To some extent, everyone knows the importance of networks, or guanxi. We all know from everyday experience that without knowing the right people, we may have a hard time getting a business permit, finding a client, making a sale, landing a job, and hiring the right employee. To say nothing of the personal stuff, like finding an ethical doctor, a competent lawyer, a piece of bargain property or a good nursery school for your kids. As Harvey Mackay (a popular speaker at many places including Harvard) says in his book Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty, “No matter how smart you are, no matter how talented, you can’t do it alone.”1
Besides anecdotal and everyday experience, a number of research studies conducted in the united states also confirm the importance of networks in business. In one study of 733 U.S. millionaires, nearly all the respondents (94 percent) rated “getting along with people (networking)” as either very important or important in accounting for their success. In the same survey, only 31 percent felt that “having a high IQ or superior intellect” was very important or important.2
For his classic 1974 “Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers,” sociologist Mark Granovetter (a Harvard Ph.D.) interviewed several hundred professional and technical workers in the United States about how they found their current jobs.3 Fifty-six percent of those he talked to found their jobs through a personal connection.
Networking is important not just for business. In their 1993 Harvard. Business Review article “How Bell Labs Creates Star Performers,” Robert Kelley and Judith Caplan wrote about the study they conducted of engineers at a major research laboratory to determine what attributes separated the 15–20 percent whom their peer group nominated as “stars” from the average performers.4 One of the most important attributes was found to be “rapport with a network of key people.” It was found that things went more smoothly for the stars because they put time into cultivating good relationships with people who could help them in their careers. This contradicts the general belief (especially as held by many parents) that scientific or academic superstars need only excel in their specialty and that networking is unimportant. In today’s world, as Harvey Mackey notes, “Networking may not be rocket science, but studies prove it works for rocket scientists.”5 They need to network to:
In fact, many people state that the key reason to go to Harvard Business School is not to learn from the classes but to get into the network of HBS alumni. A 2007 report, “The Small World of Investing,”6 studied 85 percent of the total assets under management in the United States from 1990 to 2006 and presented the following findings:
Therefore, it is not surprising that many people go to HBS not for the classroom learning but for the networking. Networking includes not just people met while attending HBS but also the huge network of successful people who have attended or will attend the school and who appear at Harvard-organized or other events there. Personally, because of the alumni network, I have met with the president of Chanel, the head of the Economic Development Board in Singapore, the president of Tiffany’s, the chairman of the Hong Kong Airport Authority, and other notables of business and government.7
The key to a successful network is variety and breath. In the job survey mentioned earlier, Granovetter found that of those who used a contact to find a job, less than 17 percent would describe that contact as a close friend. The rest would describe the contact more as an acquaintance.
Why is this? Granovetter believes that when it comes to finding out about new opportunities and information such as jobs, acquaintances (or “weak ties,” as he calls them) are actually more important than close friends (“strong ties”). This is because your “strong ties” usually occupy pretty much the same world as you do. They most likely have a family and education background, social circle, profession, life experience, lifestyle, religion, and geographic location similar to yours. Therefore, you probably already know most of what they know. Your acquaintances, on the other hand, occupy different worlds. They are more likely to know something that you do not. Granovetter called this “the strength of weak ties.” Abroad network with many acquaintances hence represents a source of social power. The more acquaintances you have, the more powerful you are. Acquaintances give you access to opportunities and worlds you wouldn’t otherwise have an easy way to reach.
HBS teaches you not to discriminate as you build your network. There are good reasons to avoid the assumption that a junior person is a meaningless person. After all, Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world now, was a college dropout. Many successful people who came to speak at HBS had a modest family background, mediocre education, and have held some very junior positions early on in their career. Some have failed miserably in their early career, but all ended up wildly successful. Treating everybody with dignity and courtesy is not just good form. It is a good strategy.
Having variety and breadth does not mean you just aim to maximize the number of people in your network. You are not really acquainted unless the person remembers you and remembers something about you. The key is to be acquainted enough so the person can be counted on to remember you if you call or when appropriate occasions and opportunities arise.
The most successful networkers are referred to by some as “connectors.”8 The idea of connectors was most profoundly illustrated by an experiment that is very much related to the now well-known concept of “six degrees of separation.” In the late 1960s, Harvard social psychologist Stanley Milgram did an experiment with a chain letter. He got the names of 160 people who lived in Omaha, a city in the U.S. Midwest, and mailed each of them a packet. Each packet had the name of the same stockbroker located near Boston, a city on the U.S. East Coast. The people were asked to write their name on the packet and then send it on to a contact they thought could get the packet to the stockbroker, or at least closer to the stockbroker. For example, the person might send it to a friend who lived in Boston or a friend in stock brokering near Massachusetts. The friend would be instructed to do the same until the packet arrived at the stockbroker. After the 160 packets reached the stockbroker, Milgram found that most of the packets reached the stockbroker after changing hands five or six times. This experiment is often quoted as one of the evidence of the concept of six degrees of separation—that everyone is linked to everyone else in six steps or less.
