My views on the Harvard Business review article “On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors”

In the past few years, and especially with the advent of Facebook and other social networks, we have been hearing about deep society changes, and especially in the workplace. Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at Harvard Business School and she makes a parallel between the power distribution in the workplace and the fact to be a key link within a network.

Her theory retraces the history of our business organizations. In the past, the leadership hierarchy was vertical. This meant that power was concentrated on top and diluted as it passed down to subordinates and so on. Today, this hierarchy seems to have switched to a horizontal one as managers noticed the efficiency of distributive leadership.
No one needs to hold the entire power in their hands. Instead, “connectors” who are at the centre of groups and other networks possess information and far more power than before: they possess social capital. Because of their contacts, their career advancement may be greater than their peers who simply have the technical skills to carry out a job. The author stresses the importance of our ability to make connections and seek new contacts; this could be the way to be successful in an organization today.

With regard to this article, I think it is necessary to highlight the power of networking in the contemporary career success field. In a world where information spreads at high speed, one needs to be at the centre of it not to be left behind. Being part of a network enables us to be a link in this chain by accessing this information and passing it on to our followers. Successful business ideas were so because their creators knew that no one else had thought about it before and they knew who to reach to make it happen. This is why, along with team-working skills, I agree this is a key factor for career success.

Creating a network is not just a practical strategy to implement in that it requires more than being present on social media platforms. One needs to continuously navigate among groups to collect information and give away some more without being trapped in one.

Being assigned "formal assignments" is necessary as an employee needs to know what is officially expected from him/her, but the "connector skills" will give this same employee the opportunity to reach beyond the traditional information sources and generate ever better results.