The Art of Manliness - #403： A Better Way to Network

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast networking you're

00:00:19.360 told that something you need to do to advance your professional life but the tactics most

00:00:22.340 networking professionals suggest either don't work or make you feel icky and awkward I guess

00:00:27.040 he argues that you don't have to go to networking events or hand out business cards left and right

00:00:30.800 to network effectively you just need to realize you're already embedded in a really effective

00:00:34.420 network right now his name is David Berkus he's a professor of leadership a sought-after public

00:00:38.420 speaker and the author of the book friend of a friend understanding the hidden networks that

00:00:42.160 can transform your life and your career today on the show David shares what's wrong with most

00:00:45.920 traditional networking tactics and why they're not really effective we then dig into the power

00:00:49.500 of the network you already belong to David explains what dormant weak ties are why it can be beneficial

00:00:54.020 to silo yourself off from others sometimes how to balance siloing with connecting and how to turn

00:00:58.860 work friends into friend friends and friend friends into work friends lots of great counterintuitive

00:01:03.180 insights in this episode after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is slash friend of a

00:01:07.960 friend and David joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:10.780 all right David Berkus welcome to the show thank you so much for having me so you just came out

00:01:30.700 with a book called friend of a friend there's lots of of a friend of a friend of a friend there but a

00:01:35.780 friend of a friend understanding the hidden networks that can transform your life and your career it's

00:01:40.660 a book about networking but as I was reading this and we were talking before the show this is a book

00:01:45.520 about networking that's not like other books about networking that I've read start off like how do you

00:01:52.420 think what's the what's the common approach that people take towards networking whenever they put out

00:01:58.020 a blog or a book on the topic what's the typical approach so I mean fundamentally I think a lot of people

00:02:04.460 will take they'll take networking and they'll define it really as trying to meet strangers trying to

00:02:10.500 meet new people trying to run up the count on their LinkedIn connections or their Facebook friends or

00:02:14.680 etc and I think most of us think of you know that that weird awkward unstructured room maybe it's a

00:02:20.500 cocktail party maybe it's a sort of mixer hour before a conference or whatever and then like you know

00:02:25.640 like like you said they end up kind of feeling okay this is icky and weird because we take a lot of

00:02:30.600 people's advice on how to work that room and then it's it's their advice and it might work for them and

00:02:36.060 then we try and apply it to us and then we feel inauthentic and sleazy and weird like no wonder

00:02:41.380 you're trying to be someone else in that moment I mean fundamentally like advice is great especially

00:02:45.960 if you can get it from a lot of different people but if you just read a blog post and then you're

00:02:49.880 trying to take that those insights and turn them into the perfect elevator pitch you're gonna feel

00:02:54.380 like someone else because you're literally being someone else in that moment yeah I mean I've found in

00:02:58.940 my experience those that stuff like the typical networking stuff mixers cocktail hours you know

00:03:04.080 pressing flesh right like it's not very effective either yeah no I mean we and it's it's not all

00:03:11.340 that effective maybe one person out of a hundred is going to be useful if we're defining useful as

00:03:15.680 that sort of immediate way that I can help them or they can help me type of thing in instead of just

00:03:21.300 thinking like oh this is a new person and I'm a good human being and so now I have this connection

00:03:25.780 and over time I'm going to continue to increase that connection that might work out but that's

00:03:29.700 fundamentally I think a lot of people leave that room after doing that I love that term pressing

00:03:33.460 flesh right shaking hands kissing babies whatever you want to call it they leave that room and

00:03:37.380 because they didn't find that one in a hundred they think the whole thing you know was a waste of time

00:03:41.820 and truthfully the whole thing probably was because there's a lot of research that shows that people

00:03:46.060 if you actually go to a networking event or any sort of unstructured time a meetup or anything like

00:03:50.780 that you spend way more time talking to people you already know than meeting new people anyway so

00:03:56.080 not only are you not applying all of that advice for how to you know wow and dazzle new people that

00:04:01.140 you've just met you're also not spending a lot of time and it's not you it's the unstructured nature

00:04:06.300 of the event in general all right so how is your approach that you took with friend of a friend

00:04:11.380 towards network and and we're talking broadly speaking because we'll get into the details

00:04:15.680 how is that different from the typical approach towards of networking yeah so my my big idea is that

00:04:21.220 we don't we need to sort of redefine it it's not about meeting new people to me it's not that you

00:04:26.500 can grow a network you don't even have a network you exist inside of one already you know all of us

00:04:33.080 exist inside of a network whether it be our community our industry etc and so if that's true

00:04:37.900 then maybe the right approach is to figure out how networks work and so for the last two years

00:04:42.180 i've been reading kind of basically every major study in the world of network science it's about a

00:04:46.700 60 year old scientific discipline and trying to find the things that are sort of universally true

00:04:51.800 about all networks because those are the things that are most likely going to be true

00:04:55.300 for you in your situation and i think people more more so than needing to learn the perfect way to

00:05:00.920 introduce themselves etc need to understand the science behind the network they're already in

00:05:05.400 and then they can act accordingly in a way that feels authentic to them gotcha okay i like that idea

00:05:10.000 recognize the network you already have don't you don't have to go out and reinvent the wheel

00:05:13.700 because you already have the wheel it's exactly right in fact there's at one point in the book we

00:05:17.380 even say that if you don't like going to those events you don't like meeting totally new people etc

00:05:21.340 you can actually sort of you can respond i don't want to use the term build your network

00:05:25.160 because i just said you shouldn't use it but you can actually sort of grow your connections and

00:05:29.020 nurture connections and meet new people all through existing contacts and through working

00:05:32.980 your way through the network you have you don't actually ever have to go to one of those events