To me, the more important point demonstrated by Milgram’s experiment is that of the six degrees of separation, some are much more important than the others. When Milgram analyzed the names on the packets, he found that the same three names appeared on half of the packets. These three people were the key to getting the packets to the stockbroker. Milgram’s experiment tells that the six degrees of separation does not mean everyone is linked to everyone else in six random steps or less. The experiment says that a very small number of people, like these three, “know everyone”—and the rest of us are linked to the world through this small number of people.
These special few are the “connectors.” Connectors make many friends because they see possibilities. While most people choose those they would like to know and often reject the people they do not think are “worth knowing,” the connectors become acquainted with them all.
So the ideal is to become a connector. However, if you do not have the energy, social skills, or natural temperament to become a connector, the next best thing is get to know the connectors.
Since the idea is to have the broadest network possible, the key is to network wherever possible. School, friends’ dinner parties, church, and special interest classes (yoga, Japanese, whatever interests you) are obvious and effective social places to meet people and build networks. When interviewed for this book, the connectors I know from HBS suggested two additional places: family friends and outgoing colleagues.
Many connectors I know from HBS recalled that the breadth of their networks got a kick start or a real boost through their family’s connections. By their own initiative, at the urging of their parents, or just by chance, these people met up early in their career with a close family contact. Examples include the longtime family solicitor, a successful uncle, and their parents’ best friend—someone close to the family personally or professionally, old, experienced in business, and possibly already a connector. It is effective, as Harvey Mackay explains,
Why? Because most so-called gurus and old fuds like me are downright flattered when someone asks their opinion—on anything. . . .
We have a network, and inevitably, it’s going to evaporate. . . . Still, we like being a player, and one way to do that is to. . . offer a little godlike advice to whoever will listen.
Make an appointment to see that “old friend of Dad’s.” Of course, you are not going to ask for a job, that would be too crude and obvious. . . . You want some career advice. Believe me, you’ll get it. At length. . . . Once you’ve gotten it, that old family retainer will have an investment in your future. Your failure would reflect on them, on the quality of their advice, and on their continued relevance.9
Another obvious source of network members is your colleagues, including ex-colleagues. Your colleagues have friends and you can network with them too. Many people forget or underestimate the power of people who have recently left the company. Just because they have moved on (or been made to move on) is no reason to give up your relationships with them. In fact, there is a reasonably good chance they will become even more valuable members of your network. They will make new connections, which may well be connections you do not have. An example is an ex-colleague of mine who got fired because he was not performing well as a consultant. He was not good in analytics and he often made significant quantitative errors. Most people in the firm had little respect for his consulting abilities. Many people distanced themselves from him or made fun of him when he left. But he changed industries and went on to become a very senior executive at a major global manufacturing firm, where sales skills and market instinct proved much more important than analytics. Now most consulting firms are trying very hard to court him to become their client!
In China, many people equate networking and guanxi with expensive giftgiving which is indeed one way to network, but it does not always work, and it is unlikely to as time goes on. As China develops, regulators will likely enact more effective anticorruption laws, and already gift-giving cannot be practiced in many developed countries. In addition, broad networks with many weak ties make expensive gifts impractical, and in any case a relationship that depends on gifts is fragile and unreliable—after all, someone else can always snatch the relationship by more expensive gifts.
To many at HBS, networking means getting to know people through conversations and communications. There are various degrees, from casual acquaintance to best friends. But the minimum threshold is that the people in your network remember you and like you. Many people find it difficult to network with a wide range of strangers, especially with strangers they neither go to school nor work with. What to say to start a conversation? How to keep a conversation going? What happens after the first conversation? Don’t worry. It is natural to feel uneasy. Except for the few natural-born connectors, networking is not easy; it does take a lot of effort. This is especially true for people who are more introverted than extroverted. But the good news is that networking is like playing golf or driving a car—the more you do it, the better you get at it, and the more fun you have doing it.
HBS does not have a class on how to network. But when you are in an environment where most people try very hard to network, you can quickly observe who is good and who is not, what works and what doesn’t. By observing the best networkers, I’ve seen five key elements in the formula for successful networking: interest in the other person, a sense of humor, the right attitude, consistent follow-up, and reciprocity. Some people use all five, some use just one or two.
It is worth mentioning that while there is no HBS class on networking (at least not when I was there), the last on the list, reciprocity, is very much highlighted in “negotiation” and in “power and influence” classes. The same concept is also very powerful for networking.
The first element is interest in others. Remember: me, me, me, is dull, dull, dull. As Dale Carnegie, author of the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years trying to get other people interested in you . . . to be interesting, be interested.”10 This is just another way of saying Harvey Mackay’s famous line, “The way to make a friend is to be one.”11
One key way to show an interest is to talk about what the other person is excited and happy to talk about. Everyone has a favorite topic. These days in the Harvard community, it is usually family, kids, golf, sports, wine, ballroom dancing, gym, travel, or mutual friends. Once you’ve identified such a topic, take an interest and ask questions about it. Try to choose a topic you are truly interested in so you do not have to fake your interest. Ask why. Ask about your acquaintance’s experience. Try to avoid closed (yes-or-no) questions. Listen and respond instead of talking too much about yourself.
