How to build a stronger professional network
Your network is your future
Unless you are naturally very social, you probably don’t enjoy having to meet a lot of new people. It is, in fact, our natural state to be cautious around strangers. Most animals are — try petting a Zebra! Why should humans be any different? Not that long ago (on an evolutionary time scale) meeting new people used to be Really Dangerous Business. You could get killed or captured and enslaved. But we don’t live in lawless tribes anymore, modern life is pretty safe. And while the danger level of meeting new people has dropped, the importance of having a strong network has only increased. To be successful in an age where all kinds of specialised knowledge can simply be googled, it’s people you need to know in order to succeed. Like they say: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
Your brain doesn’t want you to be social
For many people the new role of networks has become a major obstacle. It’s hard to meet people, and that is largely our brain’s fault. Whenever we meet someone new, it’s our “caveman brain” —what scientists call the Default Mode Network— that gets to make the call: Is this person a friend or an enemy? In the time of hunter gatherers, when population densities were way lower than they are today, meeting a potential new friend used to be rare event. Meeting a potential enemy much less so. That’s why the Default Mode Network’s default mode is that any stranger is probably an enemy. And that’s why it turns on your defensive feelings, like shyness, distrust, and fear. What the Default Mode Network doesn’t realise is that the danger has basically disappeared: real enemies (the type that tries to kill you) are fortunately very rare these days.
Is your caveman brain stopping you from being social? (Photo: Jeremy Bishop — Unsplash)
Since a friendship can only form when both people manage to fully overcome their default mode, which takes time, making new friends can be a slow process. But the good news is: you don’t need to make a lot of friends to build a stronger network. You don’t need your network to consist of friends, and you don’t need that many contacts either. When it comes to having a strong network, what you really need is a couple of good acquaintances, properly spread out.
Acquaintances: hard to spell but worth your time
Acquaintances, in fact, are some of your best allies in life (and this is mutual). It’s been studied extensively by scientists. Harvard professor Mark Granovetter famously discovered the effect in the 1970’s: his first paper about it, “The Strength of Weak Ties”, is the most cited paper in the field of sociology. What he found is that whenever you look at big, even life changing opportunities, more often than not it was an acquaintance that played a key role. Not a friend, and not your family. By now we have decades of research that back up this finding.
For me, it’s not just theory, it’s real life. I’m not an especially social person, but even so, acquaintances have determined almost every major event in my life: Practically every job I’ve ever had has came to me through an acquaintance. An acquaintance introduced me to my wife (thanks Adrien!). I’ve moved around a lot, all over the world, but I’ve never had to search for an apartment: acquaintances have helped me out every time. And they’ve given me recommendations for more great books, movies, restaurants, and holiday destinations than I can count. I would not be who I am today without them, and all I had to do was make some small talk.
So what makes a good acquaintance? First off, you need to be aware of a big misconception: Your network’s value does not come from who you can get to do you a favour. Favours are nice (both getting and doing), but they’re a fringe benefit. Why? Because your network has a much more valuable resource: knowledge. The best thing you can do with your network is getting to know what other people know, and to make that knowledge work in your advantage. And because people love talking about what they know, this is easy and usually 100% free.
It’s also important to realise that you don’t need to like your new acquaintances very much, especially at first (but that obviously does help). What you do need is for them to have a different view of the word, and a different social network than yours. This is also what sets your acquaintances apart from your friends: your social circle and your experiences will be largely shared with your friends. As a result, the odds that your friends have valuable knowledge that you could use is just a lot lower than with people you are less close to.
Making new acquaintances is actually really easy
So where do you make new acquaintances? The short answer is: don’t be picky. Ideally you want your network to spread out like a web, covering as much of society as possible. You want your acquaintances to be as different from each other as possible, so that you can tap into the largest base of knowledge available. So try to make acquaintances that are different from each other along as many axes as you can realise: age, gender, income, education level, nationality, etc. Scientific research back this up: diversity truly is an added value.
Admittedly, building a diverse network is not the easiest thing to achieve, because you have to be in a position to meet this many different people in the first place. The best advice is just to be random. Talk to people in places where you have a natural opening to do so: at the schoolyard, walking your dog, on your next holiday. Whatever works best for you.
One place stands out, though. You probably have an excellent and diverse pool of acquaintances just waiting for you to strengthen your professional network with: your colleagues. Especially in larger organisations, your colleagues outside of your direct sphere are your best source of professional knowledge. In fact, at XPNDR we are so convinced that colleagues are the key to a great network, that we built an app to help you with that.
