The Bregman Leadership Podcast
Episode 125

David Burkus

Friend of a Friend

Why does networking make us feel dirty? It doesn’t have to, according to David Burkus, author of Friend of a Friend. David returns to the podcast this week to talk about weak connections versus dormant connections, why looking outside your immediate networking community could give insight into industry problems, and the best kind of networking events to host.

Tweets

We shouldn’t build a network – we already exist within one. The best networking is doing a deep-dive on the connections we already have

Video

Transcript

Peter: Welcome to the Bregman Leadership Podcast. I’m Peter Bregman, your host and CEO of Bregman Partners. This podcast is part of my mission to help you get massive traction on the things that matter most.

Peter: With us today is David Burkus. He is not only a friend of a friend, but he’s actually a friend who has most recently written the book Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career. This is what the book looks like if you’re watching the video. David is a best-selling author, sought-after speaker. He’s a business school professor. He’s a regular contributor to HBR, Harvard Business Review. He’s delivered keynotes to Fortune 500 companies. His TED Talk has been viewed 1.7 million times. We’ve had him on the show before. He’s just generally a nice and an interesting guy, and I think this conversation will be really great.

Peter: Dave, welcome to the Bregman Leadership Podcast.

David: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I feel like I can only disappoint from there, but thank you for having me and for that awesome intro.

Peter: Let’s start with … This book is about networking, and it’s about how to network more effectively and more enjoyably, in a certain sense. And as I was saying to you before, I was halfway through the book and I suddenly realized I had a question, which is what is networking? There’s so many things that we assume when we say networking, and there’s so many emotions that go along with it. I thought we should start with a really clear definition. So when you’re writing this book and you’re thinking about networking, what is it?

David: Yeah, I’m with you. It’s sort of like, for most people they hear it and they think it’s a four-letter word, even though it’s a ten-letter word, I think. I think most people, when they hear the term, have a definition that is networking means meeting strangers. It means running up the count of the people you’re connected to on LinkedIn or your friends on Facebook, which is a terrible word to use for Internet connections. But hey, whatever, we’ll go with it. Or in general, going to that networking mixer, anything that you do to try and meet new people.

David: And in actuality, what I think is interesting is there’s a whole other industry that also uses this term networking. The computer science industry also uses it. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we chose deliberately not to put networking in the title or subtitle, because then Amazon might think that we’re actually a book about linking computers together. But they’re not focused on adding new computers. I mean, that is part of it, but it’s not the entirety. It’s about how do you get connected. So I fundamentally define networking as anything you do that involves mapping, understanding, connecting with, maybe that’s adding new connections, maybe it’s reconnecting with old people, in your network.

David: I don’t think you build your network. I think we already exist inside of one. And so what I would call networking is anything that involves understanding that network and responding accordingly, and that’s a whole lot more than meeting strangers.

Peter: All right. I get it. And here’s why … When you say people, again, feel a little dirty with it … And you actually use that term. And I think there’s some research that reflects that you actually start to feel a little dirty sometimes after networking the way people think about it, and we could talk about that a little later. But I realize that part of the reason why … And this is the way I began to realize people think about networking, is it’s developing friendships with a purpose. And it’s not just, “I’m hanging out with you because I like you and because I’m connected to you and that we’re just going to enjoy ourselves and laugh and have a beer.”

Peter: It’s actually, there’s something I want from you and that there’s an ultimate purpose to developing this friendship, which you can look at it and say it’s mutual and it’s how life works. And on the other hand, you can look at it and go it’s kind of like using each other a little bit, and I think that’s the feeling that people get a little bit. Like I want to become friends with you so you can help me. And, yeah, I’m going to actually help you, so it’s going to be a symbiotic relationship. But there’s sort of a usury kind of undertone to networking that I think people have a difficulty with, and I thought I’d just get your perspective on that.

David: No, I think that’s fair. I think I would say it would be … I would prefer people use the term intentionality rather than purpose. Because a lot of times with a lot of relationships, you don’t know where it’s going to go. And some of the best ones … Like in the book, we talk about this idea of multiplexity, the idea that we tend to put people into buckets, work bucket, real friend bucket, our kids have friends and so we have to hang out with that other parent bucket, neighbors bucket. And what we don’t realize is that humans are multifaceted and there often people in our lives that we connect to for a couple different reasons. We work together, but our kids go to the same school. Or we work and go to church together, or whatever it is.