The second key element to the formula of successful networking is a sense of humor. Good networkers often use a sense of humor on themselves. They tell funny or embarrassing stories about themselves. A sense of humor on oneself has three advantages: laughing relaxes other people—you will not risk offending other people because you are not making fun of them, and when you make fun of yourself, people feel that you are open to them. But humor, like everything else, does not work when it is forced and unnatural. So it is not necessary to be humorous if it makes you uncomfortable. Do not try to interrupt a conversation to tell an unrelated story about yourself. Also, try not to preface your story by saying, “Let me tell you something very funny.” This will set up an expectation and would be embarrassing if your listeners do not find it funny.
The third element is the right attitude, to persevere even if it is not comfortable for you in the beginning. You have to convince yourself you really want to do it. Every time you give up an opportunity to meet someone, you miss an opportunity to build your network. It may also motivate you to remember that the more you do it, the easier it will become.
Once you have a nice first conversation with someone, try to follow-up so the person does not just forget the encounter. Short notes yield long results. Many successful people, including Lou Holtz (the Notre Dame football coach), Harvey Mackay, and Wheelock Whitney (who built one of the most successful U.S. brokerage firms) are all masters of short notes. “I want you to know how much I enjoyed our meeting (or your gift, your hospitality, or whatever)”; “Congratulations on your promotion (or acquisition, new job, new baby).” The notes are all handwritten, not written by a secretary. They are mailed no later than the day after the meeting or as soon as the special news arrives. It takes only a minute but it shows you really care about the relationship. It also reinforces the relationship. You will find most HBS people do the same thing, though many of them now do it through e-mail. Lastly, these notes should not be just after the first encounter or for major events. It should be done once in a while so that the relationship does not just die off.
One step beyond follow-up notes is to extend favors so you can collect later. This is often referred to as the “Law of Reciprocity,” which demands that every favor must someday be repaid. Of course, this law cannot be scientifically proven or strictly enforced. There is often no material penalty for not repaying a favor. But it is very much a sacred unwritten law that most people feel it is dishonorable to break.
Favors are most effective when the following conditions apply:
Favors should only be given at the right time and to the right people. Professor Kathleen K. Reardon, a leading authority on persuasion and negotiation and a subject advisor for the Harvard Business Essentials publication Power, Influence, and Persuasion, warns, “If you do too many things for people too often, favors cease to have significance, or may even become offputting,”12 and “Take care that your generosity is not being exploited by people who have no intention of repaying it.”13
A favor can be something as simple as giving a ride that a person cannot easily obtain at that time and place. It can be advising a younger person on college applications or getting interviews at your firm. It can be helping to obtain difficult-to-get concert or sports tickets. It can be introducing somebody to the right contact for professional, personal, medical, or other matters. It can also be a very big effort like championing somebody’s election campaign or saving someone from getting fired.
Besides practicing the five key elements, you can also improve your networking techniques by observing and emulating good networkers around you. Plato said each thing or idea has a perfect form. While we can never achieve the ideal form, we can attempt to come as close as we can by observing and emulating the characteristics of the ideal form. This ancient Greek advice bears some resemblance to what is preached by Anthony Robbins. Robbins is considered by many to be the U.S. leader in the science of peak performance.
Robbins has helped heads of state, Olympic and professional athletes, movie stars, and children to achieve their full potential. Some HBS graduates are Robbins followers. One of the key techniques Robbins teaches is improvement through observing and emulating the characteristics of successful people.
In the simplest form, this is what you do: Ask yourself, “Who is the most ideal networker I know? What would that person do in this situation?” Look among your friends and acquaintances, you are bound to find at least one good networker. Then you try to observe what this networker says and does. You then pretend you are that person and emulate. If you are able to do that, you can reinvent yourself and possibly become a connector!
Notes
1. Harvey Mackay, Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 11.
2. Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Mind (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2001), 38.
3. For an updated report on this work, see Mark Granovetter, Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
4. Robert Kelley and Judith Caplan, “How Bell Labs Creates Star Performers,” Harvard Business Review (July 1993).
5. Harvey Mackay, Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 11.
6. This study was done by Andrea Frazzini, assistant professor at the University of Chicago, Lauren Cohen from Yale and Christopher Malloy from the London Business School.
7. These were their positions when I met them. Some have changed jobs since then.
8. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point (New York: Little, Brown, 2002).
9. Harvey Mackay, Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 19.
10. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (New York: Pocket Books, 1998) . (Originally published 1936.)
11. Harvey Mackay, Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 11
12. Jennifer McFarland, “Four Bulletproof Strategies for Handling Office Politics,” Harvard Management Update (May 2001), 2.
13. Harvard Business Essentials, Power, Influence, and Persuasion (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005), 26.