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optimize your network · Humanity Working

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think I think basically we should just agree that there should be a rule that you don't throw your mother under the bus in this podcast.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably a rule that should be just generalized even outside of the podcast.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: Either literally or metaphorically.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: Let's not try to boil the ocean either.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: You get me started on that thing.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get him started.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna do a whole episode about not boiling the ocean or boiling the ocean or whatever the relevance or non-relevance is of oceans and whether they should be boiled or not.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Paul, you and Ryan have this interesting concept of what a network means in the context of personal effectiveness.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Can you can you talk about that?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think most of us obviously have a reasonably good understanding of what people mean by a network in the traditional sense.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and very simply, of course, it's the group of people that are connected to you in some way, shape, or form.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: And we know from everything from uh the 60s, six degrees of separation thing with Kevin Bacon all those years ago, all the way through to um the way in which we use social networks today, that those that the networks themselves can be quite a bit larger than uh than we often think we think they are.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: However, of course, the networks that surround us um are obviously um different in nature when you look at them through different lenses.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: So there is this collection of uh of people that are close to us in some way.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: There was some research that was done a while back.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Gladwell refers to it in uh in one of his books, about this collection of people that are close enough to you, whereby if something happened to you in some way, they would care about you.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and that that group of people um is relatively small and also relatively consistent, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Across all cultures, it appears to be around about 140 people uh which are that which fit into that, uh, into that group of people.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: No matter what we do with social networks, no matter what we do with other um with other mechanisms to allow us to become more interconnected, that remains true.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, what social networks have given us have been uh the ability to uh create, if you like, a circle that surrounds that, a broader circle of people that you have some form of uh of connection to.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: So Ryan and I have been thinking for some time now about what the network means in the context of personal effectiveness, what it means in the context of what you're uh of what you're doing on a day-to-day basis and what your um short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals are.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: And when you start to think about it through that angle, what you start to uh start to realize is that it's actually a very flexible thing.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, if um I am, if I'm working on a particular set of outcomes right now, we're working on a set of outcomes to build a company around personal effectiveness, as an example.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: The subset and the group of people that are going to be sharing that outcome with you and have some common interest and some reason to connect with you around that is going to be a subset of your existing network and then possibly a group that sits outside of that network, people that if they were aware of it, if they were aware of what you're doing, would want to be connected to with you and would want to be involved in it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, as you move through life and as you change the outcomes that you're looking to work on and the things that are important to you, then the network changes alongside that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so, really developing a deep understanding of what the network is in the context of the thing that you're working on, that is what we refer to, if you like, as this idea of an outcome network.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, for this particular set of outcomes that I'm looking to drive, what is the network that is associated with that?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: And do and how much of it am I aware of, and how much of it sits outside of that of that current network.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: So much less static in nature and much more dependent upon the specific outcomes that you're looking to drive.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you could have kind of multiple networks that you shift to.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And okay, that's that's really cool.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So so more about like how you came up with this idea.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we we kind of stumbled upon this while we were at Microsoft.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and just you know, briefly, the way that Paul and I met was actually we had the opportunity to do uh an internal startup, an agile innovation team inside of Microsoft.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in this particular case, we were focused on clinical research.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it was uh it was one of the most interesting things I think either of us had ever done in our career.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um we had an opportunity to behave in any way we wanted to.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: We had the opportunity to set our own objectives, our own outcomes.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: We basically were given no leash, no requirements, just go figure this thing out.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so we devoted a ton of time to doing research and to trying to figure out um, you know, what was the landscape of clinical research, how do we break that down into components, things that we can tangibly start to innovate on.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but you know, what's interesting, as an agile innovation team, the thing that was the most innovative that came out of that was the innovation hub itself.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh not some new discovery or new technology, if you like, but rather um what we had figured out during the course step is that the smartest people in the field of clinical research don't work for us.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: And we and we need them.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and because the big problems like like clinical research, and in this case, clinical research just you know taking too long, as it were, is the the main problem.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: And people are their health suffers as a result of not being able to get the life-saving therapies that they need.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's the problem.