00:05:36.500 ever again and you can still have you know a thriving network that you're able to help and is able to help

00:05:41.780 you i like that so let's talk about you know recognizing the network that we already have

00:05:46.240 so the chapter you talk about weak ties what are weak ties and how why are they more powerful than

00:05:52.880 strong ties so i guess you have to define what is a weak tie what is a strong tie and why are weak ties

00:05:57.300 better yeah so if we think about a network as that sort of three-dimensional object right circles and

00:06:02.860 lines connecting other circles if and if you're listening to this and you're like i have no idea what

00:06:06.840 he's talking about run a google image search real quick for the word network you'll see a bunch of

00:06:10.400 clip art it's exactly what we're talking about right so we think about that they often use space

00:06:15.980 how close to another person you are as a marker for how strong the relationship is right and so strong

00:06:21.000 ties would be those people that are very close to you in the network they're your close friends

00:06:24.940 they're your social structure they're usually a lot of your family members etc and they're really

00:06:29.440 important for what the sociologist ronald burke calls bonding capital a form of social capital that's

00:06:34.300 really about support and about having people that you know you can rely on and who can help you

00:06:38.420 but in terms of new information whether it be new job leads new perspectives kind of a new

00:06:44.980 alternative approach to something just any anywhere or new introductions to new people any of those

00:06:49.500 situations those close contacts are actually fairly redundant right we keep people close to us who think

00:06:54.860 like us who are all interconnected with people around us and so it's the people further out weak ties

00:07:00.460 in particular that become the sources of new information new introductions to people that are

00:07:05.420 dissimilar from us people that we might not have ever met in any other capacity those all come

00:07:10.220 through your weak ties in particular there's a very specific type of weak tie called a dormant tie

00:07:15.220 which is essentially a strong tie that grew weak over time because you know you didn't talk to each

00:07:19.740 other for a while maybe you went to college together and now you don't talk as much or somebody changed

00:07:23.660 jobs etc and those are actually the most powerful type of tie when it comes to new information new ideas

00:07:29.520 new introductions etc because the strength of the relationship is already there but there's

00:07:33.980 somewhere else in the network kind of clustered around people that are that are different from

00:07:38.160 the people that you're clustered around and so it's easy to sort of rebuild that connection

00:07:41.900 and get access to all of that information it's really easy to strengthen it again because it was

00:07:46.220 already strong once than it is to meet a total stranger and build rapport with them over time etc and

00:07:51.500 so those weak and dormant ties I kind of refer to them as the hidden network they're the thing we

00:07:55.440 neglect so often I mean you think about most people's job search they ask their friends and a few trusted

00:07:59.960 people and then they jump right to applying on monster.com instead of thinking about these weak

00:08:05.980 and dormant ties that are shown to be in study after study the most potent sources of all sorts

00:08:10.980 of new information and new introductions yeah I love that insight because I've you know I've read

00:08:16.000 about we've even published things about weak ties and the typical when people write about that their

00:08:21.100 typical approach is okay you need weak ties so go to networking events so you can establish more weak

00:08:27.180 ties that ever say no you already have weak ties go there and mine those and see where what were

00:08:33.260 those lead right no that's exactly right I mean if you've been alive for more than like four years

00:08:38.520 you already have weak ties like just the nature of being a human means you have different relationship

00:08:43.740 strengths and there are people that you've lost touch with that you need to reconnect with what I

00:08:47.500 think is really funny is in a social media world the number one complaint I guess privacy is now the

00:08:53.080 number one complaint but before that the number one complaint about sites like Facebook etc was

00:08:56.760 oh my news feed is inundated with people I don't really care all that much about those are literally

00:09:01.420 your weak ties telling you what's going on in your life you can use that information to go reconnect

00:09:06.660 with them over whatever they're announcing right so there's there's an incredibly I mean you've got to

00:09:10.900 rein it in so it's not dominating your time but there's an incredibly valuable way now to keep in

00:09:15.220 touch with your weak ties that's never existed before in human history so I mean what's your approach to

00:09:19.640 managing those dormant weak ties do you have like a system in place that you use to to keep those

00:09:24.860 keep those alive yeah so there's there is there's a couple systems that almost function like personal

00:09:29.780 customer relationship management or CRM systems I actually do use one called contactually but the

00:09:34.700 truth is its main feature is that it'll ping you if it's if it's noticed that it's been so long between

00:09:39.720 conversations with a weak tie and normally I never end up getting pinged because I do exactly what I was

00:09:45.340 hinting at earlier so I about two years ago when I was doing the research for this book and starting it

00:09:50.240 I decided to practice what I was about to preach and I turned I re-followed everybody in my social

00:09:55.280 networks on LinkedIn and Twitter etc and I started making a point at least once a week to find someone

00:10:00.480 who was announcing something like say they were saying oh I just got a new job and I'm moving to

00:10:04.860 Chicago I'd use that information to reach back out to that weak tie and the key was I wouldn't just

00:10:09.880 click like or say congratulations and do the things that get you know drown out in the sea of

00:10:14.620 comments I would send a more personal message so whether that be a text message a phone call an

00:10:19.160 email whatever's right for that person and whatever I have access to and I I would say something like

00:10:22.820 hey congratulations that's that's so awesome congrats on on moving to Chicago then I'd usually try and

00:10:28.020 provide value in some way so I you know the case of Chicago I'm thinking like you probably need to

00:10:33.480 know that you can skip all the other deep dish places Gino's East is the best and then use that as an

00:10:37.960 opportunity to invite them into a further conversation we should catch up sometime soon or I might say what

00:10:41.620 else is new with you etc or might write a little blurb about what's new in my life it depends on

