We have all heard about social and business networking. Have you ever wondered who are the most networked of all? Well, Prabhakaran and the LTTE use certain methods learnt from Chilean guerilla fighters or Maoists in Nepal run their show based on the inner workings of Peru’s ‘Shining Path’ movement. How do you think this happens? Why does a technologically well-equipped US forces fail to nab Osama after homing in on through satellites in space? The tactical reasons apart, there is one underpinning common character of all such rebels or renegades. They network hugely, much better than what you and me have ever done, despite our awareness of it and possessing the technology to make it work. Because they network better, they are able to read the movements of their foes better, so much so that the best of technology cannot match it. One plausible reason could be that, for them lives depend upon networking. Network or perish, that’s their mantra. For us, the criticality isn’t as much and that’s why the networks are perhaps inconsistent. Does that mean we are gravitating towards their mantra in the future?
It is fascinating how every era brings out a different character/facet of man. In the ancient era, it was his desire to travel, conquer and a natural instinct to prove that he was the fittest to survive. As he grew to become a more scientifically evolved and emotionally stable being during the age of renaissance he began to discover, invent and explore the planet he inherited. The last few centuries, the world wars and the subsequent cold war artificially enclosed man within boundaries – political alliances, ideologies, walls, north-south divides, racial segregation and military coalitions. Then came a watershed turn. Man discovered technology. Suddenly and ironically, it took him a few thousand years to realize that people who were like him – in thoughts, habits, and views inhabited the earth. As he grew to create a universal language of technology, he called it the world wide web and realized that reaching out to others, establishing connections and sharing commonalities was the most fascinating thing he ever did. He formalized and popularized a simple concept that was developed by sociologists earlier. Networking went outdoors from human experiment laboratories to establish itself as the mantra of the present and the future.
Observe the table below, which depicts the progressive evolution of man towards connecting with his fellow beings and use of growing technology as a tool in doing so.
|
Period |
Tool of network |
|
Early 1900s |
Postal service |
|
1950s |
Telegraph |
|
1960s |
Telephone |
|
1970s |
Trunk calls on telephone |
|
1980s |
STD dialing on telephone
and Fax |
|
1990s |
Internet
and email |
|
Late 1990s |
SMS text
messages on mobiles |
|
2000s |
Teleconferencing as a universal tool |
How do we describe this phenomenon of networking? Is it just a social arrangement that enables people to reach out to others? Consider this: by definition, an economic system is a social network. So is a nation state. So is a community. So is a company. The underlying feature being the existence of a common ground. This common ground is based upon the purpose of this network. For instance people who form a network from the same community do so because of the interest resulting from common themes of language, customs, familiarity, psychological security etc. Have you ever wondered why grapevine is the most effective method of communication in a large company? Consider, for a moment, how many things you manage to perform better through references and leads from friends and acquaintances. Right from deciding about the right hairdresser to the efficient car mechanic to movie reviews to job switches to career crossovers to arranged marriages, networking buys you a kind of confidence that drives you confidently forward. So, if networking enables us to acquire actionable information that we value so much, does it establish our increasing dependency upon people we know? Yes and No. Yes, it helps build bridges to other people and no, it does not make us completely dependent; instead it helps us make informed decisions.
History
Where did all this business all start? To begin with, recall how kings in olden days made allies during wars or the news about the beauty of the Queen of Sheeba or Cleopatra reached distant lands in an era when technology didn’t exist. Networking and information sharing were fantastic influencing tools that fed on each other. More information that was shared led to more vigorous human interaction.
Networking has always existed in history. Man has only discovered its universality much later. This realization, at least in this eventful century began to happen in 1967, when the socio-psychologist Stanley Milligram conducted an experiment that tried to test an unresolved hypothesis that the world, viewed as an enormous network of social connections is actually a small world. It meant that any person in this world could be reached through a network of people, acquaintances and contacts.
He wanted to show that even when you didn’t know Sanjay who knows you, you would still know Arjun who would know Gita who in turn would know Rajan who knows Sanjay who knows you, thereby establishing a chain from you to Sanjay, who you don’t know directly. Stanley Milligram wanted to find out whether there was any theory behind it and how many people were there in this chain?
Milligram devised an innovative message passing technique to test what came to be known as the small world method. He gave letters to a group of people, picked at random, to be sent to a person in another city who was unknown to this group. The rider was that these people could only write to those with whom they were on first name terms. There were many who sent the mails to others, somehow thinking that they would reach their target. When the result arrived, he saw that on an average it took 6 links or steps for the letters to reach this person. Therefore this phenomenon came to known as 6 degrees of separation. Duncan Watts, in his famous book called 6degrees, quotes John Guare – “Everybody in this planet is separated by only six other people.” Watts talks about the network chain you can build up. For instance if you write down the number of people you knew…you could go on till 100 or even more. Imagine each of those 100 people knowing another 100. The chain would fan out in many directions and by the second tier, the total number of people who comprise your network could include a poor Kurdish volunteer who went to Harvard or a man who works the Texas ranch of the US President or a bomber from Jaffna!