How many possible new acquaintances could you find at work? (Photo: Abbe Sublett — Unsplash)
Another great source of acquaintances is old acquaintances. Sounds paradoxical, but it really isn’t. Just because someone was your acquaintance a couple of years ago, that doesn’t mean you’re still in contact, does it? And they probably have some new knowledge you could benefit from. Restarting an old acquaintance relation is about as easy as sending a short email or message on WhatsApp or LinkedIn. You’ll be surprised how happy most people are to catch up. (And don’t worry about the few who don’t respond! Even a world class networker like Elon Musk gets disappointed occasionally…)
How to be a great acquaintance
Once you’ve made a new acquaintance, how do you get at this knowledge? You have to work a bit to get to it, but overall it’s pretty easy. Here are the key ideas:
Make small talk, but not too small. Talk about each other’s experiences, especially on topics that are relevant for the quality of your network. So if you want to strengthen your professional network, that means talking about work related things. Talking about dogs, football, or holiday destinations is good fun, but if your aim is a stronger professional network, this will probably not help you with your goal. Instead you need to take an interest in the aspects of their life that are relevant to you right now, which are probably work related.
Avoid talking about specialised knowledge. The kind of knowledge you can get from an acquaintance is different from the kind you can get from a book. Whatever you can get from a book, Wikipedia, or ChatGPT is usually not worth trying to get from a random person. Instead you want to focus on things that they know that you could not possibly discover without them. Roughly speaking, there are two types of knowledge that you should go after: Knowledge about their personal experiences (e.g. What is it like to be the youngest person on the team? What was it like growing up in China?) and knowledge about their network (What is your boss like? Who is in charge of data at your department?).
It’s a conversation, not an interview. See where the conversation takes you. General curiosity tends to have a much higher knowledge payoff than forcing questions on people. When people are enthusiastic about a topic, they will have much more relevant things to say about it.
Remembering is key. Sometimes you learn something that is immediately useful, but more often it may take a while before knowledge pays off. That is why you need to put some effort into remembering both your new acquaintance and what you learned from them. Some people are better at this than others, but it can help if you make some notes, for instance in a diary. Having their contact info also helps. Try to get a phone number or email if you can, but don’t force it.
Reciprocate. Your new acquaintance isn’t the only one who has valuable knowledge to offer, so do you. Give them the opportunity to take some of your knowledge. Even the dullest person in the world is better than the best computer at turning random information into new ideas. Tell your new acquaintance some interesting tidbits and odds are that they will come up with some surprising associations that will benefit you as well.
Realise that your boredom isn’t real. The main objection people have against small talk is that they find it boring. It isn’t actually. Boredom is a defence mechanism in your brain’s Default Mode Network to protect you against wasting your energy. But if you have a fridge full of food, and since you’re actually trying to network, conserving that energy is probably not a huge issue for you, so it’s time to turn off that default setting. You can simply do this by deciding that you’re not bored. Yes, this can be a conscious decision, the Default Mode Network is easy to override. If someone is talking about something that’s boring to you, just realise that it’s not boring to them. Ask yourself why not? Better yet, ask them what they find fascinating about it. You’ll be surprised how interesting their answers will turn out to be, once you’ve chosen to turn off your defence mechanisms!
Now start getting acquainted!
That’s about all there is to it. With a few key insights you too can have an incredibly effective network, both professionally and privately. And although you don’t get to choose what the rewards of this will be, they will come with time, and they will probably be worth it. All it requires is a little effort, and few key ideas:
Friends and family are obviously great, but don’t underestimate the value of your acquaintances.
Networks are about knowledge, not favours. Get as much knowledge as you can. It will be useful someday.
Your colleagues are probably the best people to start including in your network, especially if you work in a large organisation. And if you don’t, trust the power of randomness.
Don’t rely on your Default Mode Network, it’s probably preventing you from making meaningful connections. Choose to not be shy, negative, or bored. And most of all, choose to be open to new connections.
If you want to know more about the science behind acquaintances and networks, read our XPNDR White Paper (#1). And if you want to start putting it into practice but you’re unsure where to start, how about you start with me? Send me an email and we’ll get acquainted!
Shoot me an email at tim@xpndr.nl. I’ll get back to you!