00:10:45.840 the the person but really it's the matter of seeing that information that's broadcasted online it's

00:10:50.960 public you're not stalking them you're not being weird they posted it but then taking that conversation

00:10:55.480 to a more personal medium and using that and making that a habit you end up kind of doing it with all of

00:11:00.660 your weak ties regularly and that's the other key where a lot of advice books go wrong is they'll say you

00:11:05.140 need weak ties so they'll either they'll say go to networking events and make new weak ties or they'll just say

00:11:10.120 so when you're looking for a job hit weak ties it's kind of too late at that point they can kind

00:11:14.400 of smell your desperation on you and know that you don't actually care about them etc it's much

00:11:19.200 better to make it a habit to be regularly checking back in with these people gotcha so another feature

00:11:24.440 of networks that we already exist in that can be I don't say I don't know exploited is that's not

00:11:29.760 the right word because that sounds mercenary leveraged is a word so I use this analogy that we there's a term

00:11:36.400 in network science called social capital that there's value to the network and then there's

00:11:39.960 value being a part of the network and I think if it's sort of if it's capital it's like an investment

00:11:43.980 you are pouring into the network and yeah it's okay to make withdrawals from it every once in a while

00:11:48.160 as long as you don't overextend your account and go into the negative right okay so yeah the example

00:11:52.640 one one area in our networks are these structural holes that exist on our networks what are those and

00:11:58.520 and how can those structural holes be a way to you know it I don't know make our network more

00:12:04.660 effective or efficient yeah so this is a fascinating insight from the world of network science for me

00:12:09.560 because I think a lot of us when we think about networking we think about oh I need to get to know

00:12:13.480 everybody in my company or I need to get to know everybody in my industry and we think of like the

00:12:17.300 quintessential networker is the one that's in the center of that cluster for that company or that

00:12:21.620 industry or trade association or whatever but the truth is so the clusters are important for a couple

00:12:26.880 different reasons but there's comes a point where as you get to know new people like we were talking

00:12:32.300 about earlier the new people become redundant and in fact the most valuable people to a network

00:12:36.520 are the people that serve that cluster of people that they're in by connecting them to a new one so

00:12:41.260 the the term we use for the space between two different groups of people or two different

00:12:45.360 clusters in the network is a structural hole I like to think of it as sort of like if you think

00:12:49.280 of networks almost like a gravitational pull that empty space between earth and mars right that's a

00:12:54.340 structural hole in is the space-time continuum or something I really don't understand because

00:12:58.960 didn't study physics and and it works the same way it's the people that build a bridge between

00:13:03.600 these two clusters that allow for information to flow between them that end up creating the most

00:13:08.200 value so I mean for folks that are having trouble with this in the book we talk about Jane McGonigal who

00:13:12.780 is an amazing woman that connected the video game design community and the mental health and medical

00:13:18.440 profession in order to create a sort of gamified way to do recovery from things like head trauma

00:13:25.060 depression and all sorts of other sort of mental illnesses that came never would have happened had

00:13:30.100 she not connected these two communities and you can do that within your like say your company like

00:13:35.540 if you're in sales like you reach out to people in engineering or product development yeah no exactly

00:13:41.420 right so this is this is huge inside of in fact when I was writing this book I almost wanted to talk

00:13:45.680 about this but I decided it was a little weird and I didn't want to ask his permission even but I

00:13:49.960 remember having this exact conversation with a brother of mine a couple years ago because he

00:13:55.480 was talking about well I want to get to work more in finance but this is still a job in the marketing

00:14:00.160 department I'm just running the budget so I'm like that's perfect you're the only person on the

00:14:04.000 marketing side that's going to be talking to the finance side you're going to be in a tremendously

00:14:08.500 valuable linchpin between these two communities and I mean here's the issue though that whenever you try

00:14:15.080 to mix different clusters or silos is that you know one cluster like thinks one way the other

00:14:22.400 cluster thinks another way and so if you're trying to bridge the two they're both going to be sort of

00:14:26.440 suspicious like who's this guy from x department I don't know he's not like us like how do you get

00:14:33.140 how do you be a connector and you allow these two groups to be receptive to to new ideas right

00:14:39.920 yeah so so this is where it gets a little tricky right this and this is not a rookie networker move

00:14:44.280 like this isn't the kind of thing you can do right out of college right because you don't want to be

00:14:49.200 on that person on the edge of the cluster screaming I really think we should talk to this department

00:14:52.920 over here you're like you said you're just kind of going to look like that crazy person or you know

00:14:56.860 you're going to get hate from both sides the trick is to know when you're embedded enough inside of one

00:15:02.020 cluster that you can actually you have strength of relationship to where people will trust you and

00:15:06.300 listen to you as you now begin to do that crazy thing it's still going to look crazy I mean we train people

00:15:10.660 especially if you work in a large organization to climb up the corporate ladder to get to know more

00:15:15.020 and more people in that community so you're still going to look a little different in fact one study

00:15:18.660 we use in the book actually calls these people organizational misfits which which I love because

00:15:23.320 it turns out to be a strength but it's a good description of these people but the ones that are

00:15:27.180 the most successful are ones that are a little bit embedded into that cluster and then now because they

00:15:31.680 have those relationships move forward so this is something you can't do right off the bat in your career but

00:15:35.420 when you there's there is a point or as you're meeting new people in that industry they become to be

00:15:40.440 redundant and that's the point at which we should be thinking about okay well what other communities does

00:15:45.160 this community need to be connected to and how can I go out and do the same thing in that community and

00:15:50.260 eventually connect the two yeah I love the example you gave of when Stanley McChrystal the general

00:15:56.500 kind of took charge of you know things over there in the Middle East and he wanted all these different

