Relational Energy Network Dynamics (REND): Mapping the People Who Energise (and Drain) Your Org
Org charts tell you who reports to whom. REND tells you who lights up the room — and who turns the lights off. The next layer of Organizational Network Analysis.
- Standard Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) maps who talks to whom. REND maps the emotional charge of those interactions.
- Wayne Baker and Rob Cross's research (Michigan + UVA, 2003–2024) shows 'energisers' produce up to 4x the discretionary effort in their networks.
- De-energisers — often well-performing individual contributors or managers — measurably tank the output of everyone within two hops.
- REND is built using short, periodic peer surveys, not surveillance. The data is more reliable than productivity dashboards.
- Identifying and coaching three de-energisers in a 200-person org can shift the engagement curve more than any company-wide initiative.
Every leader knows that one team meeting that ends and everybody feels three inches taller — and the one that ends and everybody quietly closes their laptop and orders coffee they don't need. Wayne Baker's research at Michigan put numbers on that intuition. The single most predictive variable for team performance over an 18-month horizon was not skill, not seniority, not budget. It was the proportion of energisers in the network.
What REND measures
Relational Energy Network Dynamics extends classical ONA by adding a directional valence — does this interaction increase or decrease the other person's energy? Cross & Baker define 'relational energy' as the heightened level of psychological resourcefulness generated from interpersonal interactions that enhances one's capacity to do work.
- You look forward to working with them
- Disagreement feels generative
- You leave the interaction with more ideas than you came in with
- They make others look good in public
- You quietly route around them
- Disagreement turns personal
- You leave the interaction tired and second-guessing yourself
- They claim credit, deflect blame, weaponise process
Running a REND survey
- Pick a department of 50–250 people. Run a 5-minute peer survey: 'List up to 8 colleagues you have worked closely with this quarter. For each, rate energy on a 5-point scale.'
- Aggregate at the network level. Compute each person's incoming energy ratio (positive over total ratings).
- Plot the network. Energisers cluster as hubs of positive flow; de-energisers show up as isolated negative nodes or, more dangerously, central negative hubs.
- Never publish the raw scores. Share patterns with managers and coach individuals privately.
- Re-run every 6 months. Drift is what matters.
- Central energisers (~10%)Disproportionate positive influence — protect them
- Quiet energisers (~25%)Pockets of energy in their immediate team — celebrate publicly
- Neutrals (~50%)Most of the org. Coachable in either direction
- De-energisers (~10–15%)Often high-performing ICs or senior managers. Highest leverage to coach or move.
What to do with energisers and de-energisers
- Energisers: actively grow their network reach (cross-functional projects, mentorship), reward them visibly, and protect them from politics.
- De-energisers: do not fire on first signal. Coach with the data. Often the behaviour is unintentional (sarcasm, perfectionism, public correction). Three coaching sessions resolve > 60% of cases (Cross, 2021).
- If unresolved after 90 days: move them out of network-central roles. A senior IC stays an IC; they do not become a manager.
Many de-energisers are highly rated performers. They ship. They hit targets. But their network drag costs the org more than their individual contribution adds. The math gets clearer once REND data is overlaid on output data.
Takeaways
- Energy is a measurable network property, not vibes.
- A handful of central energisers and de-energisers explain most variance in team output.
- REND is the cheapest, highest-leverage people-analytics intervention available in 2026.
- Wayne Baker — All You Have to Do Is Ask (book + research) — Currency, 2020
- Rob Cross — The Hidden Power of Social Networks — HBS Press, 2004 — extended 2024
- Owens, Baker, Sumpter, Cameron — Relational Energy at Work — Journal of Applied Psychology, 2016
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