Networking Myths Dispelled

AI is transforming the world. And it starts with the right compute. ARM is the AI compute platform trusted by global leaders, proudly NASDAQ listed, Built for the future. Visit arm.com discover. Welcome to the hbr ideacast from harvard business review. I'm sarah greene carmichael. So networking. I do a lot of it for my job, and to tell you the truth, I don't always enjoy it. I love talking with people one on one, but when it comes to trading business cards in a crowd of strangers, it's just not my favorite. It turns out lots of us are in this situation.

One of my favorite studies, a study by Francesca Gino, asked one group of people to think about a time where they had to reach out for a professional connection, and asked a second group of people when they had to reach out for a personal connection, an actual friendship. And what they find is that the people that had the mentality of finding a professional connection, they were much more likely to have subconscious thoughts of wanting to get clean, which is a suggestion that networking makes us feel literally dirty.

That's our guest today, David Berkus. He says the most valuable kind of networking isn't the kind that makes us feel gross. Because your most valuable contacts aren't the new people that you bump into at networking events. They're the people you already know. And some of the most useful networking you can do involves strengthening your ties with old friends and current colleagues. David is an associate professor at Oral Roberts University and author of the new book Friend of a Friend. Dave, thanks for joining us.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Why is it good to have an external network? I mean, we all know it makes us feel uncomfortable, but why do we need to get over that and do it anyway?

Networks are a source of information now, whether that's information about job leads, which is what most of us think about, or information about what's going on in the industry, or even just information or people that can hear our ideas that can help us make better decisions. That information coming from a diverse set of people and a wide range of people becomes kind of a more valuable resource than just getting the information from the same few people who look alike, think alike, act alike, work alike. As you.

Now you have said that networking can simply be keeping up with old friends. To me, that almost feels like a cop out. How can that be?

This has been a consistent research finding for decades. One of the most powerful sources of information in your network are from what we call weak ties or dormant ties. Weak ties are people that you know but you don't know that well. And dormant ties are people that you maybe had a struggle, stronger relationship with, but for some reason or another, you moved or they changed jobs or what have you. That relationship fell by the wayside. Now, usually we would call those people friends. And we find that by reaching back out to those old connections, we get access to pockets of information we wouldn't normally have access to. But it's easier than trying to build rapport in the moment with a stranger to find something of value you can provide them or they can provide you. It's easier because you're already friends, you already know each other. And so this mentality of it's much more about reaching back out to old friends than it about hitting up a mixer and trying to find that perfect person. I think it's a mentality most of us need to have because it seems more approachable. I mean, we think back and even if you think, oh, you know what, it'd be really awkward to reach back out to that person who I haven't talked to in two years. If you got an email from someone you hadn't talked to in two years that just said, hey, I was thinking about you the other day. How are you doing? You'd be delighted. Most of us are. And so again, if we adopt this mentality that it's about reaching back out to old friends and then later even making introductions is about meeting friends of friends, and then I think we have a much more approachable, much more humane approach to networking.

When you talk about weak ties and dormant ties, I think for a lot of us, our minds go to social media because that is how we often seem to be keeping up with some of those old school friends or, you know, contacts from former jobs. But is just sort of maintaining those connections on LinkedIn or Facebook or another platform enough?

What we find is that online networks only really work well when they are a supplement to, not a replacement for your existing offline network. So what I tell a lot of people is things like Facebook or LinkedIn are a great way to see what's going on in someone else's life. But just clicking like or just commenting is usually not enough to keep that relationship at a quality that you would feel comfortable then reaching back out to them if you needed help or even just saying something of value to them. So what I encourage a lot of people to do is figure out what's going on in people's lives through what they're broadcasting on social media, but then reach out in a deeper medium, whether that's a Phone call or a text message or an email, whatever would be a little bit more deeper of a connection to make or to have that conversation on than social media. It's usually better. It's really not a quality replacement for these relationships, but it can be a great way to supplement it by being able to keep track of what's going on in your weekend dormant times lives. You just need to take it to a more intimate medium when the situation calls for it.

You talk about reaching out to someone once a week and I am wondering how much time does that take you?

You know, I found the simplest thing to do is we all go throughout our week and at some point because of some reason a person that we have thought about in a while pops into our head and it's really a matter to me of taking the 30 to 45 seconds to type out an email, text message, maybe, maybe give them a phone call. I know very few people who aren't delighted when someone else reaches out to them and say, hey, I was walking through the park and I remembered how he were here two years ago doing this. And I just thought, hey, how are they doing? I hope you're doing well. Those sort of well wishes, almost no one hates getting them right. So the easiest thing to do is when those people naturally pop into your head, take the 30 to 45 seconds. But if you aren't doing that or people aren't popping into your head like that, you can also run that sort of Facebook or LinkedIn trick. And that is probably going to be a little more. But we're still talking about five to 15 minutes to look up a reason to reconnect with a certain person and then craft them a personalized email for that. I mean, and if that doesn't work, you could always just say, hey, I was listening to the HBR IdeaCast and this random guy, Dave Burkus said I should reach back out to people. So I'm starting with you. That would still be really awkward, but at least I'm the one bearing the braid of that awkwardness and I'm willing to do that for you.