David: And in that, one of the weirdest things is that relationships, even the utility relationships, that purpose piece that you were talking about, it tends to spill over. You might have thought you were connected with this person for this purpose, but in actuality, this is how they become sort of more useful to you. Work friends become real friends that you’re able to bond and have real conversations with. Or vice-verse. You end up finding about a job opportunity or even going into business with someone who’s a real friend. I mean, the purpose thing is definitely there. The weird thing is that once we succumb to it, what gets really weird is if you’re putting people in those buckets, you’re doing that thing where you’re judging in the first 90 seconds of meeting someone if they’re going to be useful to you. And then you become that person we all hate who’s now looking over their shoulder at other people in the room trying to find that other person that would be more useful, and that’s a huge problem for a couple different reasons.

David: So I’m with you. I have no problem with sort of intentionality, but sometimes the purpose isn’t necessarily all that obvious and it’s still worth pouring some intentionality into that relationship.

Peter: I love how you’re framing this, Dave. So what you’re saying is, I’m going in there not with a specific purpose, not with a specific intention, other than to say I want to be connected to a lot of people, and we all want to achieve things in the world, and somehow these connections are going to help each other and I’m not entirely sure when. And by the way, if I know exactly why I need to be connected to you and for what particular purpose, it might even be too late. Because at that point, it’s going to come off as using more. But you want to build this network of connections so that you can all help each other at some point without necessarily knowing exactly in what way, and that somehow removes some of the sort of using feeling of sort of networking. Am I thinking about this correctly?

David: Yeah. No. I think so. If we’re going to get fancy and nerdy … The sociologist Ronald Burt, who is one of the major researchers in the world of network science that we profiled in Friend of a Friend, he talks about … So there’s this term social capital, the value in your network, the existing value but also the value that you’re able to take away from that network and pour into your career, your life, what have you. And he actually breaks that up into two types, bonding capital and bridging capital. Bonding capital is you get close to them and you’re able to help each other and you’re able to … I mean, you’re able to bond, but also you’re able to help refine each other, give each other advice, etc.

David: If we’re doing that purpose thing, one of the big problems is we tend to only think about it in that bonding capital. But there’s also bridging capital. Bridging capital is we have this relationship, and it’s not overtly obvious why, but that relationship connects me to a different community. And often that’s what we find is that the people that are acting as linkages between different industries, different sectors, and these are also the people that don’t look useful right off the bat, they’re the people that provide more value long term because of this bridging capital idea. They’re literally the ones that keep the network so tight together, and you need those people, too. And you only get those if you’re not like, “Hey, in the next 18 months, here’s what I want to do with my career, and I’m only interested in meeting people that can help me do that one thing in the next 18 months.” You’re going to get bonding capital. You’re going to come off as a sleazebag, but you’re going to get bonding capital. But you’re not going to get that bridging capital, and that’s really what you need long term.

Peter: Yeah. And it’s interesting, because it’s a little bit … It reminds me of Adam Grant’s work around give and take, that you can’t just go into network trying to help everybody else or trying to be helped. But you have to sort of go in saying, “I’m going to actually participate. I’m going to be a partner in this networking, and I’m going to sort of continue to look for opportunities that I don’t even necessarily see.” And I love your point, Dave, about this idea of people who bridge. Because when I think of the creative ideas I come up with, they’re almost never coming up with a creative idea drawn from the industry within which I’m trying to solve a problem with. And it’s always not coming out of the ether. Like I’m not this brilliant, creative person that just sort of imagines things that doesn’t come from anywhere, but often I’m seeing things in one place and I’m bringing them to another.

Peter: And you’re basically saying that the network should be the connected version of the way ideas often work, which is you see an idea in the way people build air conditioners and you apply it to the way they lead or they manage. And that kind of a bridge is often where the most sort of creative potential lies.

David: Yeah. No. That’s exactly write. So my first book was actually about creativity and innovation, and one of the things that we discuss is the idea that all ideas are combinations of preexisting ideas. And the ones that are most disruptive to an industry, and in turn the ones that create the most value for the new company that came up with it, are the ones that actually started somewhere else and were migrated over. We love to talk about how Netflix destroyed Blockbuster, but they weren’t the first ever subscription company out there. They were just the people that went, “Hey. What if instead of buying movies the way you buy groceries, you bought them the way you subscribe to magazines?” That’s literally the genius of the idea. That’s it, right? “We’ll send them in the mail.” That’s it. That’s all they did, and they disrupted sort of a whole industry.

