Friend of a Friend . . ._Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career

by David Burkus

  The amount of solo work versus team work that scientists engaged in also changed. Looking at social scientists in particular, in the 1950s they wrote only 17.5 percent of their papers on teams; fifty years later that percentage had grown to 51.5 percent. In other words, fifty years ago the image of the genius working alone in a lab was fairly accurate. But today the majority of genius is applied through extended teamwork.

  Uzzi’s research trio also found an upward trend in the impact of team work on a field compared to solo work. The best way to judge impact is by the number of citations—how many future papers reference a particular paper is often used as a proxy for the quality and impact of its research. Over the fifty-year period studied, coauthored papers were cited more often than solo-authored ones, and the percentage of coauthored papers cited grew. In the 1950s, coauthored papers received 1.7 times the number of citations as individually written papers received. By 2000, they were receiving 2.1 times as many citations. Even after controlling for self-citations (scientists citing their own work in future papers), the impact of coauthored papers, and the strong growth of that impact, remained intact.

  The rise of discovery as a team sport naturally leads to a follow-up question: what makes for the best teams?

  Luckily, Uzzi and a different team of researchers (a significant detail that will be explained in a moment) have looked into that as well. This team of researchers pulled a much smaller data set of scientific papers published between 1955 and 2004.16 This smaller set was still pretty large, representing almost 90,000 papers and 115,000 authors in 32 journals from a variety of scientific fields. Uzzi, along with Roger Guimerà, Luís Amaral, and Jarrett Spiro, were particularly interested in the frequency of repeat collaborations. Does genius insight result from a small group of scientists working together for a long time . . . or does it stem from temporary collaborations? (As suggested, Uzzi’s own research in this area suggests his faith in the latter possibility, as each paper he has coauthored resulted from a slightly different collaboration.)

  To examine this question, the researchers also needed to assess the quality of the papers, for which they used the impact of the journal in which each paper was published as a proxy. Surprisingly, repeat collaborations were more common in low-impact journals. In high-impact journals, it was much more common to see papers by coauthors who had never worked together before and who would go on to join different teams once the paper was published. The best teams appeared to be only temporary.

  Part of the explanation for this finding lies in the nature of scientific research. From the initial hypothesis to the data collection to the manuscript preparation, a lot of work goes into publishing a scientific paper. It’s not just a brilliant theory that makes an impact. It’s a brilliant theory supported by mountains of data. The best chance to accomplish that is often found in building a team of high-status individuals with a proven track record of good ideas balanced with relative newcomers, who may be short on experience but are long on the time and energy needed to invest in the project.

  But here’s the frustrating part: finding a good team and then sticking with it often yields a diminishing return on investment. That is, if a team’s first projects are successful, it is less likely to have as much time and energy to devote to the next project. In effect, you need fresh blood. And to get that, you need a network that allows individuals not only to come together quickly but also to bring in enough new collaborators to sustain a project.

  It turns out that this effect—temporary teams forming across a network of talent—isn’t just limited to the sciences.

  Consider how the members of the PayPal Mafia didn’t just form a new company upon exiting eBay. Instead, they dispersed throughout the technology community, found new collaborators, and benefited from connections to ideas and resources that their old coworkers provided. It wasn’t having a group of tried-and-true technology innovators that mattered as much as their dispersal through the network to form new companies. “The rotation of team personnel is critical to creativity,” Uzzi explained. “Even if it comes at the loss of efficient communication among team members that have come to know each other and their work habits well.”17

  For the members of the PayPal Mafia, their new situation post-acquisition forced them to find new teams and to rotate around on various projects. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to see a Mafia member join a team of a few former colleagues and new entrepreneurs, work for a short tour of duty, and then jump ship to yet another project. Many even worked on multiple projects at once, founding one company, investing in another, and serving as an adviser to a third. The arrangements of PayPal Mafia members throughout the network of Silicon Valley looks a lot like the collaborations of scientific researchers.

  For individuals, the implications of the PayPal Mafia’s successes are as clear as they are counterintuitive. It’s not enough to merely have a network . . . it’s the density of that network that matters. Recall from the previous chapter that finding clusters and collaborators is hugely important. If your network allows you to form teams of new and old connections easily, you have a great blend. If it doesn’t, you are probably working too often with the same old people. At the same time, if every project or opportunity requires new rounds of introductions, then the shape of your network isn’t optimal.

  For organizations, the implications are a little more serious. Most companies are built on organizational charts that set up distinct barriers to collaboration—exactly the opposite of what’s needed for effective collaboration. Instead of a hierarchy, most organizations would be better served by an organizational structure built like a network of scientific collaborators, with PayPal Mafia–level density.

