介绍:
Weak ties matter
By Everett Harper
I’m going to drop some science on you — social science — about how to recruit a diverse team of high performers. In 1973, Stanford sociology professor Mark Granovetter published an empirical paper called The Strength of Weak Ties.
If you’re wondering about the validity of a 40-year-old study on hiring for today, consider that Professor Granovetter is one of the pioneers of social network theory, and is “unofficially” short-listed for the Nobel Prize in Economics. I took his class when I was a graduate student in organizational behavior, and his work influenced my approach to everything from analyzing links between virtual communities in Second Life to building strong product teams.
Here’s the argument: In social networks, you have different links — or ties — to other people. Strong ties are characterized as deep affinity; for example family, friends or colleagues. Weak ties, in contrast, might be acquaintances, or a stranger with a common cultural background. The point is that the strength of these ties can substantially affect interactions, outcomes and well-being.
Granovetter wondered if strength of tie had an impact on finding a job. His insight was that within a network of strong ties, people with weak ties outside the core network are bridges to other networks. Those bridges have access to new and unique information — like job openings — relative to other members of the network with only strong ties.
In particular, Granovetter showed that people with weak ties not only find jobs that the rest of the tight network cannot see, but those jobs come with higher compensation and satisfaction. This is especially true for higher-educated workers, like your typical engineer. Because more than 40 percent of jobs are found through referrals, understanding weak ties is an important factor for both job seekers and recruiters.