00:16:02.240 disparate agencies and military units to start working together and so they actually had like

00:16:07.620 rain army rangers get embedded with navy seals navy seals get embedded with army rangers and he said

00:16:12.920 yeah at first there was a little friction but after a while things started jiving and they're all on the

00:16:17.320 same page and they're all working towards the same goal and things became much more effective and efficient

00:16:21.880 yeah that's exactly right in fact one of the things I think is interesting is the roles

00:16:25.140 to some extent already existed there were these things called liaison officers but they were almost

00:16:29.740 considered to be sort of like punishment like you're getting kicked out of your unit and that's

00:16:33.340 why you're the liaison officer and so he did a what he basically did to signal that this is actually an

00:16:38.140 honor and that we need these people is he took like the cream of the crop the top officers in certain

00:16:42.740 squads and said no you're going to be the liaison it's not the guy that's about to retire it's not the

00:16:46.900 one who got in trouble I'm trusting my most important people for this job and that they're very quickly

00:16:51.880 signaled to the whole community okay he's taking this seriously and over time it wasn't wasn't that

00:16:56.760 everybody got to know everybody but everybody could look at another team or another branch of

00:17:00.560 the military and know that okay I have a friend over there and those they're good people he's a

00:17:04.760 good person she's a good person so I know that I can trust this whole unit and he built what I mean

00:17:08.720 he calls it it's the title of the book team of teams and I really love kind of that concept that

00:17:13.020 there's an importance to your team but you also need to be connected to other ones as well

00:17:16.880 so another counterintuitive point you make in the book about networks and networking is

00:17:22.880 that silos are can be a good thing because I mean you often hear this stuff you know like you know

00:17:28.500 silos there's filter bubbles you're exposed to less information you you know etc etc and that you

00:17:34.160 should avoid that and just branch out and you know create as much diversity as possible but you

00:17:38.060 highlight research that suggests that if we want to get stuff done we need silos so talk about why silos

00:17:44.060 can be good yeah so this is really one of the hardest concepts to kind of explain inside of just a

00:17:49.400 couple chapters in friend of a friend you know we were just talking about building structural holes

00:17:53.660 and breaking people out of silos and being less politics and turf war but the truth is that over

00:17:59.000 time as we see sort of information flow if we had a completely egalitarian network where everybody

00:18:04.520 talks to everybody in fact information wouldn't flow as much we actually do need clusters to share

00:18:10.540 ideas and share information and you know yeah I'm a writer you've written you're a writer we've

00:18:14.520 written several books we know that that sort of community of writers is really important on the other

00:18:18.840 hand if you just do that and you don't actually get out and engage with readers and engage and send

00:18:23.380 your message out there you end up you know not actually being able to build a career so that the

00:18:28.700 trick is to be able to balance that in fact we see this in organizations as well with those

00:18:32.180 organizational misfits the the best analogy I've thought of and I actually thought of it after

00:18:36.620 I wrote the book which is a shame is that I think about clusters and teams like a harbor it's a great

00:18:41.800 place for a ship to be it's a place where it can get restocked and repaired and get ready for the sea

00:18:46.000 but it can't stay there it eventually has to get out and begin to connect other harbors through its

00:18:51.780 trade routes etc yeah there's a we know some other research kind of similar to this about extroversion

00:18:57.580 and introversion where extroverts like their career advances right faster because they're making all 0.97

00:19:03.400 those connections but the introverts are the ones who actually gain mastery in the the domain that

00:19:10.440 they're in right because that's all they spend more time you know fine-tuning that so like the

00:19:15.760 introverts could learn from the extroverts by being a little okay you need to get out there a little bit

00:19:18.920 more if you want to advance your career but the extroverts people are always out there pressing

00:19:22.920 flesh could learn from the introverts say I need to make time for I just focus on my craft or whatever

00:19:28.440 work it is that I'm doing no no that's exactly right and you know an extrovert will feel energized

00:19:32.860 in an event with you know a hundred people and an introvert is like well I just want the six or so

00:19:37.440 people that I really trust and you know you've talked about this on on the blog but also on the

00:19:41.880 podcast in general especially for men like you you need both of those things you need that community

00:19:46.060 of people and that's probably the more overlooked one for men but you also need to kind of be out

00:19:50.580 there and you know what I think is interesting in the research on this it isn't it isn't that

00:19:54.420 introverts hate people it isn't that extroverts love people it just has to do with where your energy

00:19:57.920 comes from where you recharge either you recharge in a big group of people that's exciting or you're

00:20:02.640 recharge in a smaller group or by yourself but you're recharging for a reason you're recharging

00:20:07.660 to get out there and do the activity that you don't do like it's no point being fully charged

00:20:12.360 all the time you can't just leave your iphone in the dock a hundred percent of the time you

00:20:15.660 eventually have to unplug it and use it and that's a signal right there that we need to be doing both

00:20:19.700 so how do you how do you find that balance I mean are there any tactics or brass tack things people

00:20:24.840 can do like okay I I know I've got I'm hitting the sweet spot with with being siloed and but also

00:20:31.260 reaching out and connecting different clusters you know I think it's really a question of taking a

00:20:36.360 deep dive on your calendar and looking at where you're spending your time and are you having

00:20:39.820 are you just having all of your meetings with the same like two dozen people or is there a healthy

00:20:45.740 balance like I encourage our coach a lot of people to hey look at the last you know 25 meetings that

00:20:51.040 you were in was it all the same people all the time or was there this healthy balance of okay

00:20:55.420 there's about five or six people that seems like I talk to all the time and then the rest of the

00:20:59.260 people on these meeting rosters are new folks I think it's a good way to signal what your balance

