I was interested in the following quote from Lynda Gratton from London Business School, in a Lunch with the FT Interview (several weeks ago). Not much more comment to make on it but it feels, intuitively, like a nice way to think about the sort of relationships, types of people, groupings, that people in modern organisations (and outside of them too) might need.

Each of us needs three things, three types of network,” Gratton explains, in the manner of an expert life-coach. “We need a ‘posse’ prepared to ride out with us, so that when things get really tough you can e-mail them in the middle of the night to say, ‘Oh shit!’ and they get it, they know what you mean. I have about four people in my posse.

“You also need what I call the ‘big ideas’ crowd – people who live in different worlds from you. And I think we also need what I call a ‘regenerative community’: a physical place – because much of what we do now is virtual – a real place with real people who know you, who love you. My feeling is that the regenerative community is the bit that we’ve got most wrong right now, because the big default of the future is that we’re lonely. We live on our own in cities, and we’re lonely.”