David: When you look at it in that capacity, you’re like, huh, that doesn’t actually sound that hard. And I think that’s what most of us need, especially in a leadership role, is to have a lot of those bridging capital connections so we can see ideas from other industries and be able to kind of turn them over in our hand and look at them and go, “Maybe this would be worthwhile if we plugged it in over here.” That’s where you’re going to get the majority of your awesome ideas. And we already know this. Like benchmarking tried and failed, and we’re done with it. So we already know that we need to be looking to other places if we’re going to come out as the leaders in a certain industry.

Peter: So you start with this basic premise that most of us breathe a sigh of relief about, that the best way to grow your network isn’t by introducing yourself to a bunch of strangers at cocktail parties, handing out business cards, signing up for the latest online tool, but by developing a better understanding of the existing network that’s all around you. And you talk about lots of ways of doing that, including sort of distant networks and what you’re talking about now around people in the network that might bridge from one network to another. Can you throw out a few ideas for listeners as to some things that they can do that can help them not feel dirty and, at the same time, build this sort of set of connections that could be really useful to them?

David: Yeah. So again, I think this is where people think, “Oh, networking’s a four-letter word because I hate going to that event.” If you don’t want to, you never have to go to one of those open-ended, unstructured networking events ever again. And in fact, the two most useful things you can do for sort of growing your network actually have to do with people you already know. So the first is reaching back out to weak ties and dormant ties. I’m not the first person to talk about weak ties and dormant ties, but the truth is, a lot of people who talk about them don’t actually understand what they really are. A weak tie is not a random person you just met but you don’t know that well. A weak tie is someone who you know, who is active, who’s in your life, but not all that strong a pull in your life.

David: And there’s a specific subset of a weak tie called a dormant tie, that is someone who used to be stronger in your life, but for some reason or another, they fell by the wayside. So, Peter, to give you an example, you and I are weak ties, right? Over time, we probably will go stronger. Eventually, the more times I’m in New York, the more times you’re in Tulsa … Okay, it’s going to be me in New York …

Peter: Mostly New York.

David: … we’ll grow. But right now we’re weak ties, and what that means is that our closest connections, the people that think like us, act like us that we spend the most time around are different communities. So your weak ties are a source of that bridge that we already talked about. And then there’s also-

Peter: Right. So for example, let me just use this example specifically. So Leading with Emotional Courage is my book. And if you were living in New York in exactly the same community, and I’m saying, “Hey, can you help me get this book out?” you would say, “Yeah,” and we’d all have the same friends.

David: Right.

Peter: But you’re saying, “I could actually help you because I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I’ve got this whole audience that’s off on the … So, yeah, I’m going to help you get it out.” And then suddenly you’re going to be branching out to this whole audience of people that I would have no way of knowing. And that by definition, we’re a little bit of a weak tie in part because we didn’t meet in New York and grow really close. And, no, we met with you in Toledo and me in New York, and so we haven’t had that opportunity and that gives us, actually, an advantage.

David: Right. No, exactly right. And the same thing would apply whether it’s publicizing a book … If you’re looking for a new job, I’m going to have connections to different industries that you don’t have. If you’re just looking for new information, “Hey, I’ve got this problem and I need a new way to solve it,” your weak ties are going to be the people that have different perspectives on that problem. There’s a subset of that called your dormant ties, which are actually the best value. They’re people that used to be stronger. So let’s pretend that we both lived in the same city and we were like best buddies for the longest time and then I moved away. Now I’m a dormant tie. I’m a relationship that … You know those people that like you call them and it’s been a year, but it feels like no time has passed?

Peter: Yeah.

David: Those are your dormant ties. They’re literally in a different area and a different network with different close connections, but it takes no energy to rebuild the level of rapport that you need to start working on those problems. So step number one is reaching back out to those weak and dormant ties.

Peter: So let me ask you a question. Do you think it’s smart to have a preferential approach to those weak and dormant ties or to be random? And what I mean by that-

David: So-

Peter: Let me just explain what I mean by that, which is, if I’m in consulting and leadership and writing and I have a dormant tie who’s a dogcatcher in Indiana, versus a dormant tie who runs a school in Boston, versus a dormant tie who’s in leadership work in San Francisco, are you suggesting that I have some preference around those three, or saying do it randomly because the research shows you just never know?

