Power_ Why Some People Have Itand Others Don't - Jeffrey Pfeffer [51]
Consequently, an optimal networking strategy is to know a lot of different people from different circles, have multiple organizational affiliations in a variety of different industries and sectors that are geographically dispersed, but not necessarily to know the people well or to develop close ties with them. This advice does not imply that the relationships aren’t genuine, just that the social ties are not so close that it becomes difficult, because of time constraints, to build as large and diverse a set of contacts. This advice is not inconsistent with the advice in chapter 2 to focus your efforts. You are focusing your efforts on building social ties that can be helpful—it’s just that such ties should be as many and as diverse as possible and useful for your obtaining power.
It’s also the case that both organizations and people are known by the company they keep—so it behooves you to associate with high-status people. This simple fact has interesting consequences, for it means that you cannot readily move down the status food chain to take advantage of opportunities if you don’t want to risk losing your own status. Joel Podolny, a sociologist who was former dean of the business school at Yale and currently heads Apple University, asked an interesting question about investment banks: because high-status investment banks have cost advantages deriving from their status (as just one example, they can raise money at lower cost than lower-status and presumably riskier banks), why don’t they dominate the market for both equity and debt securities, over time taking away most of the business from their lower-status competitors? His answer, from an empirical study of the investment banking industry, is that higher-status banks are constrained from “moving down” and capturing more of the market because in doing so, they would have to associate with lower-status securities issuers and, as a result, lose at least some of their status advantage.9
One way to acquire status is to start an organization that is so compelling in its mission that high-status people join the project and you build both status and a network of important relationships. That’s what Philippe did in Mexico. Mexico is a highly stratified society and many of the people who do manual and unskilled labor have little education. Because of these educational deficits, people cannot get better jobs and are consigned to a life of poverty. Philippe started a foundation to educate unskilled workers, mostly in the construction industry, which is a large employer of unskilled and semiskilled labor. The social importance of such an activity attracted the most prestigious professor from his engineering school and a board that consisted of some of the top social entrepreneurs in Mexico. Because the foundation’s work focused mostly on construction workers, Philippe got access to the best people in the real estate industry, and these social contacts have opened numerous real estate career opportunities as well as built a large and influential network of people from both the private sector and the government. As Philippe explained, he was both doing good and doing well.
The fact that status hierarchies are stable means not only that it is difficult to move up but also that it is difficult to move down. Once you have achieved power and status through the network of your relationships, you will be able to maintain your influence without expending as much time and effort.
You can monetize your high-status network. I have a friend who is a well-known executive coach. A while ago he was asked to submit a proposal to coach a certain CEO. His price: $250,000. The CEO told my friend