My work with Eric has contributed significantly to the success we have experienced at Castle Contracting.
The Strength of Weak Ties
Paradoxically, often the strongest business relationships are not strong personal friendships. In his sociological study Getting a Job, Mark Granovetter interviewed 300 professional and technical workers from the Boston suburbs about their employment history. Of this 300, 150 got their jobs through someone they knew. Of this 150, 120 did not know well the person who got them in the door. Instead, they had a casual but friendly acquaintance that paid off in terms of getting a job.
Essentially, Granovetter found that while most people get their jobs through people they know, they usually are not people whom they know well. Granovetter coined the phrase “the strength of weak ties” to describe this phenomenon.
Performance Principle: Sometimes people with whom you have weak ties are more valuable in business than people you have known forever. It seems strange, but I have found this to be true. It is often our friendly acquaintances – not our family and close friends – who are the best sources of leads to jobs, clients, and other business success. While the reasons for this may be many, the implication is simple. We all need to expand our business network beyond our close social network in order to develop our careers and our businesses.
Questions to Consider:
- What is one group that you can begin attending regularly where you can cultivate valuable new business relationships?
- Who are ten business contacts that you can invite to coffee or lunch in the next few months? How could they become more valuable contacts for you?
- Who are 5-10 people in your network with whom you invest a lot of time but who have never been able to help you in your business or career? As friends they may be great, but as business contacts it is time to quit convincing yourself they are valuable contacts.
For this and other insights into social phenomenon, see The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. 2002.
