Our professional network is obviously hugely important to our success at work. Research from ESMT Berlin highlights, however, that we often build networks that actually harm our performance.
The researchers analyzed a business unit of a large semiconductor firm and traced both the networks and the performance of employees over a two-and-a-half-year period.
Networking style
The researchers found that the majority of employees tended to develop relationships that aligned with their personal cognitive style, or how they liked to solve problems and process information. For instance, people who like to be creative would often develop relationships that cut across different groups.
If people have a more precision orientation, however, then such relationships tend to be avoided and their network is developed within a single group.
Such alignment with our cognitive style tends to make us feel good, so it’s something that comes naturally to us. While it might make us feel good, however, it’s not ideal for optimal networking, as the best performers tended to build networks that complemented their cognitive style rather than aligned with it.
Performance boosts
These networks provided a performance boost for creative people because they exposed them to those suitably adept at executing plans and helping them to convert their ideas into actions. Similarly, when those strong on execution paired up with creative people it extended their skillset in a similar way.
“We know how important building the right type of network is for individual performance, creativity, and career success,” the researchers explain. “However, many people inadvertently build networks that hold them back professionally. Based on our research, we now have an explanation for why this happens and what we can do about it.”
It’s crucial that we have a better understanding of how our networks can impact our performance so we resist the desire to only engage with those similar to us.
“If we aim to perform at our best, we must strive to build workplace networks that complement – rather than reinforce – our innate skills,” the researchers continue.
While this obviously requires us to step outside of our comfort zone, the researchers believe that the returns are sufficient to make this certainly worthwhile. Indeed, they believe that truly investing in our network requires a large dose of commitment and self-discipline. So important is it that they even advocate that organizations provide training to help employees do it effectively.
This finding suggests that rather than expecting employees to know what networks are right for them, organizations should support employees by imparting evidence-based knowledge on how networks really work.