Wow, I like that. That's very selfless of you. I'm wondering if that's really enough or if you also have to make time for in person meetings and how you do that. Cause those are a lot more demanding. And I know that you're a busy person, you've got kids, you have a wife with a demanding job. So how do you make that in person time happen?

Yeah, what I like to say is nobody Wants to have coffee with you.

I'm into that, honestly.

Cause it's not just the 30 minute coffee, it's getting there, it's ordering the conversation, always takes longer, et cetera. I think the biggest determinant is that whether or not that requires it most of the time, actually a phone call would sort of work. Those tend to be much quicker than let's make plans to have lunch three months from now and then reschedule four times before we actually get it done. So I seek out real time conversations as opposed to face to face ones. Face to face ones I'm always open to. I just recognize that they're not the one stop solution for everybody.

So let's talk a little bit about introductions because it seems like this is really the core of the whole friend of a friend approach. How can you strategically expand your network to include friends of friends using introductions intelligently?

What I encourage a lot of people do when it comes to asking for introductions is to take a broader approach. You never know where it's going to go if you start asking. Lots of different connections. Hey, who do you know in blank? With blank being the industry, the sector, the company, the city that you want to get to know more people in. The other thing is that when you ask who do you know in blank, people tend to only list names that they're comfortable introducing you to. So that next request for an introduction is much easier.

What if your goal is to diversify your network? Like say you only know people in the town where you live and you want to, you know, meet people from further away, or say you only know people in your industry and you want to expand your network, or say you only know people that are really your own demographic group. How can you be proactive about breaking out of that bubble?

So the first thing you really need to do is audit your network and see in my, let's say, the top two dozen people that I interact with from day to day, how many of them are really similar to me and how many of them are different. And then when you find that list of different for most people, it's probably only going to be about 25%, which is a little depressing because most of us know we want a more diverse network. But what happens is organically the network serves people that are self similar. But now that you have that list identified, you can be exactly what you said, much more proactive about interacting with them, getting to know them better, making a point to how more conversations and deeper conversations with them. So that when you ask for an Introduction, you're going to get people that are more similar to them, not more similar to you, because you've identified who those introductions should be coming through.

So this whole friend of a friend keeping in touch with old friends approach is much more comfortable for me than like going to a networking event. But I am wondering, are there times when you should just suck it up and go to one of these events, Even if you find them uncomfortable, are they in some ways useful and something that we should just force ourselves to do?

So it depends on the type of event, generally, events that draw a diverse set of people, where there's something other than connecting with people on the agenda. What in the research literature is often referred to as a shared activity. Those tend to make for better connections. So this would be. Instead of going to the meetup for that industry or that sector, that that industry group, for example, you go to the charity night where they're all going to work at this soup kitchen, or they're going to raise money or work on a Habitat for Humanity house or something like that. Or even if it's just like a bowling night, I mean, as corny as that sounds, those things where there's some other purpose tend to create conversations where you get to know somebody from a broader set.

So I want to ask you a little bit more about not meeting strangers or connecting with old friends, but expanding your network inside your organization. Because for a lot of us, this is actually where we really need to focus our time and effort. How can you start to do that, especially if you don't have a lot of success going to things like the company holiday party or the company summer outing? How can you get to know some other people in your company?

So one of my favorite studies that we talk about in front of a friend was. Was completed by Dartmouth researcher Adam Kleinbaum. And it's. It's this study about what he calls organizational misfits. People who kind of bounce around in the organization in the beginning of their career and then actually go up the corporate ladder, if you want to use that, that sort of term, but make career progress faster, they get better performance evaluations, they get promoted more often, they make more money, which is weird because originally they were bouncing around laterally from project to project. And the reason is exactly what we've been talking about. They have a more diverse network. They plug what researcher Ronald Burt would refer to as structural holes, those sort of natural gaps in an organization's network that create silos, that create turf wars, et cetera. These organizational misfits do that now, you might not want to stall your career out in the beginning, but it's a good comfort for some of us who feel like our career is going nowhere. As long as it's. It's going laterally. In the long term, maybe it's okay. But I think you can still develop that kind of mentality of an organizational misfit by figuring out what are things I can. I can volunteer for. So there's usually in a larger organization, there are external events that you can start volunteering to be on this committee for that or planning this event. But also, I mean, a lot of meetings, if you literally just said, hey, I want to know more about this department and what to do, can I just drop in on this meeting? I volunteer to take notes. Like, you'd be amazed how many meetings that you probably weren't supposed to go to that you could just say, I volunteer to take notes and a lot of people will let you in. Thankfully, a lot of organizations are realizing this and starting to sort of develop programs where people can volunteer a little bit of time helping a different department, different committee. But if that's not in your company, you may be the one that has to be proactive about that. And over the long term, nothing's going to magically appear in the short term, but over the long term, you'll start developing connections in a lot of other branches, a lot of other silos. You'll become that linchpin by honestly having the mindset of a misfit.

