The Gennova Group constitution was formally adopted on Friday, May 16, 2003. This network-based organization represents a breakthrough model for the development and delivery of professional services. Mark Bonchek, co-founder of Tapestry Networks, imagined that a network of independent consultants could design and operate in an innovative way that provided a trusted network of peers who could be drawn on to create multidisciplinary services to meet the increasing complex business problems of clients.

The “barn raising” on July 17th of 2002 launched a series of open-space meetings and swarms, experiments with services development, committee work on infrastructure, and joint learning. On March 23, the group decided that a formal governance and operational structure was needed and appointed a constitutional convention. I was privileged to be one of the four members of that convention (along with Mark, Jan Twombly (see post on 5/13), and Dennis Smith). We met and dialogued intensely and the emergent model represents, I believe, a breakthrough in thinking about leadership in networks.

The fundamental unit of operation is a value network, a network consisting of Gennova members, affiliates and other resources from industry, academia, or the public sector, who join to work on complex problems or to create thought leadership in emerging areas of knowledge. The leadership breakthrough is this: anyone who champions and leads a value network becomes a member of the Gennova Council, the governing body. This body is the set of people who approve value networks and provide peer support to one another, who propose and approve individual membership in Gennova, and who guide the development of Gennova (for example, by calling for amendments or changes to the constitution).

From a principle of simplicy guided by the laws of complex systems, we are seeing a new model emerge. Twenty-one people committed to the future of Gennova by signing the declaration of commitment; there were 23 people present, two of whom had never attended a prior Gennova meeting. Not quite as heady as “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” but a deep, inspiring, resolve nonetheless.