00:21:03.940 is you're you know you're already in a world of electronic invitations you're already kind of

00:21:08.720 keeping track of who you're talking to so just go back and audit it to see if you're doing a good

00:21:13.580 enough job and if not I mean you might have to be a little weird and start inviting yourself

00:21:17.440 to meetings just so you can be around kind of other people in the community whether that be the

00:21:21.520 organization or etc but really how you spend your time is going to determine how you're building

00:21:26.640 these relationships so another aspect of networks are there there are these individuals that are

00:21:32.380 called super connectors what what makes a super connector a super connector so this was a really

00:21:38.900 interesting discovery for me when I'm looking at network science because I had read you know if you

00:21:43.220 link back all the way to like Malcolm Gladwell and the tipping point he writes about Dunbar's number

00:21:47.460 this idea that all of us on average have an average number of relationships right and over time what you

00:21:55.440 start to see is it's not actually just one number 150 which is known as Dunbar's number it's actually

00:22:02.660 it doesn't even look like an average in the sense that an average is an inverted u it actually looks

00:22:07.340 like a power law a Pareto principle an 80 20 type principle and there are some people that really do

00:22:12.260 have a disproportionate number of contacts so even if the average is 150 it's actually not it's 661

00:22:18.780 there are some people who have thousands right and I think these are important for two reasons

00:22:23.180 the first is that these people are generally what kind of keep a community connected the other thing

00:22:28.920 is that the presence of these people skews the average and for a lot of people when they think

00:22:32.820 about networking they think like oh I'm not good at that this other person is so good at it etc we're

00:22:37.840 looking at a skewed average like everyone's gonna look a little bit more popular than you because

00:22:41.880 you've got these super connectors in the network that are hugely popular and then the other thing that

00:22:46.620 happens is as you start to approach that curve that 80 20 principle it's almost like a flywheel effect

00:22:52.000 that eventually just natural introductions that come up organically grow your your section of the

00:22:57.020 network faster than anybody else's because you're so connected I think a lot of people get down on

00:23:01.740 themselves about you know not no I'm not all that connected so clearly I'm not good at this thing

00:23:07.060 it's really a function of just how much are you willing to put in the work and for how long

00:23:11.200 because there's a compound interest effect to it all well so how do you do that how do you become

00:23:15.160 a super connector and like and do you need to become a super connector I mean that's a that's

00:23:19.580 a thing like is that something you have to do or what what's your what do you what's your approach

00:23:22.360 to that so so I mean here's the other thing quite frankly no you know we we think about like

00:23:26.420 like the one of the favorite stories or myths I like to debunk in this book is is Kevin Bacon

00:23:31.280 right maybe you played the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon we think like oh he's been in such a

00:23:35.260 diversity of movies and he's so connected he's actually the 669th most connected person in Hollywood

00:23:41.180 so he's he's not he doesn't actually have this amazing network and this amazing connections it's

00:23:45.380 just that the network itself is so interconnected that you can have you can be as low on the charts

00:23:50.600 as Kevin Bacon and still kind of connect everyone and that's the case inside of any industry in any

00:23:55.100 network you you really don't you probably have everyone you need to meet for your own professional

00:23:59.580 success within one or two introductions for yourself now so you don't on the other hand like if you do

00:24:05.560 then one of the first things that you can do is start to be really really generous with your

00:24:10.040 introductions so in the book we talk about my my friend another awesome podcaster Jordan Harbinger

00:24:15.020 who is a super connector who has been over the 10 years of of running his show but one of the things

00:24:19.780 that he does is he makes a habit whenever he's talking to someone he's not just thinking about what

00:24:24.240 he's going to say next and he's not thinking like okay I need to be active listening he's actually

00:24:28.160 thinking who do I currently have in my network that I could introduce this person that would

00:24:32.260 help me it's probably not me that can help them the odds that I can provide value for everyone

00:24:36.160 is really slim but if I can introduce you to someone who does then I'm signaling that I'm

00:24:40.860 generous I'm taking care of the network as a whole and over time it will take care of me and I'll grow

00:24:45.120 to become that super connector type person right and that has helped him out recently because he's

00:24:49.860 started a new show we had him on the show to talk about that yeah I actually so I actually hate this

00:24:53.820 I finished the book and we went to print uh before that whole thing happened so even on the back

00:24:58.180 cover of the book it lists him as art of charm and I'm thinking his story got so much cooler when all

00:25:03.060 that happened because he's you know basically kicked off his show he starts a new one all he

00:25:07.000 has is his recording equipment and his network and that's all he needed yeah so yeah as you mentioned

00:25:12.040 as you become a super connector you start making these introductions you mentioned that it becomes

00:25:16.400 sort of a flywheel effect because because you are heavily connected people are naturally drawn to you

00:25:21.960 because they want to be drawn to the guy who's got the connections so it's sort of like the

00:25:26.020 Matthew effect right too much is given much will be added on to I think Gladwell talks about that

00:25:32.100 but that becomes that can become a problem because you'll have more and more people asking for your

00:25:36.780 time and intention so as you become more connected how do you manage managing your network

00:25:42.980 yeah so this is this is one of the things that I really I wanted to solve right off the bat and I

00:25:48.080 call it in my mind I call it the Jason Gaynard problem Jason is a is an incredible connector he runs

00:25:52.840 an event for entrepreneurs he's very well connected now and he he will say this thing where he says the

00:25:57.680 key to a good network is subtraction not addition and you're like well that's easy for you to say

00:26:02.000 you already know everybody right so I wanted to figure that out like how can he say that but then

00:26:06.140 other people are like well I can't subtract if I subtracted it'd be me and like my wife that's it

