Weak ties carry the news that close friends cannot
💎CORE ARGUMENT
The people closest to me know what I know. We read the same things, sit in the same meetings and hear the same rumours on the same day. Anything new has to come from further out.
That is the idea, and it runs against instinct. Close friends will do the most for me, but they are the worst source of news, because their world overlaps almost completely with mine. An acquaintance stands in a different room. What she passes on, I could not have heard any other way.
Three things this year fit, which is why it is a seed and not yet a claim I would defend.
- In June a writer I had exchanged a few messages with recommended an issue, and 310 readers arrived in four days. Noor, who reads every draft, could not have done that. Her friends already subscribe.
- Anouk Visser left Halden in 2023 and we talk a few times a year. Her view of the industry is the only one I get from outside the building.
- In October a committee met to decide my promotion, and I was not in the room. Most of the people in it knew my work second-hand. The case was read by weak ties, and I had spent three years cultivating only strong ones.
The third is the one that stings. I had assumed good work travels on its own. In fact it goes as far as the people who have seen it and stops there.
What I have not worked out is how to act on this without becoming someone I would avoid at a conference. It may break down exactly there: a tie kept up for its usefulness may stop carrying anything worth hearing. It also says nothing about what matters most. News is not help, and on a bad week it is the strong ties who turn up.
🧱BUILT FROM
🌍WHY IT MATTERS
A small experiment in place of a rule: once a month, one conversation with someone outside my usual five, with no agenda. Four reader calls in the autumn were the first attempt. I do not yet know what they were for, which may be the right state to be in.
Still open.
- Who at Halden, outside my own team, could say in a sentence what I did this year?
- Is a newsletter subscriber a weak tie, or only an audience?
- How do I keep a weak tie without making it a transaction?
☑️NEXT STEPS
- Hold four reader calls in the autumn with no agenda
- Have one conversation a month with someone outside my usual five
- Ask Anouk who outside product should know what my team does
📖 Granovetter on weak ties: bridges between groups are nearly always weak ties, and that is where new information travels.
💎 Important problems are chosen and not assigned: I hear about an important problem from outside my own team or not at all. 💎 Knowing how I work is part of the job: part of knowing how I work is knowing who has seen it.
Close ties share my sources, so their information is mostly a copy of mine. A weak tie connects two groups that do not otherwise overlap, and whatever crosses that bridge is new to both sides. The strength of a tie and the novelty of what it carries run in opposite directions.
Weak ties carry news, and they do not carry trust. The committee heard about me from people who knew me slightly, and the people who knew me well were not asked. A reputation that rests on acquaintances is thin where it most needs to be thick.
It shaped who I asked to sponsor 📂 Promotion case for Group Product Manager. It is the reason I keep the coffee with Anouk Visser, and half the reason for ⚡ Free office hours for readers.