David: So the research suggests it doesn’t matter. I’ll give one caveat, which is if you’re listening to this and you’re in that role where you’re actually looking for work, you’re looking for new opportunity or new clients, etc., then you should probably have a little bit of preferential-ness to it. But they actually… Literally, one of the studies was reaching back out to dormant ties and asking executives to rank their dormant ties. And then they said, “Okay. Reach back out to the number one and then select at random number two through nine.” And statistically, when they rated the value of advice from both those people, the number one and the number random, the advice quality was about the same. So again, if you’re looking for those sort of new ideas, new information, just a new perspective, and you’re open to the idea of I don’t know where it’s going to go, but it’ll be useful no matter where it is, then, no, do it at random.

David: In fact, in the book, we even tell people like, “Make a list of one through ten, then roll a dice if you have to and figure out just whatever gets you to start.” I will say that most of us have preference for people who it’s been the shortest amount of time since we’ve talked to them. And we probably should fight that preference, because if your number one in your ranking is your number one because it’s only been four months, that’s probably not going to help you as much as the person you don’t want to reach out to because it’s been a year, because that person had a year swimming in a different section of the network. That’s going to be more valuable.

Peter: That’s interesting. And actually, as evidence of that, a friend of mine from college who I hadn’t seen in … who I wasn’t particularly close to and I hadn’t seen in probably 30 years, just reached out to me by email. She’s a journalist. She’s working in these war countries. And she’s like, “I happen to be in New York, and I’ve read a bunch of your stuff. And we haven’t seen each other in 30 years. Let’s go have lunch.” And we had lunch, and it was … Like I don’t know that it will be a connection that will quote-unquote be useful, but it was very interesting and a lot of fun, and it felt good that someone reached out. So the reason I’m bringing this example is because a lot of us feel like it might feel weird to reach out to someone we haven’t spoken to in 30 years. From the receiving end, it felt absolutely fine. Like, “Sure, I’d be happy to. And it could be interesting, and let’s see what’s happened in your life over the past 30 years.”

David: And this is again where that sort of no-agenda, I’m not trying to get something out of it works better. People could kind of smell desperation on you, right?

Peter: Right.

David: So if you’re reaching back out for that reason, you sense it. If it’s just, “Hey, you know what? You came to my mind the other day because I was watching this show and I know we used to watch it together.” Whatever it is, as long as it seems like that sort of natural, organic thing and you’re connecting just because you want to, 95% of percent of people will respond to that like, “Oh, yeah. It would be great to.” And the 5%, by the way, who don’t, you never have to email them again. There are some people in your life who were a dormant tie for a reason. You can ignore those people.

Peter: So you bring out an idea of hosting dinners, right?

David: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Peter: Hosting dinners to bring people together. I have thought for years that that’s a brilliant idea. And I’ve been a part of those dinners where I’ve really enjoyed it and met people, and I feel close to the people who’ve invited me and I’ve enjoyed them and etc. So, great. Yet I have not done it. I have not actually hosted a … I mean, I host dinners in my house with friends of ours that we know, but for the most part, I’m not bringing together eight, nine, ten people from within the industry, or from people who I know or I kind of know or weak ties to say, “Hey, let’s just get together and connect.” And my question to you is why? Like it’s a brilliant idea. I recognize the value of it. I enjoy it, and yet I haven’t done it.

Peter: And the reason I’m asking you this about me specifically in this situation is I think a lot of people I know are, in one form or another, in the same situation. All this stuff is a great idea, and yet I’m not doing it. So I’m curious to get your perspective as to why and what we can do to get over the hump.

David: So I want to pause here for a second, because it’s not necessarily the dinner that’s a brilliant idea. I mean, it is. And if you do nothing else, anything where you are reconnecting with people on scales of 10 to 12 and allowing them to connect with each other and you’re moving yourself to the center of the network, that alone is enough. And specifically we talk about two types of dinners that are very involved. So both John Levy and Chris Schembra, both who live in New York, both of whom I should see about getting you an invitation to their dinners-

Peter: Yes, please. Make a note.

David: They both sort of involve people in the act of creating the dinner, too. So Chris has very specific tasks every time. It’s the same meal every time, so he knows how to instruct all of the tasks. It happens in a flash, but you get paired up and you create something alongside a total stranger. John has something similar. The menu changes a bit at times. He actually goes an extra step and forbids people from saying their full name and what they do while they’re cooking dinner. You can only do that when you sit down. The idea being that people do that whole what-do-you-do and then trying to one up and they stick to their script and what have you. The real reason these work so well, in my opinion, they’re sort of leveled-up dinners, is that they are inviting people into a shared activity. And that shared activity might actually be different for everybody.

