Friend of a Friend…Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career

In this book, popular TED Talk and Fortune 500 keynote speaker Burkus (leadership, Oral Roberts Univ.; contributor, Harvard Business Review) offers anecdotes and scientific research that reexamine the manner in which businesspeople, entrepreneurs, and job seekers benefit (and fail to benefit) from professional networking. Drawing from such social science principles as structural holes, majority illusion, friendship paradox, self-similarity, and multiplexity, Burkus offers suggestions for expanding as well as strengthening the quality of one's network. He largely debunks the value of participating in traditional networking events and groups (which will come as a great relief to the many people who dread such functions and organizations). He demonstrates the value of making strategic (rather than random) connections and engaging in shared activities among friends and professional contacts.