Implementation: How Your Network of Colleagues Determines Whether Change Succeeds

On Wednesday 7 October 2026, I gave an interactive break-out workshop at the JKF & KFA Congress “Maak Impact” (Make Impact) of the JKF Kinderfonds and the Kinderrevalidatie Fonds Adriaanstichting, at Act Eventstudios in Arnhem. About fifty allied health professionals, rehabilitation physicians, researchers, and others involved in pediatric rehabilitation took part in the workshop. The session was in Dutch.

About the workshop

Why does one new idea succeed while another does not? In this interactive workshop we looked at the organization as a social network of colleagues, and explored how the structure of that network determines whether ideas take off, spread, or die out. Through short exercises in TieGraph, participants mapped their own network. We closed with concrete tools for putting a network to work for successful change.

The power of your social network

Your network determines in three ways whether a change succeeds:

1. How large is the reach of your network? (Are the people you need in your network?)
2. Does your network have bridges to other parts of the organization? (Can your idea reach the group where it needs to land?)
3. How strong is the bonding in your network? (Do colleagues trust the idea enough to join in?)

Want to do this with your own team or organization?

Participants in the workshop received a snapshot of their personal networks. The network of a team or department is best mapped when all employees map their networks toegether. If you would like to do a network workshop with your own team, feel free to get in touch with me. You can read more about my research on social networks in Workplace social networks.