Or does it start even earlier, for some people anyway: in the nurseries and prep schools of the privileged, leading to the benefits of the Old School Tie. Or in the networks cemented in Ivy League varsities, or at Oxbridge, or in their equivalents around the world? Certainly, upper-class solidarity continues to thrive, especially in Britain, and is gently satirised by the narrator in the novel Snobs by Julian Fellowes (it might as well be Fellowes himself speaking):
I have always been uncomfortable with the
jejune
pseudo-informality implicit in the upper-class passion for nicknames. Everyone is ‘Toffee’ or ‘Bobo’ or ‘Snook’. They themselves think the names imply a kind of playfulness, an eternal childhood, fragrant with memories of Nanny and pyjamas warming by the nursery fire, but they are really a simple reaffirmation of insularity, a reminder of shared history that excludes more recent arrivals, yet another way of publicly displaying their intimacy with each other. Certainly the nicknames form an effective fence. A newcomer is often in the position of knowing someone too well to continue to call them Lady So-and-So but not nearly well enough to call them ‘Sausage’, while to use their actual Christian name is a sure sign within their circle that one doesn’t really know them at all. And so the new arrival is forced back from the normal development of friendly intimacy that is customary among acquaintances in other classes.
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But it cuts both ways. The privileged may network very well among their own kind and exclude others, but in doing so they may isolate themselves from a larger body of variegated contacts. And, if the argument in this book is correct, that is an increasingly perilous stratagem. In worlds where the numerically small upper class no longer dominates the action, relying on the old magic circle might not work; and if it doesn’t, the closed world of the establishment and the wealthy is not much more use than the equally isolated enclaves of the poor. Certainly, there was scant evidence from our interviews that contacts from school or university–be they exclusive or not–helped in the rise of remarkable people. Most of them flourished from playing an increasingly central role in good job networks early in their careers, then moved on to another good network, with the range and variation in their contacts building cumulatively.
Yet networks can be built at any time in our lives: it is never too late.
Boston, Massachusetts, and London, England, 1990s
Geoff Cullinan had made the biggest mistake of his life. After co-founding and building up a successful consulting practice, and taking eighteen months out to work on personal investments, he’d been headhunted to become chief executive of Hamleys, a leading toy store. But after six months Geoff fell out with the chairman and co-owner of the firm, and abruptly resigned. Everything had gone smoothly in his career to that point. Now it looked a mess.
But Geoff had a precious fallback. The previous eighteen months without a paid job had been spent enjoyably and, though Geoff did not yet know it, very constructively. ‘I had no office,’ he told me.
It was just me and my Rolodex, working from my study at home. I talked to lots of people and groups of people about many things. It was this access to a great variety of contacts that allowed me to be entrepreneurial, which I’m probably not naturally. The time when my network was most dispersed, it was most valuable. It did a lot for me and subsequently for my reputation. This period was golden, putting roots and connections down without having to commit myself.
I had many offers of jobs but turned them all down. I wanted to start another business. I knew the top people in Bain & Company in Boston and London and they seemed to like my track record. Equally, I had always admired the Bain culture; it fitted my own view of the world. They were also impressively persistent in trying to persuade me to join them, but I didn’t want to go back to ‘plain vanilla’ consulting. But in conversation with them we saw an opportunity to build a new business within Bain, advising private equity firms on deals, and investing alongside them. I wouldn’t have recognised this opportunity but for spending so much time looking around, and getting to know the private equity world and many of the key players. The turning point for me was meeting a Bain partner from California who had spent some years trying to develop a business model so he could advise and co-invest with private equity investors. It was a real light-bulb moment–I saw the connection at once and the potential to do this on a big scale globally.
So I agreed to join Bain to build a new line of business that hadn’t really been invented in Europe. Now, twelve years later, the private equity consulting business we started comprises more than a quarter of Bain’s global revenue and we are far and away the leaders worldwide, dominant in big deals. It worked brilliantly for them and for me.
Geoff’s relaxed approach in his eighteen-month pre-Bain odyssey was crucial. Of course, as he freely admits, he was in a privileged position, having savings to fall back on–most people would not have that cushion. Still, his story shows the advantage of being able to focus more on contacts, information gathering and ideas than on finding a job immediately–something that perhaps we should all do if we are lucky enough to be employed, before we really need to find another job. Geoff’s method brought many opportunities, so he could act by choice rather than out of necessity. He waited until he could see the best fit and chance to make a big splash. His range of contacts and information made this much more likely, and his reputation as a well-connected individual with many alternatives made it easy to close the deal on favourable terms.
Geoff is one of dozens of people whom we interviewed for this book. We selected contacts that we knew were accomplished, happy and fulfilled in their work; and, if they wanted to, had made plenty of money. We asked them about their weak links and hubs, and their responses are sprinkled throughout these pages. The interviewees were a mixed bunch–seven nationalities, sixteen professions and a wide range of personalities and attitudes towards life and work. But they all had one thing in common, which made a deep impression on us. Without exception, they had an unusually large and varied assortment of friendly acquaintances with whom they maintained infrequent but fairly regular contact–at least once a year.
We hope you’ll agree that the strength of weak ties stands the common view of strong and weak relationships on its head. We all tend to think that friendship is the ideal relationship, while anything else is shallow and futile, or at least less worthy of our attention.
But what if friendly acquaintanceship is a great thing–not the same as close friendship, but something distinct and valuable–a whole raft of highly efficient, loose and flexible relationships, absorbing little social energy but potentially providing significant benefits to both sides?
When we understand the rules of acquaintanceship–that it is not a poor substitute for friendship, but something totally different–it can begin to play a vital part in our lives. Having wide-ranging contact with mutually respected acquaintances enhances our humanity and enlarges our opportunities, and all without the commitment of time, concern and emotion that is an essential component of deep friendships.
Adrian Beecroft reckons he owes his success to two tenuous weak links. He is one of the most successful investment professionals in Europe, having built up Apax Partners from three people to become a hugely profitable giant and take over Apax’s US arm, which had not been quite so successful.