When I speak to managers about why their careers look the way they do, there seems to be two recurrent reasons: coincidences and network. Often these two factors work in unison as someone might have bumped into a former colleague or acquaintance who gave their career a well-needed boost. But does it have to be so coincidental?

2015.11.13 | AU Alumni

COLUMN BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN WALDSTRØM

A lot of rubbish has been said and written on how social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn would fundamentally change how we interact with each other. A lot of it has been based on wishful thinking and doomsday scenarios that have little to do with what is actually happening. The truth is that classic virtues such as mutual trust, decency and respect still define which of the relationships in our network are meaningful and giving.

In one area, social media has, however, changed the conditions for networking. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, it has changed our ability to have passive relations: People we knew once, but with whom we are no longer in contact. In the time before social media - and before we had the possibility of tracking down people online -, bumping into old acquaintances would often happen by pure coincidence and could involve all kinds of potentially awkward elements such as whether or not you remembered the other person’s name and where you last saw each other. The latter to prevent you from referring happily to your last get-together if this happened to be a funeral.

In a study conducted by Daniel Levin and his colleagues, managers were asked to activate two of their relations with whom they had had no contact for at least six years.  One was a person whom the subject regarded as a close relation (back then), and the other was a more distant relation. The purpose of resuming contact was to ask for sparring and advice in relation to a specific management challenge.

Many managers were hesitant to resume contact as they did not wish to come across as pushy. Some also argued that it would seem awkward to resume contact, especially because there were elements of guilt involved in terms of having allowed the contact to fizzle out in the first place.  Others pointed out that there may have been a good reason for the contact to die out - without always being able to pinpoint exactly why this happened.

Almost all of the subjects in the study received considerably better advice from the people with whom they resumed contact than from the active relations in their network.

The results of the study were very clear and overwhelming: Almost all of the subjects in the study received considerably better advice from the people with whom they resumed contact than from the active relations in their network. According to the researchers, there are three main reasons for why resumed relations are particularly useful:

First of all, there is an effect which is reminiscent of the strength of weak ties i.e. that the people with whom you are most involved are typically also rather similar to you. We tend to gravitate towards people who think like we do and with whom we share several characteristics. While this may be both nice and comfortable, it also means that over time, we are presented with less variation when it comes to ideas and knowledge. People with whom we have lost contact are only rarely the same as they were back then - and their experiences and what they have been through contribute to making their input and sparring more valuable than input from people in your network whom you are already using.

Second of all, the study showed that it is extremely effective to reestablish former contacts rather than establishing new contacts - also in relation to existing connections. The subjects found that it was easy to get back on track and that getting to the point happened faster than usual. Also old relationships often become dormant again taking up no further time or resources. That our network requires time and effort is perhaps the greatest omission that occurs when people glorify the concepts of network and networking.  Every time one relation is nurtured, another one is neglected.

Finally, the study included the unexpected finding that the trust and compatibility which formed part of the relation back then remained largely unchanged and were very easily activated. The large majority of us want to help other people, most especially people to whom we were once close.

The large majority of us want to help other people, most especially people to whom we were once close.

Not surprisingly, the value of the reactivated relations depended on how close the relations were before they became dormant. In relations which the subjects remembered as being particularly close, the level of trust was as significant as it was back then. In contrast, more distant relations fostered more exciting and applicable knowledge and sparring.

By using the opportunities presented to us by LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media, we are able to build a bridge between our active network of about 100-150 people and the much larger number of people (1,500 and 3,000) whom we have encountered throughout our lives. Most people would not even guess that they know this amount of people - as we tend to forget about these contacts.

It is not enough, however, that these contacts are available to us on social media platforms. We also need to be aware that the contacts are there as well as recognise their potential. Subsequently, it is necessary to overcome the barriers associated with activating one’s network. Here, the best thing to do is to ask yourself whether you would help this person if he or she contacted you. For the large majority of us, the answer would be yes, and many of us would be happy to do something for someone we once knew and might even have missed.

That is why there is no reason to believe that the other person would feel any differently. This is probably also the reason why exes are poisonous to all relationships, because if there was something there at a time, there is always the fear that this relation may be reestablished.

The column appeared on Finans.dk 4/10 2015

Find out more about Christian Waldstrøm at pure.au.dk/portal/da/cwa@badm.au.dk,
www.linkedin.com/in/christianwaldstrom