When your network becomes the wrong network

So I went through it properly. Years of contacts. People I'd worked with across 18 countries. Senior operators I rate and could call tomorrow.

And almost every one of them has spent their entire career inside the same world I was leaving…

There's a comforting story we tell ourselves about networks. Stay senior for long enough and you build an asset that protects you. More people, more reach, more safety.

The size part is usually true. The reach part though…that’s where it falls down.

Most senior networks are large and concentrated at the same time. Same industry. Same function. Often the same few companies people have moved between for 20 years. It looks like reach because there are a lot of names in it. But nearly all of those names sit in one similar space.

The research on this is goes bak in time and is interesting.

Mark Granovetter's work on the strength of weak ties found that people tend to find their next opportunity through looser, more distant connections, not their closest ones. The reason is simple. Your closest contacts mostly know what you already know, and mostly know the people you already know.

The value sits at the edges. The acquaintance 2 industries over.

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Concentration is invisible right up until the day you need to move.

While you're still inside the world your network lives in, it works beautifully.

Introductions, intel, the favour that gets you a meeting. It does everything a network is supposed to do, because you're operating in the one place it reaches.

The problem only shows up when you step outside it. A pivot. A new industry. Building something.

Or, for a lot of people reading this: simply changing companies after a long run in one.

That last one is where most readers actually sit. Spend 12, 15, 20 years in a single business and a large share of your network is inside that business. Colleagues, reports, the people in the building. It's a deep network and a narrow one. And at the exact moment it would be most useful, the day the role goes, a big part of it turns out to be the wrong network.

My version was different in shape, same in substance. I'd built reach across countries and companies. What I'd never built was reach across worlds. I never created optionality outside the corporate space, because for 15 years I never needed it. It's a strong network. It just all points one way, and that way is the one I'm now leaving.

So I've stopped treating networking as something you reach for when you need it, and started treating it as reach you build before you do.

For me, right now, that means deliberately having conversations in areas I never hardly ever had exposure to. Founders. Investors. Operators in other industries rather than SaaS and MedTech alone. People who can open a door into a world mot of my corporate contacts can't.

It's slower and less comfortable than calling someone I already know but it's also the only action that will grow it.

If you're earlier in this than me, don't wait for the role to disappear before you build outward.

Pick 2 or 3 worlds adjacent to your own. Then look hard at your existing network for the bridges, the few people who already have a foot in those worlds, and let them make the introductions. You almost certainly have more of those than you think. They're just not the people you'd instinctively call first.

Here's why I'm telling you this in a career newsletter.

Working out where your network actually reaches, against where you now need it to reach, is part of the strategic work that you need to start before any job search.

Lots of people skip it, then wonder why the search feels like a grind. It might be that deep down, it’s not exaclty what they want to do. It’s what they think makes most sense for them to do. Different things.
It's one of the reasons I'm building Zelova as a career strategy service rather than a job board. The product is still being finalised, but you can sign up for early access at zelova.ai to follow along.

A question to reflect on this week.

If you had to find your next move outside the world you operate in today, how far would your network actually reach? Be honest about the answer.

Then do one small thing about it. Pick a single world next to yours that you've never built into. Find the one person you already know with a foot in it. Go and have that conversation, before you need anything from it.

One tool I built for exactly this is a Network Audit. It maps your network by three things: how strong each connection is, how recent, and how diverse its reach. That third one, the reach, is the whole point of everything above. You can find it here and download it for free.

That's how optionality gets built. Over time, and before the day you need it.

Reply to this email or message me directly. I'd like to hear your version, especially if your own network has reached further, or shorter, than you expected.

David