In a large organization, it is very difficult for lower level people in separate silos to work directly with each other to build comprehensive solutions simply because they do not know who is who in their own organizations.

Say you are a banker in San Francisco with a credit worthy client who is willing to borrow $30 M at a highly profitable rate, but only if you can set her up with lock box services, pay-roll services and merchant card services. Your client also only wants to deal with one person who is going take responsibility for making sure that everything works as promised. Who do you talk to? Do you have to go all the way up the chain of command, and then back down again to find the right people? Even if an organizational chart might show you the right department, how do you find the person with the most experience in your client’s industry and the most applicable skills?

Beyond knowing what roles people play in an organization, innovation creators working in informal networks to develop new approaches often face the challenge of not knowing enough about how their colleagues can help them. Specifically, people often do not know much about the knowledge, experience and skills their colleagues bring to table.

Think of the twenty people you work most closely with. Do you know the basic outline of their resumes? Do you know what they studied in college? Beyond filling the role of their current job, do you know what other skills they have? Does your organization provide you with any way to find out the answers to these questions? Even more powerful, does your organization have a tool that enables you quickly to find colleagues with specific skills or experience that can help an innovative new project?

This problem plays itself out in most large organizations. Solving the tactical problem of “who is who” is critical to creating an environment that generates innovation.