When stepping out into the world of business, being connected seems to have become increasingly important. While people used to be near indoctrinated on the notions of “outcompeting others” and “sustaining a competitive advantage,” reality has increasingly taught us the limits of such purely self-centred perspectives: for without partners, shared knowledge, and some form of collective problem-solving, even the strongest competitors eventually hit the ceiling of what they can achieve alone. In today’s realm of business, it seems, it’s being connected to others that can bring true, lasting value.
Nowhere has that observation been more relevant than in contemporary business ecosystems – or groups of interdependent and complementary organizations that share information, coordinate activities, and transfer resources and capabilities to create and coordinate value. Think the Apple iOS ecosystem, and the way in which it brings together app developers, accessory makers, telecom partners, payment providers, content creators, and users, all around the iPhone/iPad platform. Think smart-city ecosystems, and the way in which municipal governments, IoT providers, telcos, data platforms, and citizen groups all interconnect to ultimately create value. In these cases, you won’t get very far by focusing strictly on your own tile, treating everything beyond your borders as hostile territory. Instead, you survive – and thrive – by leveraging others’ competencies while contributing your own.
So far, most of our understanding about how such ecosystems work and move forward has centred around the notion of the big, shiny firms often located at ecosystems’ cores – the Apples, so to speak, around which everything else seemingly revolves. And during stable times, that emphasis made sense. Years of research have shown that these “lead firms” can indeed play a guiding role in aligning partners, maintaining standards, and orchestrating joint innovation. In calm waters, having a strong captain at the helm is reassuring.
Disruption changes the rules of the game
Yet during disruptive times – moments when new technologies or business models threaten to upend long-standing value chains – it becomes highly dubious whether large firms remain the key orchestrators we expect them to be. In fact, during such periods, even the most prominent organizations may become overwhelmed by ambiguity, stretched by competing priorities, or constrained by legacy commitments. Their usual governance tools begin to lose traction. Their ability to unify the system weakens.
This is the moment when ecosystems often slip into confusion: actors advance competing accounts of what the disruption means and how to respond, coordination ties begin to fray, emotions escalate in meetings, trade forums, and public discourse, and a once-cohesive system can suddenly find itself without a shared point of orientation. From the outside, such fragmentation may look like failure – an inability of the ecosystem to coordinate, govern itself, or produce a coherent response. Internally, it is experienced as uncertainty, hesitation, and often quiet despair. But if the usual orchestrators cannot step in, who – or what – will?
Our research shows that the vacuum is rarely left entirely unfilled. Instead, what often happens is far more subtle, more human, and ultimately more hopeful: individuals, scattered across the ecosystem, start stepping in – reframing what is happening, reconnecting actors who have drifted apart, or quietly stabilizing expectations when collective direction has all but disappeared. What drives these interventions is not formal appointment, but the personal and relational stakes that leave little room for standing aside.
Introducing the “micro-orchestrators” of ecosystem change
In our article, we draw on years of fieldwork within the Antwerp diamond ecosystem – a tightly woven trading network that recently faced the disruptive rise of lab-grown diamonds. What we find is striking: the people who most effectively helped the ecosystem navigate the disruption were not necessarily CEOs or institutional heads. Rather, they were strategically positioned individuals who stepped forward at crucial moments.
These individuals were analysts, journalists, respected traders, association representatives – people whose authority rested not necessarily in hierarchy, but in relationships, credibility, and resonance. They did not impose direction on the ecosystem, nor did they assume formal control. Instead, they shaped three deeply human dimensions of collective adaptation:
- How the ecosystem thought about the disruption (the cognitive pathway)
- How the ecosystem related across groups and factions (the social pathway)
- How the ecosystem felt while moving through uncertainty (the emotional pathway)
Here lies the heart of the story: ecosystems do not adapt merely because a central firm adjusts its strategy. They adapt because individuals – ordinary, fallible, relational individuals – engage in thousands of small acts of framing, connecting, and emotional anchoring that ripple outward across the system.
Why this matters for anyone navigating uncertain terrain
For organizations embedded in interconnected systems – such as digital platforms, energy networks, health systems, creative industries, urban mobility, or sustainability transitions – this finding has profound implications. It suggests that resilience does not arise solely from strong institutions, formal governance, or clever strategies. It also depends on the dispersed, often invisible contributions of individuals who help ecosystems hold together during moments of uncertainty.
These individuals are not “leaders” in the formal sense. They may include professionals such as analysts, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, consultants, journalists, and association representatives – people who, by virtue of their position, credibility, or relationships, articulate emerging narratives when confusion reigns, sustain trust when coordination becomes strained, and create emotional steadiness when fear or frustration threatens to unravel collaboration. In other words, ecosystems survive disruption not only through structure, but through humanity.
And if you recognize yourself in this description – someone others turn to when situations become ambiguous, tense, or overwhelming – this research suggests that your influence may matter far more than formal titles or mandates would imply.