00:26:09.980 and so I started looking into all of the science of this and there really is a principle it's like a

00:26:14.140 Matthew effect that the fancy 12 dollar word in network science is preferential attachment but it

00:26:18.620 basically says exactly that if you're the if you're one of the more connected people in a network

00:26:22.260 any new person to enter that industry that sector that that network the likelihood that they'll get

00:26:27.500 introduced to you is really really high so you start kind of like a gravitational pull thing you

00:26:32.180 start eventually accumulating more and more mass and now you draw more and more to you and that

00:26:37.060 becomes a problem because eventually you only have enough time I was talking to someone yesterday who's

00:26:41.900 a who's a writer and a speaker etc and he's like I get a thousand manuscripts a month from people

00:26:46.740 that are begging me to read their their potential book idea etc and I just can't handle it one of the

00:26:51.180 things that Jason does that I think is really smart is he now basically connects almost exclusively

00:26:55.540 through community he'll do individual dinners most of the time but if he's in a city and he has a lot

00:26:59.800 of people he needs to connect with he makes a point to plan a lunch or dinner or something that'll draw

00:27:03.780 about 12 people at a time together it's really it's a time management strategy but then his other

00:27:09.420 strategy is he's very intentional about how often do I need to check in with certain people he's

00:27:14.560 managing a network in the thousands if not the tens of thousands and so he has to be intentional

00:27:19.560 about what the right frequency of interacting with every single person is and you know I think this

00:27:24.300 is actually a really interesting point we get to the point where we feel like you know we know we

00:27:28.600 need to be intentional with our spouse and our close friends etc but we want everything else to be

00:27:32.900 organic we would just want to run into them naturally we end up neglecting a lot of people

00:27:36.720 you know you can't just plan on spontaneity and an organic relationship with someone close to you

00:27:42.400 because they would feel offended well everyone's kind of that way you've got to be intentional with

00:27:45.880 everyone it's but it's okay to say I am intentionally only interacting with them every

00:27:50.980 six months or a year or so because that's where our relationship is gotcha so another thing that

00:27:56.840 came out of the network research is that diversity is good so we've talked about clusters that we need

00:28:01.080 clusters to or silos because that allows us to get stuff done but we need people to connect those

00:28:06.860 silos and there's a you can fill those fill those holes and you can provide value to the network by doing

00:28:12.360 that but even within those clusters themselves even within those silos like it's good to have

00:28:17.880 diversity so what does the research say about about that so this is a really interesting thing that I

00:28:24.060 found so we all know like you know the way that I say it is it's 2018 if you don't already know that

00:28:28.740 you need a diversity of opinions you need you know ethnic racial gender ideological diversity in your

00:28:34.600 life to to give you more information and be able to make better decisions and just to be a good

00:28:38.840 human being if you don't already know that I can't help you the challenge is that most people know

00:28:43.280 that and yet we still kind of are clustered in a lot of around a lot of people that are self-similar

00:28:48.440 to us and it's it's not actually necessarily our fault so we explore this idea of homophily which

00:28:53.860 is a fancy another $12 word for love of same and the truth is that it's actually a network effect

00:28:59.520 so what happens is those people who are close to us they all know people who are similar to they all

00:29:04.620 think similar to us they all know each other they're very sort of self-similar and so when

00:29:08.940 they are the only people that are introducing you to new people you're going to get served up more of

00:29:13.320 the same and you can actually think that oh I'm meeting lots of new people so I'm going to get a

00:29:17.360 more diverse network and in reality you're just getting more of the same you know history is full

00:29:21.780 of people who thought they had accurate information to make a decision and then made the decision and turned

00:29:27.340 out they didn't see something because they didn't have the right network I mean we can go back to the

00:29:30.320 Cuban Missile Crisis and and the Bay of Pigs fiasco and all sorts of stuff to think about examples of

00:29:35.460 people making bad decisions because they had limited information from too many self-similar people

00:29:39.740 the the real lesson is that we've got to be very intentional about our actual network so earlier

00:29:44.380 we were talking about you know doing an audit of maybe the last two dozen people that we talked to

00:29:49.040 if they're all very very similar to us that's a really bad thing my chances are you do an audit of

00:29:54.060 your network the people that are closest to you and you'll find the majority of them are really

00:29:57.960 similar to you and a couple of them are not and so you need to spend a disproportionate amount of

00:30:02.540 time with those people who are not to learn more from them but also to to signal that you are open

00:30:06.920 to introductions from them because they're the ones that are most likely to serve you introductions and

00:30:11.260 new potential connections that are different than you you can't just sort of rely on whoever whoever

00:30:15.780 gets introduced to me is whoever gets introduced me that's not going to build the level of diversity

00:30:19.840 that you need you need to be very intentional about where those introductions are coming from

00:30:23.800 yeah and you highlight the research that we're even like clustering ourselves off based on political

00:30:29.940 ideology more and more which is weird because you know you don't go around asking people their

00:30:35.100 politics but the research is showing that some counties are becoming more blue other counties

00:30:40.600 are becoming more red and it's just happening i guess because someone sees you know someone driving

00:30:46.520 a certain kind of car and they're like that they associate that with being a democrat or a republican

00:30:51.060 like well these are my people and they end up sort of just self-filtering that way no it's exactly

00:30:56.480 right and and you know you said it you said it best it's actually at the county level like we have a

00:31:00.600 tendency to think red state blue state but there's actually i mean there there are counties in california

00:31:05.300 that are getting redder over time and it's exactly that it's these subtle little signals that people with

00:31:10.960 certain political ideologies also have a shared ideology about other stuff so we don't run around asking

00:31:15.740 people who they voted for i mean we we kind of do because it's sort of a tense time in our country but