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: And you can't just throw technology at a problem like that.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so what we had learned is our job was not to innovate in terms of um innovating on technology solutions to discrete problems in that domain of clinical research.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Our job was to find the people that could help us to innovate.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and it was, it became kind of the core thesis of what we did.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Indeed, that's the that's where the naming convention of Innovation Hub came from.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: It was our objective to attract as many people to what we were trying to get accomplished as possible.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: Now that that comes into objective setting um and and goal setting and things like that, which are you know which which people do are have challenges with.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um so for example, if we had said um the problem statement, uh let me put it this way if we had said that our objective was to build a lucrative clinical research business in Microsoft, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's our objective.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: If we had written that objective, then we would have been limited to the four walls of Microsoft.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: The people that care about Microsoft having a lucrative business unit.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's the only people that care about that objective.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: What we figured out over time is that uh our objective, when we frame it as saving lives, then now we can tap into a ton of diverse human ingenuity.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: We tap into patients, patient advocacy groups, doctors, scientists, clinical research organizations, pharmaceutical organizations, nonprofit organizations, you know, and everything.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then and you create this rally cry and you start to build this community.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: And to use what Paul's terms, we are building a network, a dynamic network around this objective.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so that became our core mission.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that's when we really realized that that we were onto something in terms of the importance of building your network around an objective.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: So again, it goes back to starting with framing the objective in such a way that you open yourself up to help and then nurturing that that network in a very specific way to make sure everybody is working towards that objective alongside you.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the really interesting things about what Ryan just mentioned was that as we were discovering this, it it sort of happened to us.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't something that we were that that we realized upfront that we needed to build a network around a particular outcome or objective that we were looking to achieve.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: What happened instead was that once we started talking about the problem in the way that Ryan is describing it, almost at the end of every conversation came, you know who you need to talk to?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: X or Y or Z.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And almost invariably, X or Y or Z was somebody that we had never met before.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so what was intriguing about this was that we were rapidly building the network around the particular outcomes that we were looking to drive.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it was almost entirely different to the existing network that we had.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so what can be really extraordinary is you can have relationships, and we did in some cases have relationships that last months or years.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and because the nature of the existing relationships you have are centered around a particular set of outcomes that you share with those people.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the outcomes could be anything from, you know, having a nice time with them on a Friday night, or it could be something that is just related to a different topic area.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Once you start talking to them about a specific thing, a specific different thing that they're interested in, then they start opening you up to these other areas.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so this was a realization that Ryan and I were coming to by that was almost forced upon us by virtue of the fact that we went, you know, within a small number of weeks to knowing, you know, maybe half a dozen people in this domain uh that might have something interesting to say, by virtue of speaking to those people, then being connected to initially tens and then later hundreds of additional people, all of whom had a deep interest that that was shared with us.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so yeah, I mean, it is something that is that was a real, real learning experience for us.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, that got reflected in things like our LinkedIn network and who was in our LinkedIn network.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we started to do some interesting analytics on it and started to see the nature of the people that we were connected to in LinkedIn, and it shifted dramatically over the course of three to four months just by virtue of the fact that we were pursuing these different outcomes and we were talking to people within our existing network about those outcomes.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a very interesting uh learning experience for us.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So are these networks larger or smaller than the networks we often think about these days?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think it de I think it can depend dramatically.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the inner circle, if you like, um can be small.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we should probably just talk a little bit by what we mean about the inner circle and the outer circle.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: This is probably something that is relatively intuitive to people uh generally, but I'll talk about what it means in the context of this idea.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so when we think about inner circle, that can be the people that are closest to us, outer circle, whereby the relationship is more, if you like, transactional, as it were.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then there may even be another circle outside of that whereby people want to be informed about what you're doing, but they're not actively engaged in any way.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so what you'll what you'll find in terms of these types of networks is that the inner circle, people that you're gonna work with on a day-to-day basis, the people in it may be very different in the context of the particular outcome you're gonna drive, but it's always going to remain fairly small.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason for that is fairly obvious, right?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Our own bandwidth to maintain those deep relationships doesn't get any bigger over time.