So if you are trying to reach out to specific people in your organization and get to know them better, what is a good way to do that? I think the default often is like, oh, do you want to get coffee or do you want to get lunch? And that. That can be kind of vague. And then the person doesn't know why. Why should I make time for this other person? I've. I don't know what is a better way to go about doing that.

So I know we all go to way too many meetings even now, but this is actually one thing that I like about meetings is normally, okay, there's one or two people in a different department that are. You want to get to know better. It's usually in the meetings where a lot of people don't feel as awkward that there's other person there, right? If there's 12 people that are supposed to be there, 13 doesn't seem like there's this awkward person who doesn't fit. Now you might feel a spotlight effect on you. Like, of course they're going to know me. I'm the only person who works in marketing that is in this legal department. But as you build that relationship, you're actually going to be the one that can translate to the marketing department why they can't do a certain thing, which is what legal often feels like their job is to do. So I recommend these meetings rather than the one on one things. And again, the absolute best are these shared activities which exist inside a company too. I know that we think that that certain party or this company outing or this day that we're all going to run the 5k. I know these things seem trite, but they're representative of what in a network is kind of referred to as multiplexity. A different context for connecting to someone that builds a relationship in a little bit other facet, a little bit other perspective. But that relationship then has organizational benefits. So these become the reasons for wanting to go to those types of events. Because you network accidentally and again, it feels less awkward. But more importantly, it gets you connected to people you wouldn't normally meet in the course of just doing your job.

I think for people in a large company, one of the awkward things is if you have worked with a group of folks for a while and you cannot remember other people's names. And so I think one of the impediments to the inside the company networking is we don't want to finally like walk up to someone we've worked with for long enough that we should know their name and just say, hey, I know we've worked together a long time. What actually is your name? So are there ways around this that you have uncovered?

Okay, so I have absolutely no data for this one. I have no research on this. This is my own anecdotal experimental evidence. What I find this happening to me often as I go about my life as a speaker, as a writer, etc. And I've actually tapped my wife for this. But you could use a partner in crime inside the organization too. And it works like this. When she sees me interacting with somebody and she comes over, right? There's, there's one of two things that go on. I'll either say, sarah, have you met my wife? Right, which is a clue that I know your name.

Yes.

Or I'll just say, hey, by the way, have you met my wife? And she knows that if I say your name, she doesn't need to do it. But if I just introduce you without the name, she needs to go, oh, tell me your name. And then I get to hear it again. It's a really little covert, kind of like ninja trick, but it works really, really well. And so if you can develop one or two people where that's a partner in crime, I mean, I suppose you could try it without warning anyone because organically it's going to happen. But it works better if that other person knows what you're doing. Again, no data for this, but I've been doing it for like two years and it works beautifully.

I love that. The buddy system. I love that. So is there a way to sort of systematically apply the friends of a friend introduction approach inside the company? And I know we talked more about kind of group activities, but is there a way to do the one on one networking that is not awkward?

So my encouragement to a lot of people individually if you're looking for a system, is to develop a system where every week you are attempting to reach back out to a week in dormant tie and attempting to build an introduction at a company level, you could kind of force that, but it would seem a little Orwellian, like tracking people's email and seeing it's been a month since you've talked, et cetera. So individually, I think you can create a system where you're doing that regularly. Organizationally, I encourage a lot of leaders to think about how many events are we doing that are unstructured versus activities and planning or at least supporting people who are going to take it upon themselves to organize events where there is some other, other goal. Just today I was talking to an organization that they figured out that most about 5 or 10 of their people all leave on Wednesdays at lunch and go to the same place to do yoga. And I was thinking, you know, how could you just seed that? Could you print up, get, get a bunch of yoga mats printed up with the company logo on them and say, hey, if you forgot yours, it's always here because we sort of support this event. Just finding little ways to encourage those shared activities can kind of help with the overall organizational network. Individually, I think you can take a more intentional approach by making sure to, okay, I want to reach back out to a weaker, dormant tie once a week and I want to attempt to introduce two people in my network every single week. And you'll find that it's not a, it's not a, oh my gosh, it's Friday afternoon, I need to do this. But if you keep it top of mind, those opportunities will organically happen far more often. I've been attempting to kind of keep to that rhythm for about the last 18 months. Or so, and I almost always exceed it because it just kind of naturally happens when it's top of mind.

Well, David, this has been really helpful to me, so thank you.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

That's David Burkus. He's an associate professor at Oral Roberts University and author of the new book Friend of a Friend. You can find more of his work@hbr.org this episode was produced by Ramsey Kavaz and Kurt Nickish. Adam Buchholz is our audio product manager and we get technical help from Rob Eckhart. Thanks for listening to the hbr ideacast. I'm sarah green carmichael. Sam.