Way back in 1973, Kranovetter discovered the theory of strong results through weak ties. This meant that for instance, when you apply for a job, you might get it because of some casual line dropped to someone who’s not connected with you. He said that very few times do established contacts help. Kranovetter’s hypothesis said that this is because the number of people you and your friends know would have many common guys, thereby reducing a) the number of additional people you know and b) reducing the probability of success. On the other hand, a casual acquaintance can spring a surprise, just because the people he knows are different from the ones you know and therefore his network excludes your unsuccessful (in this specific context) networks.
Two decades later came the information revolution and networking erupted like a sombre, sparsely populated, expensive dining place exploding into hurly-burly McDonalds. Thomas Friedman writes in Lexus and the Olive Tree that this is an era of connectivity and the future will signify speed of thought, information and speed of intellect. To say that Friedman’s assessments are true is a foregone conclusion. And therefore easy to conclude that the path taken to reach optimum sharing of thought, function of intellect can only be through networking and info-leveraging.
Having seen the theory of networking and its evolution, we ask ourselves why networking is required at all. Let’s rummage through its advantages:
• Increases understanding between different perspectives, paradigms and value-concepts.
• Builds channels of communication
• Enhances intercultural competence of members in a group
• Democratizes interface between people
• Builds relations based upon commonalities
• Builds identities as one refers to being inclusive or exclusive of a group
• Creates mobility due to increase in risk taking activity
• Faster track for flow of information
• Enhances the concept of humanity as people help each other
• Establish faith, trust and integrity as brand building tools.
As a corporate professional what do you get from learning to network?
• You'll save money on advertising, since you'll get more business from referrals
• You'll get more leads, opportunities and make better deals.
• You'll develop effective and permanent business relationships.
• You will gain doable information about career opportunities.
The list is endless.
Lets address the next set of questions that people usually ask. How should I network? I am not exactly into socialising. So what do? I do I am introverted. I am uncommunicative. What do I do?
Development of personality
Researchers have observed some interesting differences in specific aspects of personality of people from western countries vis a vis those from Asia. People in Northern Europe and the US lay more emphasis upon individual personality growth. The culture in Asian countries focuses on emotional dependency upon extended family and friends circles which breed natural cooperation than a sense of competition. Asian cultures encourage an "interdependent view of the self". This view focuses more on the basic bonds between people, and how each connection relates to each person. Parents may teach their children that they can rely on family and friends. It affects the character of our social interaction too. Asians mix easily with people of similar tastes, but find it difficult to break the group periphery to network outside their comfort sphere. On the other hand, westerners are generally more independent and hence likely to be more at ease in cultivating networks beyond their known sphere of people.
Break Barriers
The aspect of personality may seem to be an inherent barrier to an Asian in the pursuit of networking. However, if we examine it closely, Asians have indeed broken open these ceilings. The term networking may have been coined in the west, but the phenomenon is entirely Asian. As we see from the preceding para, warmth, cooperation, and congeniality are embedded features of culture here. It is these strengths that we need to capitalise upon, to network better. When Indra Nooyi declares that she is so secure in herself that she needn’t be an American to play in the corporate life and yet retains a reputation for being one of the most powerful women in the world who’s known for her business networking deals, she proves the point about the need to use to our inherent strengths in networking.
How do we measure the effect of networks in our organisations?
Today, as networks become an inalienable part of our corporate functioning, social network analysis has become a scientific indicator of the mapping and qualitative measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups and information processing entities.The various factors that determine the effectiveness of a network are a) the degree to which it is dependent on its crucial players, the closeness and the level of communication flow between the different players, the role of the peripheral players in the network and the ability of the network to network further.
Could the Internet be used to establish networks of trust across conventional borders? Can the Internet be a tool for better and more implementable interaction? For a project in California, could you use such a system to find an engineer in Chennai whose experience is directly relevant to the project? Maybe the guys in the project have someone whose brother’s from IIT Chennai. Can the internet connect faster through such linkages? Will it help if it had a community of Chennai IITians on the web? Networking today has blurred boundaries even as it creates web communities as reference points for interaction. These communities network to create larger communities and the geometrical progression continues. Networking with the help of cutting edge technology will indeed drive the way we look at the world. It is the idea of building bridges to the rest of its ilk that drives community sites like
linkedin,
6bridges and
ryze. And ironically and interestingly, we are moving towards the mantra that the rebel world has set up for us – Network or perish.
Write to us and tell us what you think of networking. Tell us how good or dirty you feel about networking! See you soon!
Sources:
http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html
Duncan Watts – 6Degrees of Separation: The Science Of A Connected Age. Read review of the book at http://www.amazon.com/exec
Thomas Friedman – The Lexus and The Olive Tree. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail
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