  Making Organizational Charts into Fluid Networks

  For most organizations, the organizational chart determines the network. As a company grows and expands, it becomes impossible for everyone to meet and work alongside everyone else. So naturally, reporting relationships are developed. People are grouped and herded by specialization and usually assigned a manager to report to. While the speed of communication up and down the hierarchy generally increases, the speed of communication horizontally typically slows to a near-halt. Even worse, the odds of anyone finding new collaborators on a project team become almost nonexistent. Teams in general become defined as “people who report to the same manager,” and rotating team members becomes unnatural. Some companies, however, have actually managed to make the rotation of talent and diversity into the norm, not the exception.

  IDEO, the internationally renowned design consultancy, stands out as a perfect example. The company was founded in 1991 out of a merger of three design studios.18 David Kelley, one of the founders and still one of the chief figureheads of the company, often claimed that he started the company with one goal: to create a workplace made up of his best friends.19 He also claimed that he wanted the company to never grow past forty people, presumably to keep that “working with friends” feeling. But the company did grow, and rapidly. It experienced some very public successes early on, such as designing the first computer mouse for Apple Computers, creating a twenty-five-foot mechanical whale for the movie Free Willy, and being featured on an episode of ABC’s Nightline in which they showcased their entire creative process and redesigned the standard shopping cart. The company also won more industry awards than any other design firm throughout the 1990s. Success brought more success, which brought more work—which required growth.

  Today IDEO has offices around the world and employs more than 650 people.20 The company’s growth has made it difficult to keep that “small company, working with friends” feeling, but one of the primary ways they continue to achieve it is by designing their organizational chart around projects instead of around people. As new client projects come in, IDEO builds the team for each project from scratch. The teams themselves are highly diverse, combining engineers with architects, psychologists with anthropologists.21 The diverse mix of backgrounds provides a level of diversity and creativi
ty that most firms only dream about attaining, but it’s the unique nature of IDEO’s organizational structure—which allows teams to come together, perform, and disband to join new teams—that is one of the real keys to its creative success.

  Since the teams are built specifically for each project, and every new project is different, every team is different. But great things happen because every team combines talented designers with other specialists. “IDEOers are so smart and talented that when a new project comes in, we can put together a seemingly random team of designers out of who is available at that time,” David Kelley explained. “And in the end, magic happens: breakthrough ideas and happy clients.”22

  IDEO’s process for building teams might seem random, but it’s hardly that. IDEO uses a social platform to pick the perfect people for each team.23 All IDEO employees have profiles on the platform, which is rich with information about their education, capabilities, and past performance on projects. The profiles are shared across the entire company and can be searched and tagged electronically. The platform provides a quick and effective means for finding the right teammates from a broader pool than just one person’s past collaborators. And it also works in reverse—that is, employees can use the platform to search out opportunities for new projects that match their skill sets and their interests.

  The unique nature of IDEO’s work and its unique approach to building teams make its organizational chart look a lot like the PayPal Mafia network of Silicon Valley—except it’s all internal. When a new project comes in, a new team is built from a pool of those who are in the system and available. The project lasts for a few months, and then the team is disbanded and its members go back into the broader network of IDEO employees to await the next assignment. (Often they are already working in some capacity on the next assignment by the time the team disbands.) When employees find their next project, they are on a new team with new faces—and a few old ones.

  Whether it’s the large-scale network of the PayPal Mafia, a scientific laboratory, or the offices of a design firm like IDEO, the lesson is that the best networks allow fluid teams to form. So many of us approach building a network by searching for trusted individuals with whom we’ll work forever. We tend to assume that the best teams are ones that have held fast together for a long time. But the hard research on the nature of teams and networks suggests that the best and most productive teams are only temporary.

  From Science to Practice

  The lesson of networks of collaboration is that the best team for working on a project or even just providing advice is temporary—one that probably works together for less time than you would think necessary to be truly effective. To get that team, however, you need a network that’s loose and diverse enough to build or rebuild a new roster frequently. The best way to judge whether you have that network is to audit your calendar and see how you are currently interacting with teams of people. Here is a quick but powerful way to evaluate your team meetings and decide whether your network is too tight to form the teams you need:

  Look back over your calendar for the last three months and list any project meetings you attended.

  For each meeting, write down the names of everyone who attended the meeting. This list might get long; if a project team meets regularly, then you may be rewriting everyone’s name each time.

  As you build the list, put an asterisk (*) next to the name of anyone you are working on multiple teams with.

  Next, put a plus symbol (+) next to the name of anyone who is also serving on multiple teams you meet with (meaning two different teams have both you and that person on them).

