The Power of Social Capital and The Problem With Arrogance

"It's not what you know, but who you know that really matters."

This old saying still has a lot of relevance today. While I strongly encourage you to continue to strengthen your breadth of knowledge, experience and skill, I even more strongly encourage you to strengthen the breadth of your network. Social capital is just a fancy term meaning the quality of your network.

Here's a test to determine the strength of your social capital that I learned from my good friend, Peter Birkeland, author of Franchising Dreams, University of Chicago Press, 2002. It goes like this:

Step 1:	Make a list of all the people you have had a meaningful conversation with in the past 24 months.
Step 2:	Put their names into the following groups:

	Group A:	Anyone who is the same sex as you, same race as you, is within five years of your age, who lives in your city, who belongs to the same religious type of organization, who earns within $10,000 of your income and who has the same level of education as you
	Group B:	Anyone who has six out of these seven characteristics
	Group C:	Anyone who has five out of these seven characteristics
	Group D:	Anyone who has four or fewer of these seven characteristics

Look at how many people are in your network and at how many people are in each group. If more than 90% of your network is in Groups A, B or C, then the value of your network is becoming redundant. By that, I mean different people are providing you with nearly the same type of value. Look to expand the breadth of your network.

We all have four types of capital: financial, intellectual, experiential and social. The fourth one is just as important as the first three because a strong network helps you find a solution, a resource or an opportunity much faster than you can get there without one.

Arrogance is the belief that you know it all and can't learn anything new from anyone. The problem is that you essentially destroy your opportunity to develop social capital when you are arrogant. Stay open-minded to the value that other people can bring to you. Build mutually beneficial relationships with as wide a range of people as possible. Work to seek out and build new relationships. I can assure that it will accelerate your career.

I recommend a terrific book called, The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell published by Back Bay Books, 2000 that clearly outlines the value of social capital.

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin Back to Newsletter Page

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