David: So for me, I don’t actually plan dinners at all. I do plan activities where if I’m in a city where I have lots of weak ties, I try and draw them all into an activity. Sometimes that’s dinner. Sometimes it’s lunch. Sometimes that’s like, “Hey, there’s an opening in this museum of this thing. Let’s all go together. It’ll be more fun if we all go together, blah, blah, blah.” Actually, one of my favorite tricks … This only works in New York City. It’s the only city I’ve found that works in this … is inviting New Yorker people to go do something touristy, because so many of them have never actually done it. You know what I mean?

Peter: That’s true.

David: It amazes me how many millions of people have still not ridden the Staten Island Ferry. But inviting people to come into an activity to do that together in a weird way kind of bonds them closer. So if dinners aren’t your thing … They’re usually not my thing, because I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old and they go to bed before dinner starts, so I can’t really do them in my own city. But whatever you can do that gets people together and gets them doing an activity, that’s what works for you. I think most people who hear this stuff and then don’t, don’t because they haven’t found that sort of one right thing for you. And as long as it’s an activity and it’s drawing people together, it can be the right thing for you.

Peter: So I love that, and I think that’s really valuable. I mean, I love the way you think in terms of activities, because it gets people … it gets over the discomfort of just sitting there. What I’m saying, though, is I like dinners, and I think the idea of doing a dinner like that is really great. And yet, I haven’t actually done it. And what I’m curious about, in your experience or in the research or what you saw, is there’s a huge gap. I mean, I’m sort of spending my life and all of my work trying to close the gap between common sense and nobody’s doing it. And so there’s this gap that says it’s yes. Like I’m bought in, I’m convinced it’s really smart to have a really broad network. I don’t think there’s a single person in the world who would disagree. And I think your book shows great examples and has really strong advice about smart ways to leverage that, to do that in a way that doesn’t feel smarmy, and at the same time gets the advantages and the value of building a really great network.

Peter: So the hump I’m curious about is, yeah, I think it’s a good idea and yet, right? And yet. It takes time and it takes energy and it takes emotional courage, risk to invite a bunch of people that may or may not want to come. And maybe they’re all going to be there and it’ll be uncomfortable. There’s all these things that go into making it harder for us to follow through on some of this stuff. There’s social risk. There’s social gain and social value, but there’s social risk to reaching out into a network. And I know a lot of people who resist it even though they know it’s smart. So my question is, what have you seen, how do you get over this?

David: Yeah. So I’m going to push back on you a little bit. I’m not convinced you do like dinners, because if you did, you would do them, right? I mean, I really want you to actually stop and think and go, “Okay. Well, why haven’t I? What is the logistical thing that I think is a hassle?” what have you. And that was sort of my point, is I think people don’t need to take someone’s advice. Like our mutual friend Dorie Clark is a master at planning in-restaurant dinners, right?

Peter: Right.

David: She does them fantastic. That’s her thing. To me, it sounds like a logistical nightmare, and I don’t like to do it. And so my goal, in order to cross that sort of knowing/doing hump, is to go, “All right. Well, it’s not that you take my advice.” I think most people actually, truthfully hate all things networking because they took someone’s advice, they tried to apply it, and then they felt inauthentic. And no wonder, because you’re literally being someone else in that moment. So again, my thing is, if we know what the principles are and you design something that’s unique to you in a way that’s in line with those principles, that can actually work. Like for you, you’re a runner. Am I right?

Peter: I do. I work out a lot. Not particularly just running, but I work out a lot.

David: Oh, I thought it was … You also wear Allbirds like all the time, right?

Peter: Yeah. I mean, recently I’ve been. Recently, I’ve sort of fallen for Allbirds, but I only have four pairs.

David: Only have four pairs. I don’t think I have four pairs of shoes, period.

Peter: They’re very comfortable. They’re very good. This is not an ad for Allbirds.

David: Yeah, I know.

Peter: But they are very comfortable, yes.

David: The Bregman Leadership Podcast sponsored by … No. But my thing is, is there something fitness related that you’d be more comfortable inviting people in at? Or even just saying, “I’m going to make point, if I do running, to try and always find like a different running partner.”