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it obviously has to compete that inner circle with the other commitments that we have.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: But in some cases, the outer circle can be huge.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's really where technology comes into play because you have the ability then to be able to understand who's in that outer circle and maintain the right relationships with people in the outer circle.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the other thing that's really important is that, you know, as human beings, we have a tendency to pigeonhole people.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: We pigeonhole people in terms of what they mean to us, and they pigeonhole uh us in terms of what we mean to them.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, in this context, once you start thinking about outcomes, it would be natural and normal that if you had a normal inner circle and a normal outer circle, that some folks in the outer circle, when you're working on a particular outcome, are going to drift into that inner circle.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And some folks uh who are in the inner circle normally in the context of this outcome are going to drift to the outer circle.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of knowing what your network looks like as a whole and then actively pulling people in from that outer circle to make sure they're more informed about what you're doing.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you pick up the phone and you have the conversation with somebody that you haven't spoken to for, you know, for three years, because you're working on something of specific interest to them, becomes a very important skill.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you need to be able to uh to manage your network in such a way so that you can understand on you know, in the outer circle of people that you're communicating with that there is a shared interest and that there might be a desire to connect more closely in the context of uh of the particular outcome you're looking to drive.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So so what does that mean then for the individual that maybe wants to engage more effectively with their own network and and doesn't uh have the, you know, this is this could be a new a new thing for folks to really think about it this way.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you always hear networking as this kind of dirty word, like I'm going to this meeting to network sounds gross, but it it's really just, you know, this is a reality of of working in knowledge work and and getting to understand what you do and what you bring to the table.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, what does that mean for the individual uh that wants to engage more effectively in their network?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, so I think I think one of the problems that people have in managing their own network is I think Paul alluded to it a little bit before, is it's kind of just one big outer circle.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because it's not necessarily we don't have the precision as of yet, or most people don't have the precision as of yet into you know what their network means to them at the individual level.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that's really where the difference is is how can you create these inner circles to pull some of your outer circle into?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: And um it really kind of does start with defining your your objectives and putting it out there.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um you don't have to do objective sounds very um you know business centric, but on a personal level, it could be a goal, any any desired outcome, something that you want to achieve, anything that achieves a different state than you're in right now.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think that's one of the core problems that that uh the individuals face in terms of tapping into uh a community of people that can help them is that they didn't start with framing the objective of what they're trying to achieve and socializing it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: So you don't really know who can help you until you put what you're trying to get accomplished out there.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so for me, that's step one.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, step one is to frame it in such a way that people understand it, that they, that they understand it well enough that they understand what it means to them.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: And more importantly, that you write it in such a way or you communicate it in such a way that it's not just about you, it's about this thing that's gonna be happening.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: You want to rally people around the outcome, not necessarily rally them around you.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's where some people are a bit apprehensive.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: The um when you see these networks really come to life around something, it's usually not rallying around a person.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's rallying around a mission, it's rallying around an objective.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so um what you could be as an individual is the spokesperson of that objective.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: But your your goal is to get people to rally around that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and it's the other thing, too, about um networks on a personal level is you we tend to classify people in one way and one way only.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um and really people are very diverse and they do a lot of stuff.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Matt, of course, we know that you're a musician and we know that you're a comedian, and of course, we know that you're also a career-minded professional too, and a podcast host.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: So you're a very diverse person.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: I know you in each one of those capacities.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we talk about music and stuff like that offline, and that's on a more personal or more social side.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then in the context of this, obviously we're talking about personal effectiveness, and um perhaps in another life we could have been talking about clinical research in in more depth.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: But you mean something different to me depending on the context.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so I should know that and be able to engage you within that context, not pigeonhole you into one thing.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: What if I just said all Matt is a comedian and that's it?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: We wouldn't be talking right now because what we share right now is an interest in communicating about personal effectiveness to a broad audience.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the reason why Ron's called together.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: But we would not have known that unless we had an objective of creating this thing and sharing that within our network to find out what people's hidden talents or their hidden objectives are.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so now we're putting this network to work.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in your question, Matt, there was something rather interesting around it, whereby you're right.