Mind the Gaps & Weak Links
What do you think of the person who’s always floating between groups, or who seems to entertain multiple projects and engagements? According to University of Chicago sociologist Ronald Burt, folks who bridge the gaps between groups: “…are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable.” His research indicates that “people who stand near the holes in a social structure are at higher risk of having good ideas.” (fascinating full 52-page paper here if you’re looking for some reading material)
This points to an interesting broader phenomenon: we tend to pay closer attention to our in-tact team members, to strong ties, to established working relationships, etc — naturally, they demand more of our bandwidth — when really, it’s weaker ties that often yield more profitable outcomes when it comes to innovation and creativity. Martin Ruef is a sociologist from Princeton who conducted a fascinating piece of research on over 700 entrepreneurs (“Strong Ties, Weak Ties, and Islands”). In it, he discovered, “social networks with maximum information entropy (completely heterogenous ties) encourage innovation at almost three times the rate of networks with no entropy (completely homogenous ties).” In plain English, this means that the composition of one’s network has a drastic impact on how innovative one’s outcomes are. This has profound implications for how we think about managing our time, and how broadly we cultivate relationships. (“Non-Sleazy Networking” might be worth revisiting…)
As just one example, I spoke to a very successful CEO (8x market cap growth in 5 years) who says he spends most days meeting with founders of start-ups and others outside the organization. “90% of the meetings are a complete waste of time — it’s probably the most inefficient process in the world — but that other 10%? Wow!” Cultivating weak ties. Identifying opportunities for growth that folks inside his organization likely see differently, if they see them at all.
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