00:31:20.060 mostly we usually don't but we can kind of pick it up like oh you drive a sob i can if you drive a sob

00:31:25.140 i can make a pretty educated guess about who you voted for right oh you drive an f-150 i can make a

00:31:30.140 pretty educated guess about who you voted for and the data shows that over the last like 40 years

00:31:35.520 we have they call it the big sort we have sort of naturally gravitated to want to live closer to

00:31:40.680 these people so even certain neighborhoods and definitely certain counties become deeper red or deeper

00:31:46.220 blue and then then you throw sort of the internet onto that and it spirals out of control right because

00:31:50.760 you've got these filter bubbles and algorithms that are trained to serve you more of what you click like

00:31:54.600 on and eventually i mean what amazes me is whenever some big thing happens and someone you thought was

00:32:00.560 in one political ideology steps up and says something different right how how shocked everybody is right

00:32:06.900 because we're so in our filter bubble that when information from the other side penetrates it we get like

00:32:12.280 shocked and that's a really strong signal that maybe maybe we're we're not being intentional enough

00:32:18.020 and who we're connecting to and who we're having conversations with and who we're meeting right so

00:32:22.240 yeah maybe just be yeah be intentional about that and be aware that that that's happening so let's talk

00:32:28.140 about this idea of multiplexity which is people in our network can be both maybe like i don't know

00:32:35.600 business associates but also friends so talk a little flesh that out a bit for us yeah so one of the

00:32:41.540 things that i think is most interesting i mean we know people are multifaceted right and yet when we

00:32:46.780 think about our network and the people that we know etc we kind of sort them into buckets right there's

00:32:51.160 our our work friends and our you know our close friends and our friends whose kids play the same

00:32:56.400 sport maybe our church friends and that sort of thing and in reality i mean people are multifaceted and

00:33:01.200 it turns out that we use this term a uniplex tie is a connection to someone that only has one

00:33:06.920 context so maybe you're only a work friend and a multiplex tie is someone that you have

00:33:11.620 multiple sort of contexts with what i think is interesting about this is that the research is

00:33:16.300 strongly supportive that you will build a deeper relationship faster with someone if you explore

00:33:21.720 kind of the the multiple facets of them and you can build a far a far better one and we you know

00:33:26.880 sometimes that the person you put in the friend bucket ends up being a strong professional contact in

00:33:31.560 the book we talk about whitney johnson who's a good friend of mine who basically got a job managing an

00:33:36.660 investment a hedge fund because of someone she went to church with which is not what you would think

00:33:41.120 in the world of wall street you wouldn't think that's what's serving people connections but it

00:33:44.740 happens the the other reason i think it's so important to think through this multiplexity lens

00:33:48.780 is that even when we're trying to understand someone i mean let's say you actually do work up the courage

00:33:53.140 to go to that event and you're pressed in flesh and you're meeting new people what's the most common

00:33:57.360 question people ask when they're meeting a new person what do you do what do you do right which is a huge

00:34:02.760 signal that like i would like to have a work context only conversation with you

00:34:06.460 right and especially i mean you can trust that eventually the conversation will get back to

00:34:11.160 there so why not open with something else you know where did you grow up what are you really

00:34:14.780 excited about right now i i sometimes ask people who's your favorite superhero just because i want

00:34:18.940 to know a little bit more about them in a different context so that i'm exploring other ways that i

00:34:24.100 can connect with them and build a multiplex relationship with them right from the start

00:34:27.320 but so yeah so friends can turn into business partners and work friends can turn into

00:34:32.780 friends friends but like you know the whole friends turning into business partners or you know

00:34:37.780 potential economic relationships like how do you walk that fine line without turning your friendship

00:34:43.460 into a purely transactional relationship and i'm thinking here of multi-level marketing because like

00:34:49.080 that's an example of like taking it to the extreme where you have some friend or weak tie out of the

00:34:54.780 blue says hey i've got an amazing opportunity for you and like at that moment you're just like

00:35:00.300 no i don't want anything to do with you anymore because you've just turned this into a completely

00:35:04.660 like transactional mercenary relationship yeah i mean i agree with you so in my my experience is

00:35:10.760 it's easier to turn a work friend into a real friend than a real friend and work friend even

00:35:14.720 though the other way going around tends to happen more often i i think it really takes a sensitivity to

00:35:19.200 the other person i mean not everyone wants to get to know their work friends on a personal

00:35:24.440 level and not everybody wants to be a business partner with their friend friends right so i think

00:35:28.740 you i don't think you jump right to that idea of let's go into business together i've got this

00:35:32.740 amazing opportunity i want to recruit you for i think you start to just sort of feel people out

00:35:36.220 and really the best way to do it is with signaling your own openness to the conversation so you're in

00:35:41.580 the conversation and it's if it's just work related now you're dropping hints about your personal life

00:35:46.020 i mean not in a not a weird like way or you're talking with a friend and you talk a little bit more

00:35:50.420 about what you do in that opportunity and you kind of gauge are they are they excited and receptive

00:35:54.340 to this idea and willing to disclose other information i mean trust is and this is something

00:35:58.640 we don't look at in the book but something i've looked at in prior articles i've written trust is

00:36:02.420 actually something that's reciprocal and multiplex trust is the same way you get it because of a

00:36:06.840 back and forth of disclosures and willingness to be vulnerable so i think you you don't start

00:36:10.600 by pushing anything on someone you start by being vulnerable and willing to disclose what you're

00:36:15.520 up to and then the people that respond to that you can go a little bit deeper with

00:36:18.860 gotcha i like how you said don't be weird about it i think it should be like the guiding