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: When when people think about I'm going to this meeting to network or I am, you know, it's my goal to network effectively, then in those contexts, it can be thought of as kind of almost like a dirty or an ugly thing.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason I think behind that is because if you approach networking in the wrong way, namely as something that's like highly transactional, or I am building a network in order to get other people to do stuff for me, or something along those lines, then it kind of is a bit of a challenge.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's not necessarily even terribly, uh, even terribly helpful.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: What we're encouraging people to do is to think about their network in such a way that you have an understanding of shared interest and an understanding of uh you know common outcomes that mean a lot to both parties.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that as you build out that relationship, it is by definition bidirectional in nature.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: If I have a shared outcome that I'm looking to uh that I'm looking to drive, and other people also want to share that outcome, then it's laying the groundwork to work together to achieve better results.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think Ryan said it best earlier on when he was talking about the fact that the the smartest people that are looking to solve any problem are almost certainly not you.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they're almost certainly, by the way, not even necessarily today in your innermost circle.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is something that organizations are wrestling with right now.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like even if I'm an if I'm a company that employs a hundred thousand people, that still means that there is, you know, billions of people that don't work for that company.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And some of them are gonna know more about this particular outcome than the company does.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we do think about this from an organizational perspective, and that's leading to some changes in behaviors, but we should be thinking about that from a personal perspective as well.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a gift to others if you can create uh and maintain a network of shared interest uh with those other people.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: And if those people feel like they're benefiting from that gift, they'll remain engaged in the network.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if they don't, they won't.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: So there's nothing wrong with you know building and maintaining these networks.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, in most cases, it's to the benefit of all the parties that are in the network.
• 21:04
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• 21:11
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• 21:18
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• 21:27
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• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's billionminds.com slash L E A R N M O R E.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Billion Minds, providing practical tools for our way too busy lives in the world.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean the the whole networking concept uh uh outside of networking.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Networking as a verb, but more building your network can obviously be very helpful.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the technology has made it easier to leverage if you look at LinkedIn, things like that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: But building it can still be difficult, particularly if you're new either to an organization or to uh even even into the workforce, or you've changed uh career path, for example, and you're new, now you have to kind of come into this whole new network and understand your your value.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think that's an interesting concept to talk about for a minute.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it comes back to that other point about putting yourself out there.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that's not necessarily easy for for everybody to do, but uh the the word that comes to mind that um that seems to really help is curiosity.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um when you approach any new situation, typically when you approach with a curious mindset, um, and and along with that comes some level of humility.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you're if you're that curious about something, in many ways you're admitting to uh not knowing everything, right?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: You're coming in, maybe not even as a neophyte, but you come in with a childlike curiosity, it gets it opens people up.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: They love to bestow wisdom, you know, they love to share, people love to share knowledge that they've acquired.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's that's typically human nature, that's as we found.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: But um it's not that easy to coax it out of them.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so what we've certainly found is that um approaching a new situation with some level of curiosity, you're putting yourself out there, you're making it known that you're curious about a particular topic or a particular objective.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, then you will start to hear voices, right?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: People will start to respond.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a great way to um identify those that not only can help you, but have the same level of curiosity that um that are that could potentially rally around your particular objectives.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that goes uh for entering a new organization, entering a new personal social group, or anything like that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's that lead-in with curiosity allows you to forge those relationships based on these new people, their willingness to interface with you in a way that helps you to gain knowledge that perhaps they've acquired.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: And then you start to identify who you're working with and and what they could possibly mean to you in a particular capacity, and then you start sharing your own insights.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so now they're getting the value out of your interpretation of this knowledge, the knowledge that you've gained.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: So now it becomes a two-way thing.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but it's very hard to build a two-way uh relationship if you come into a new setting as someone who's you know omnicious, you know, just already got it all handled and all figured out, because that usually has people put their guard up.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and it's very interesting, I think, Ryan, because what you've highlighted there is the relationship with the network is really dependent upon two things.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: So one, there's the personal aspect of it, right?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Are you new to the network or not new to the network?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there are relationships that you have to build, even if those relationships are online.