By Jason Lim
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. _ This spring semester, I will take a course named, ``Building Organizational Social Capital: Informal Networks Within and Between Organizations’’ taught by Professor David Lazer. The impressive (and long) title makes it sound more imperious and ivory-towerish than it is because the course is simply about networking and how it can help you do your work more effectively. In fact, it is the least ivory-towerish and in fact most practical course I have taken here at the Kennedy School because the course actually makes you aware of the various components that go into a network and how they can be analyzed, designed, and manipulated to achieve the desired goal of a network.
The message of the course is not just that networks are good for you; it’s how networks can be good for you. More importantly, it’s how you can make networks that can be good for you. And since any organization, regardless of size and complexity, can be fairly described as an amalgam of various networks on multiple dimensions, both formal and informal, understanding how networks organize and communicate is essential to becoming a key leader within an organization.
According to the syllabus, key questions that will be explored in the course include: 1) What does your network look like, and how does it structure the information you get; 2) How does your pattern of relationships affect your negotiating position; 3) What kinds of networks do leaders of an organization need; 4) How does information diffuse through networks; 5) How does an organization’s network affect its members’ access to the knowledge they need to do their job; 6) What types of networks facilitate/hinder solving what kinds of problems; 7) What are the prerequisites to a network of organizations working well together?
Out of these questions, the third one interests me the most, especially in the context of a Korean organizational culture. How does a leader, or a wannabe leader, create or manage networks to achieve his or her goals? And what are the networking and leadership challenges posed by a country whose organizational culture is still largely characterized by strict, hierarchical command structure, despite increasing organizational flexibility? How do you network with the higher-ups in such a culture without being labeled either impertinent or obsequious? How do you network with your peers without seeming needy or showy?
Of course, these questions apply to networking in all cultures; however, these questions take on a special salience in a country whose organizational culture is largely defined by its Confucian propriety in relationships and reinforced by mandatory military service for all males in their early twenties when they are especially impressionable. Therefore, in a society where expected strict adherence to age, titles, positions, and nominal authority figures of all types create rigid relationship patterns, how can you develop your influence and leadership by developing a network that can serve your needs? In short, how do you become a leader by developing networks, which is essentially organic, in a largely inorganic organizational structure? We know that these ``organic leaders’’ do exist in Korea and are the main engine of growth and innovation of the Korean economy. How do you become an ``organic leader?’’
Of course, no academic course, however informative and educational, will give you a formulaic answer to these questions, not the least because they require subjective answers to each situation. However, Professor Lazer provides some analytical guidelines that make it easier to think about this topic. ``Networks can apply to leadership in three different roles, or phases,’’ Lazer teaches. ``You have networks that you need on your way to becoming a leader, you have networks that you need to maintain your leadership, then you have networks that will feed you information that you need to function as an effective leader. All these networks can include social and professional networks, vertical and horizontal networks. And they will surely overlap. What makes this more complicated is that your manipulation of the networks cannot be static. It has to be dynamic and adaptive, depending on the situation. In short, you have to be contextually intelligent and situationally savvy to develop and maintain a successful network.’’
Further, we learned in class that being the ``go to’’ guy in the network is not a good thing _ in a network, BMOC does not necessarily stand for ``Big Man On Campus’’ but ``Bottleneck Man On Campus.’’ There are other ways of being central to a network than having as many contacts and information sources as possible. Also, the density of a network does not always translate into the effectiveness of a network to your strategic goals. Many is not more in this case. Less can be more. Counterintuively, when you try to rigidify your relative position in a network out of need for job security, you could actually end up jeopardizing your position because you have just detracted from the flexible efficiency of the network that helps you do your job better.
Whew, I guess it’s not easy to be a successful network jockey. But we also know that networks are essential to our professional and personal success. After all, not everyone can be a hermit. So, be proactive in your networking and turn yourself into an ``organic leader.’’
Jason Lim is a graduate student at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.