{"id":47507,"date":"2022-08-05T10:48:44","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T08:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/?p=47507"},"modified":"2025-11-18T14:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T12:16:06","slug":"using-your-network-structure-to-achieve-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/using-your-network-structure-to-achieve-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Your Network Structure to Achieve Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this video, Marissa King, a Program Co-designer on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/products\/yale-som-executive-education-accelerated-management-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Accelerated Management Program<\/a> from the Yale School of Management Executive Education, explains the effect of your social network structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Using Your Network Structure to Achieve Success | Yale SOM\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hXSF4tR4OxA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How important do you think your network is for helping you achieve your personal and professional goals? As it turns out, your social network impacts your pay, job satisfaction, creativity and many other aspects that contribute to your success. But it\u2019s not the size that matters. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019d like to begin by inviting you to reflect upon how important you think your network is for your ability to achieve your personal and professional goals. What we know from decades of research, is your social network determines your pay, promotion, job satisfaction, engagement at work, creativity, innovation, and your overall ability to perform at your job. While oftentimes people think it\u2019s the size of your network that matters, for all of the outcomes I just talked about, it\u2019s actually your network structure, not the size of your network, that really matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do I mean when I say social network? If you look at the graphic on your screen, you\u2019ll see an illustration of a social network \u2013 a network graph. In the graph, each of the circles can represent people, it can also be representing companies, countries \u2013 really any object. The lines between the circles are denoting relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By creating graphs like these, social scientists can gain a better understanding of how social relationships affect a wide variety of outcomes. Scientists in psychology, sociology, computer science, and physics have spent decades trying to understand how the different arrangements of the circles \u2013 which we call nodes \u2013 impact a wide variety of outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In thinking about your social relationships, it\u2019s helpful, oftentimes, to think of an analogy. If you think about carbon \u2013 carbon comes in many different forms, but arrange it one way, carbon produces a diamond.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can take the same carbon atoms, and arrange them differently, and produce graphite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Social networks have much of the same property. You can take the same individuals, and arranged in one way, you can obtain outcomes that lead to innovation and creativity. But if you take the same team and compose them and arrange them differently, you can also achieve a quite different set of outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your network has a huge impact on your ability to achieve personal success. But beyond you, it also has a huge impact on your team\u2019s ability to work together effectively, and your organization\u2019s capacity to develop and deliver goods and services effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What determines what your network looks like? Context, behaviors, and choices are three factors that have a huge impact on what your network looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oftentimes when people are thinking about their own social network, they think that who you know is what really matters. But what we know is social context \u2013 or actually, where you go \u2013 is one of the biggest factors in determining what the structure of your network looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oftentimes another misconception about networks is that personality is one of the biggest determinants. Personality explains very little of what someone\u2019s network looks like. In fact, it\u2019s the way that they behave, how much they disclose to others about themselves, that has a much bigger effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the third piece are choices. One of the biggest choices you make when you\u2019re determining the strength of your network, and how it will shape your life, is how much you invest in maintaining your existing network, versus how much you invest in expanding, and in growing, the size of your network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this video, Marissa King, a Program Co-designer on the Accelerated Management Program from the Yale School of Management Executive Education, explains the effect of your social network structure. How important do you think your network is for helping you achieve your personal and professional goals? As it turns out, your social network impacts your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":47515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[122],"article-format":[],"class_list":["post-47507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-advice","tag-business-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Using Your Network Structure to Achieve Success - GetSmarter Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find out why the structure of your social network counts for more than its size. 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