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second aspect of it, of course, is centered around expertise.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, what is the nature of the contribution that you're making to the network?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And those two things are intrinsically linked, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: A good question can be a good contribution to the network.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: It can be actually of unique value.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you're asking, you know, neophyte questions along the lines of, well, why shouldn't it be like that?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just those questions can be very interesting and powerful questions to the rest of the network.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, over time it gives you an opportunity to build your expertise and then take a different role in the network that happens over time.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the things that we should should, as we think about the revolution that's happened in technology over time, we really, really need to consider the role of networks in how networks are contributing to human expertise, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Back in back in the day, um, the the way you learned about something was either through formal schooling andor libraries or bookstores, right?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you'd go find the wisdom that uh that came from people that had happened to spend months and months writing something down in a book, or the wisdom of people um that were teaching at your school or your university.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And if you had access to them, then you could you could absorb uh what they had to share with you in those forums.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, um access to wisdom and knowledge comes at you from so many different formats, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: It may come at you through a network, it may come at you through the new connection that you've made through the network that you could never have made normally.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: It may come at you through people networking together on things like Clubhouse or using or doing podcasts or whatever it happens to be, there is so much information that is springing out from these network connections that lead to knowledge that you can grow.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I think as the new generation of people comes in and they really start to think about what the relationship is between the network and growing knowledge and wisdom, that's when the networks become extraordinarily powerful.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because then at that point, things, traditional mechanisms like books and schooling still are part of the picture, but they're only part of the picture now.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the broader um wisdom of the crowd, as it were, is something that can be uh can be tapped upon.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now, with all of that said, we know that that there's a dark side to this as well.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, if your network is too tight and does not have um a bunch of different opinions and is not diverse enough in nature, then the network itself becomes a source of highly trusted disinformation.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then at that point, you're uh what you're absorbing as knowledge from the network is actually not real or true information and is actually leading you down the wrong path.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very, very uh important to retain a degree of skepticism around the information that you're receiving and to keep your antenna up so that you understand the nature of the information that you're absorbing from the network and then sharing back with that network.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you bring up a great point because you have, you know, a potential, if you get too small, for a high confirmation bias within your network.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, keeping that healthy skepticism and curiosity within your network to make sure that you can keep that out of the picture as much as possible.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Also, I want you, I wanted to hear hear what you think about the idea of folks that um sort of come into a network again with the new the new idea of having a fear of giving up their secret, their their secret sauce, their thing they're contributing.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: If I tell everybody that I'm not valued anymore, like that kind of idea, um, that's a mindset I think that's important to dispel in networks uh as you as you build these out too.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I want to touch on that um briefly too, because this is a problem that we experienced in in the corporate world.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh unfortunately, something that has happened over the years is that we started to reward people more on effort than actual impact.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um and there's there's ways to play the game, if you like.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: You can get hidden in a large organization, let's just call it a large network.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and often it's misconstrued, effort is misconstrued as impact.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so people have found ways of um making themselves look more impactful um and uh look more valuable um by comparison.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's almost like how they prioritize their days is trying to find ways to um to appear to be more important than maybe they actually are to the organization's objectives.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I'm saying organization, I'm using very business type terms, but this applies anywhere, right?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: This applies to any group of people, whether that's social or professional or otherwise.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that's something that really needs to change because what happens there, Matt, is that that that uh that begets that behavior that you just described of hoarding.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and hoarding is bad.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, hoarding knowledge is is is is is bad.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's um it's it's almost not fair, if you like, you know, and so um and and the reason why people hoard, the reason why they do that is because of what I just mentioned.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's because that knowledge, if they can keep it to themselves, then that makes them more valuable by comparison.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so the only way that you can really combat that is to kind of break down all those old architectures that have been erected over time that are uh you know really engendering this type of behavior of just measuring volume of work, for example.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, because then that that incents people to say, all right, well, look, I I want to make sure that I hang on to all this information and not let anybody else learn from it so that I can maintain my position.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and that's not the way the future is going to work.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's the way that's you know that's kind of a byproduct of all this organizational, organizational infrastructure that's been erected to manage these large organizations.