00:36:21.920 principle of network it's like don't be weird like if you'd follow that here's what i think is

00:36:26.960 here's what i think is so interesting so i i you know distill 60 years of network science research

00:36:31.700 and i can boil it all down into be a good human right like you would think it'd be more complicated

00:36:37.180 than that but it's not just be cool man just be cool i mean another interesting thing research you

00:36:42.700 highlight because i've been thinking about this a lot is this idea that things people or ideas or

00:36:50.020 concepts can seem bigger or more popular than they really are because of the way networks

00:36:56.100 are connected can you talk about that a bit yeah so the the interesting thing we call it the majority

00:37:01.340 illusion because that's what the scientists call it but it's it's something we've known for a long

00:37:05.380 time some marketers will talk about cluster marketing where you go after a certain city and

00:37:09.660 you just sort of penetrate it with tons of ads all in a short burst right and so we've known about

00:37:14.840 this idea and in fact in the book we talk about tim ferris who you know another person i'm sure

00:37:18.960 there's a lot of overlap between your your two audiences is for a time you had to be an 18 to 35

00:37:25.040 year old tech savvy male to know who he was it seems weird now because like everybody knows him

00:37:29.120 but there was a time where you had to be that and nobody else kind of knew he existed because

00:37:33.620 he was very deliberately trying to figure out who are the most connected people the most uh sought

00:37:39.440 after sources of information and he was building relationships basically only with tech bloggers the

00:37:43.780 people that were speaking to this community the most often we call this the the majority

00:37:48.000 illusion because you can literally look more popular than you are if the right people the most

00:37:53.280 connected people in network are strongly signaling you right and this is something you know it's not

00:37:58.040 it's not something everybody can do but as you're building those relationships and you know that i want

00:38:02.200 to go after and raise awareness on a certain issue so this isn't just like a self-promotional thing you

00:38:06.860 could do this for a charity issue as well i want to raise awareness on this who i can't just go mass

00:38:12.520 audience all at once tell you who is my demographic who specifically am i going after and then who are

00:38:17.920 the most connected people in that industry that can make me look everywhere because those couple of

00:38:23.440 people are talking about it humans are a herd creatures we're tribal creatures we look to the

00:38:27.400 left and to the right to get a gauge on how popular something is and we look more often to the people

00:38:32.200 that are those super connectors so if you start to look active and popular with them you look more

00:38:36.860 popular than you really are yeah i call it the don't believe the hype principle oh no totally i mean

00:38:41.280 there's another huge lesson in that right which is that great this amazing this small community of

00:38:45.740 people is super excited about you on the other hand most people in the world still don't know you

00:38:50.340 exist right so don't believe the hype don't believe that yeah i mean my my benchmarker of

00:38:54.860 whether you're like you're the mainstream and everyone knows about you is if my parents

00:38:58.820 like my 60 to 70 they're almost 70 now 70 year old parents like know that you exist if that's

00:39:05.840 the case then like you you've you've you've hit the mainstream but like my parents still don't

00:39:09.060 know who tim ferris is yeah no no very true and you know i mean to to a lesser extent you and i are

00:39:13.760 actually both examples of this so so we live in the exact same city but both of our target audiences

00:39:17.720 are not that well represented in the city so very few people even know we're here right but then

00:39:22.260 there's the the actual audience of people in that community everybody knows about your work you know

00:39:27.380 in the exact community you're talking about art of manliness is one of the few podcasts that comes

00:39:31.740 up consistently when i when i talk to people about that specific ideas this specific sort of man

00:39:36.560 audience etc but then you know you can you can walk around the the street and we walk around

00:39:41.520 basically this the same areas you know with our kids and stuff and nobody knows who we are and it's

00:39:45.320 kind of great because it's a reminder don't believe the hype don't believe you're not as yeah

00:39:49.500 that's a good reminder like don't never uh never think your poop smell what's the great

00:39:54.740 oh no totally i mean i i literally had that my when my first book came out i got this amazing

00:40:00.020 invitation to be on cbs this morning and so i did this interview and then i flew immediately after

00:40:05.060 the interview i flew home i arrived home i went to go pick my son who was like 18 months old at the

00:40:09.460 time i went to go pick him up from his grandparents where he was staying because it was such a last

00:40:14.100 minute thing we had to scramble for child care and he goes daddy i saw you on tv and i pooped

00:40:18.240 and so it was immediately like hey welcome back change my diaper you're not as cool as you think you

00:40:21.740 are no one cares all right don't believe the hype well uh david this has been a great conversation

00:40:26.180 where can people go to learn more about the book and your work so the best place is probably

00:40:30.180 davidberkus.com b-u-r-k-u-s is really actually let me correct that the best place is probably the

00:40:34.960 show notes for this episode because you actually run really awesome show notes i know you're going

00:40:37.880 to link it all and if you're listening you should go there brett wants you to go there so go there

00:40:41.140 first but i'm sure you'll link to davidberkus.com and from there you can check out the book find out

00:40:45.700 a bunch of other resources around this idea a bunch of other activities and exercises around

00:40:49.840 networking to try so it's all there davidberkus thank you for your time it's been a pleasure

00:40:53.680 thank you thank you so much for having me my guest day was davidberkus he's the author of the book

00:40:57.280 friend of a friend understanding the hidden networks that can transform your life and your

00:41:00.620 career you can find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you also find out more information about

00:41:04.560 his work at davidberkus.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash friend of a friend

00:41:09.740 where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:41:12.480 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:41:28.720 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:41:32.280 the podcast i've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a

00:41:35.680 review on itunes or stitcher helps out a lot as always thank you for your continued support until

00:41:39.460 next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - May 08, 2018

#403： A Better Way to Network

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