  Once your list is complete, determine what percentage of teammates on the total list are serving on multiple teams. While this may be a somewhat arbitrary cutoff, it’s a major red flag if more than half of the people on your list serve on multiple teams. Ideally, even if you’re serving on only one main project team, different meetings should be held to draw and attract new attendees from your network or the networks of others. Another red flag is if the same people are meeting in the same room on a regular basis.

  Practicing Online

  It’s an older technology, but you may find it easier to complete this list by leveraging the original social media: email. Use your saved, deleted, and sent emails to get a better idea of who was in what meeting. Even better, if you or your organization uses a calendar service like Outlook or Google Calendar, you have access to a thorough record of who else was invited to those meetings and who at least said they would attend. (It’s up to you to remember who was actually there.)

  For a downloadable template to use when completing this exercise, go to http://davidburkus.com/resources/ and look for networking resources.

  —6—

  Become a Super-Connector

  Or

  Why Some People Really Do Know Everybody

  When we look out at our network and the networks of others, it’s easy to assume that all our networks are around the same size. Research into human networks, however, reveals that some people have drastically more connections than whatever would be an average—they are super-connectors. But the evidence also suggests that most of us have the ability to grow our network large enough to become a super-connector. We just need to grow it carefully.

  BRIAN GRAZER WASN’T BORN well connected. But he was born curious. And that curiosity led him to become a successful producer and a super-connector. Or perhaps the more appropriate order is that his curiosity led him to be a super-connector, and that in turn led him to become a successful producer.

  Through his firm, Imagine Entertainment, Grazer has produced blockbuster films such as Apollo 13, Liar Liar, A Beautiful Mind, and 8 Mile and television shows such as Arrested Development and 24. But Brian’s original plan was never to work in Hollywood, and certainly not as a producer. His curiosity and his connections led him there.

  Grazer was originally supposed to go to law school. He graduated from the University of Southern California and was set to continue to USC School of Law, but one fateful summer day he overhead a conversation that changed his life. “I overheard two guys talking,” Grazer reflected. “One said, ‘Oh my God, I had the cushiest job at Warner Bros. I got paid for eight hours of work every day, and it was usually just an hour.’”1 Intrigued, Grazer listened more closely and learned that the speaker had just quit his job as a law clerk, and he even overheard the name of the man’s former boss.

  Curious and also assertive, Grazer looked up the number for Warner Bros., called, and asked for the man’s former boss. Grazer said he was a law student and was looking for a summer job. The boss asked if they could meet at 3:00 P.M. the next day. “He hired me at 3:15. I started at Warner Bros. the next Monday,” Grazer recalled.2

  He quickly learned that the job did indeed involve very little work, but that it also had very little gravitas. Grazer was given a windowless room, barely the size of a closet, but it was a start. “From that tiny office, I joined the world of show business. I never again worked at anything else,” Grazer reflected.3 From those humble beginnings, Grazer developed his passion for the industry. And they were humble. The title may have been “law clerk,” but in fact he was nothing more than a courier. His job was to deliver documents, contracts, and other material to people working on Warner Bros. projects. The job was simple and boring: He was given an address. He would drop off the papers, and that was it. It would have been depressing if not for Grazer’s never-ending curiosity and determination to make it all fun.

  “I realized I’m delivering these papers to very, very famous people, but they also had people between themselves and me,” Grazer explained.4 So Grazer decided to do something to work around those people. “When I showed up, I would tell the intermediary—the secretary, the doorman—that I had to hand the documents directly to the person for the delivery to be ‘valid.’”5 Surprisingly, it worked. No one really questioned him.

  Grazer soon started meeting powerful executives and film actors, and many of
them would even invite him in for a quick chat. He met Oscar-winning directors like Billy Friedkin. He met movie stars like Warren Beatty. From there he would learn a bit more about the movie business or get some career advice. “Pretty quick, I realized the movie business was a lot more interesting than law school,” Grazer explained. “So I put it off—I never went.” Instead, he dedicated himself to learning more and more from these conversations and started to build a career for himself in Hollywood. To do that, he needed to get more advice. And to do that, he needed to get closer to the action.

  As luck would have it, around the same time he had this revelation, a senior vice president at Warner Bros. was fired and vacated his office. The office he left was right next to the executive suite of offices, where the president, chairman, and vice chairman of the studio worked. Grazer took a gamble and made a simple request to work out of that office while it was empty. “Sure,” his boss said, and he arranged the move. Grazer was just a simple law clerk, but he was working out of an important office—and even had his own secretary. Importantly, the office was next to John Calley, the vice chairman of Warner Bros., who quickly took a liking to Grazer and invited him to sit in his office often. Grazer quickly learned more about the movie business, but he also developed an even bolder idea for growing his assortment of connections.