• 31:57
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think there's a role that individuals have to play in that um as well.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: I agree that organizationally we have to sort of like change cultures to uh to prevent that from happening.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: We also have to take responsibility for that in terms of our own behavior.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: This sort of hoarding behavior that we're talking about is not only, you know, selfish and bad, it's kind of stupid from an individual level as well.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think what it comes back to is that when people think about relationships in general, they're often way too transactional in terms of how they think about the relationship.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the concept of the network can actually really help here.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if if you think about every relationship you have as a one-to-one relationship in which you expect to have an equal value exchange on a daily basis, a weekly basis, a monthly basis, then you're not likely to get many places because you're gonna keep all of these personal mental ledges, if you like, of well, I've done all these things for this person and this person has done nothing back for me.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you're gonna and you're literally gonna kind of keep score of those individual relationships.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then at some point down the line, because you're keeping score of those individual relationships, you're gonna stop providing value to, you know, person X or person Y.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty soon your network is gonna wither and die.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: So if you think about it completely differently and you think about it in terms of not what is the value that I'm providing to this person, this person, this person, and this person, but what's the value that I'm providing to the network as a whole?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then over a long period of time, not a short period of time, how is that coming back to me in terms of value that I'm getting from the network as a whole?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: It changes your outlook uh significantly.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: So much less, you know, a set of individual relationships, but much more building a network, maintaining a network, providing value to that network and extracting value back from that network needs to be the way in which we think about it uh ourselves.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, we'll never build a network in the first place because we will literally be trying to micromanage every individual relationship within it and change our behavior with people in it accordingly.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it made me think of like uh somebody spends so much time with their ledger of personal help in Excel, you know, like I helped so-and-so for 20 minutes today.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I scratched their back and they didn't scratch mine.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Scratch them off the network.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, it's not gonna work, is it?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and so these behaviors that we're talking about here, the horning behavior, um, the you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours behavior, these are these are, as I mentioned, like simultaneously um like poor social behaviors, as it were, but they're also dumb, right?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly in a world where there is a where you have a larger network where help can come from all kinds of unexpected quarters.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: What about for in in terms of the hoarding piece too, like some people are just introverted and don't like to go out there and and share even if they didn't realize they were hurting the the network or the objective by doing so.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: So what about what about that?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, believe it or not, I fit into that category.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: So um I'm definitely uh definitely introverted and traditional um you know settings, as it were, whereby uh, you know, need to be social in a particular setting and so on, could be very can be very challenging for me.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a couple of things that I've um noticed in my own behavior as an introvert.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: First off, um introverts um or a good proportion of introverts can be much more comfortable um sharing information with others or maintaining relationship with others if there is a distinct purpose for it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so that in other words, you're looking, you're you're looking to drive this outcome.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's not a because you are looking to drive a particular outcome, it's not a sort of general, open-ended social situation.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Do I have the right things to say?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Will other people be interested in what I have to say?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Am I gonna have to hold or maintain a conversation?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a purpose for the specific um, you know, outcome that you're looking to drive alongside those other people.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so that in itself can help, this concept of like having an uh having an outcomes network.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's given you a reason or a rationale in order to be able to share it.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second thing I think to your point is that um as we alluded to earlier, even a smart question can be useful um to the net uh to the network as a whole.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: So being open enough um to share curiosity, um, which hopefully is a relatively universal trait, being open enough to share the curiosity that you have about a particular domain can lead to those types of relationships.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: And most introverts um are people for whom the broader the broader social setting networks are harder, but deeper relationships are uh are okay because you've you know you've got the comfort associated with the deeper relationship.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so in these situations, this is another area where technology can really help because um it allows you to be able to understand the nature of that uh of that broader network.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then when people are closer, then you can have those conversations with them, uh, um, with them more freely.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Susan Kane uh gave a TED talk and she has a book actually called Quiet, uh, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, where her her premise is really like, you know, we have to understand that these are these introverts uh that can use extroversion when they need to in the network or as part of their organization or professionally, whatever the case may be.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the introvert part doesn't go away and actually uh gets into the the deep work of introverts, the necessity of of them being a part of your network and maybe giving them some uh empathy or some some uh acceptability that, oh yeah, you don't have to talk out loud all the time to really be a thoughtful person, to your point, to bring up a good question.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: It may be the only thing a person says because they're introverted, but they just have this one question that brings the whole common group together.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a really interesting concept and and uh and and and book and TED talk.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I would encourage checking that out.
