.

In some ways working in such an organisation is more challenging than in a traditional hierarchy. For example, there is no “boss” to give direction or guidance. And therefore there is no boss, or indeed anyone else, to blame.

It perhaps requires higher levels of courage – for example, to speak up when things are wrong. Or to accept responsibility when things go wrong.

It sometimes is hard to understand what is going on - there's no one who has the full picture.

But it is potentially more flexible, more resilient and stronger in many other ways than a traditional hierarchical structure.

Get involved: contact one of the Group contacts on the Groups page