In February, I had the privilege of teaching a leadership course with the Nicholas School for coastal managers in Guam. The course included a session on my favorite topic, social networks and leadership. Through conversations, I heard examples of how social networks shaped the context of the participants.
Guam is a small island – about 200 sq miles with a population of 150,000. It is also fairly isolated: the trip from the mainland to Guam can take 12 hours by plane. With this small size and isolation, the relationships on the island are densely interwoven. One participant shared a story about how when he has open meetings for issues with beach management, he likely had a cousin or aunt addressing him.
Dense social networks both challenge and benefit people when it comes to leadership. Trust and speed of information exchange increases with network density. The downside of this density, however, is that new information is harder to come by. If everyone we know share the same contacts, we eventually share the same stories and ideas.
Luckily, there is a network phenomenon that helps resolve this. Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter first described weak ties as connections that don’t occur regularly. These are consequently less intense in both emotional and information exchange, but serve as conduits for transfer of new information and resources across social networks. Networks tend to be clusters more than perfect webs of connections. Our weak ties connect the cluster we are in every day to other clusters, where different ideas, habits and opportunities are the norm.
We had a great chance to leverage weak ties in the Guam session: Two of the participants were from Saipan, the next island north in the Marianas. The Saipan participants presented one of their current challenges as a live case study, where the whole program works on the issue for them. They were the context experts setting the stage, and they gained the benefit of the content expertise of the various people in the room. The weak ties of the classroom helped bring new ideas and perspectives into the challenge they were facing.
Bringing your challenges to a room full of classmates probably isn’t an option for everyone reading this. You can still do something similar. If you find yourself stuck and hearing the same answers from those around you, reach out to someone you don’t interact with often. Find an old colleague you haven’t worked with in years – old ties can be the best. Look to a client or partner that works in a very different field. And don’t just ask for their opinion on your problem. Ask them about what is going on in their world. Sometimes the best ideas are ones that are translated from one space to another. And since networks are two-way, weak ties are also a way you can help others.
Written by Joe Houde, Ed.D. Joe is an educator, designer and consultant specializing in innovative educational design and corporate education, and founder of Analog Learning, an experiential learning curation site. He is based in Durham, NC.