• 39:00
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• 39:27
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• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to talk about um a term called exponential organizations.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's it's really a concept, and it was really popularized by Salim Ismail in his seminal book of the same title, and it's based on this same premise of exponentials that this is the pace of innovation.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so this is the pace that organizations need to grow at as well.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: And traditional organizations just weren't built for that because we didn't move that fast before.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and if you think about it, all of the organizational constructs, everything that's been taught in business school around structure is based on a previous way that humans worked and lived.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so a highly separated matrixed organizations and departments and things like that still exist and they're really the lion's share of organizational structure in today's market.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's that's got to change if organizations are going to be able to scale at an exponential pace.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so this concept of exponential organizations has in itself this a bunch of underlying principles that you have to be tapping into an abundance of resources.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: Again, going back to the principle that the smartest people don't work for you, um, you know, you've got to be tapping into ingenuity wherever that may be.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so developing that into the DNA of your organization is critical.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: Now, that same ethos applies at the individual level.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's no different.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so now that technology, or that technology is helping us to, again, democratizing access to human ingenuity, why should that just be tied up in organizations and even lesser whore organizations that are built to be exponential organizations, which is even a smaller subset?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: But humans, every single human, um I we think over the next 10 years is going to be enabled to tap into that human ingenuity.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_03: Now it's up to us as individuals to actually act on that.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so now the network that we described before, that the outer circle, is 7.5 billion people, right?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: There's there's no reason why it couldn't be.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so, very similar to what we talked about before with the clinical research innovation hub, your job as an individual owner of an outcome, something you're trying to drive, whether that's personal, whether it's professional, or anything, is not necessarily to just put your head down and start working on it, right?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: But rather to start to frame it out in such a way that you can rally, get a network of resources to rally around that outcome.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: And you're going to be looking to put that out there in a whole field of 7.5 billion people.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, an example that that I like to use is let's think about what education could potentially look like.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, people now have, or people during the pandemic, I should say, have been kind of forced to forced into this homeschooling situation.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you know, parents were by no means trained to do that.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so these these these kids didn't have access to their teachers like they would normally.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, of course, we've come a long way since the beginning of the pandemic, and the technology has helped out a lot.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it's also what uh we've observed is um the behaviors have changed around this as well.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so my I'll just use it on a personal example.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: So my son's objective is to get AB on role this quarter, right?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: So once we put that out there, then we start to break that down into people that can help him to achieve that.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: He can't do it alone.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think that any student should feel like they need to go it alone.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's why we have teachers, that's why we have tutors.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so um, so our job as parents is not to not to just hold him up in his room and shut the door and say, thou shalt not leave here until your homework is done, right?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: That that's not the answer to it.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: But rather to help him build a network around that objective of AB Onrol, that is his teacher or teachers, that's tutors, that's uh my parents, his grandparents.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: They're always looking for things that they want to help out with the kids.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: They're always asking us, you know, how can I help the kids this week?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, which is great.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: But if you you if you're not prepared to answer that, then you're not getting access to that help.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: But if they're in tune with their grandson's objective of AB on role, then who knows?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: They can help him to write some study guides or do flashcards or things like that.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: And and so now all of a sudden, it's not just Julian, it's not just my son that's that's charged with this, uh, with achieving this objective, but he's built a community of people around that that are helping him to do it.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: The way too busy podcast was presented and produced by me, Matt Neal, and was brought to you by Billion Minds.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to get in touch with us, tweet us at Rising Billion or email us at Waytoo Busy at Billion Minds dot com.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Billion Minds, creating practical tools for our way too busy lives.