Peter: Yeah. So I was sort of thinking I could invite a bunch of people for a game of Ultimate Frisbee in the park, but that severely limits who can come, to a certain degree, because it’s a fairly athletic thing. But you’re saying do something that might be outdoors or athletic enough or exercise enough that people might enjoy.

David: So it does and it doesn’t limit, by the way. It limits the people from your weak ties in the sort of leadership professional business space who can do it, but it also … If you just look at the people who’d be willing to do Ultimate Frisbee … What if you said to the six people that are in that space that would you go, “Okay. But also bring a plus-one. Bring somebody else, I don’t care where they’re from, that you just think would be interested”? Now you’re actually expanding the pool. And that’s the other key to a lot of these dinners, is the goal isn’t to just reconnect with people in your shared space. They’re meticulously crafted in such a way that people are coming from a variety of different spaces and the shared activity forces them to interact. It actually forces them to overcome that whole purposeful thing that we were talking about earlier that makes people feel swarmy.

Peter: Got it. And this is interesting, actually. You gave me two really great ideas. So I’m going to follow your advice in not following advice. But it’s actually very good advice. One is, we often do Friday night dinners, like we’re Jewish and the Shabbat dinner. And so we often invite people, but we’re often inviting people that we know pretty well. And so the idea of saying, “Let’s invite some people we know well, some people we don’t know well at all, and bring them in. It’s a dinner that we’re already doing,” so the hump of creating something new, we’d be overcoming that. Or we might even tell friends, bring a friend. Like, “We’re going to have a dinner, and bring a friend or bring a pair, bring a family that you know that you think might enjoy it who we don’t know,” and let them do the inviting. I love that idea.

Peter: And then the second is, to just reinforce that, it actually occurs to me, not in my industry, but when I was living in Savannah, Georgia, I was very involved in Ultimate Frisbee and became very close friends with several of the people on the Ultimate Frisbee team. And fast forward 10 years later, I’ve got a real estate partnership where we’ve brought in investors and we own 27 apartments in Savannah that we’ve done from an investment partnership perspective.

David: From Ultimate Frisbee. Right.

Peter: From Ultimate Frisbee, right? And I would never have … I didn’t do Ultimate Frisbee for that reason, but I really like these people and we’re really close friends. And we’ve developed that friendship from doing something kind of random, and we ended up going into business in a way that I never would have expected to go into business. I wasn’t looking to buy apartments in Savannah, Georgia. That was not on my radar.

David: Yeah, that’s the power of those shared activities. So for it’s not Ultimate Frisbee. In terms of athletics, it’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is a little bit more full contact than Ultimate Frisbee. I haven’t gone into business partnerships, but I’ve gotten some of the best advice around how to structure my business, how to work as a sole proprietor, like the only employee type of business structured, from people that do jiu-jitsu with me but have the weirdest businesses. Like one guy that’s a really good friend of mine owns a liquor store. I don’t even drink, but he’s got some ideas for how he structures his business, so I’m like, “Oh, that works really, really well. Let me migrate it over here.”

David: That’s the power of those shared activities when you’re trying to think … The whole goal is to get people to drop their guard, drop their script, and connect over that shared activity instead of being at that unstructured event where everybody’s got their script up and their guard up and they’re only talking to the people that they can immediately judge to be useful. You’ve got no idea how they’re going to be useful, so be at that far more open posture. By the way, I’m a huge fan of challah, so we have now figured out what we’re doing when I come to New York. I want to come to one of those Shabbat dinners.

Peter: Excellent. We would love to have you. And by the way, bring a friend.

David: Okay. Can do.

Peter: Dave Burkus, he is the author most recently of Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career. He is a weak tie, but hopefully to develop into a stronger tie of mine. And it’s been such a delightful conversation. Dave, thanks so much for being on the Bregman Leadership Podcast.

David: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Peter: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Bregman Leadership Podcast. If you did, it would really help us if you subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. A common problem that I see in companies is a lot of busyness, a lot of hard work that fails to move the organization as a whole forward. That’s the problem that we solve with our Big Arrow process. For more information about that, or to access all of my articles, videos, and podcasts, visit peterbregman.com. Thank you, Claire Marshall, for producing this episode. And thank you for listening.

Comments

  1. Desi Tahiraj says:

    Excellent advise. Thanks a Million

Leave a Reply to Desi Tahiraj Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *