We all know the idea that the world is remarkably small -- people supposedly never being separated by more than six degrees of separation. But those in the corporate world might beg to differ, especially if they’re struggling to find the information they need somewhere else in their corporation. Professionals routinely need information from their colleagues. And taking the shortest path to ascertaining this information can save tremendous time and greatly increase operational efficiency.
A team of researchers recently investigated this corporate small-world phenomenon, studying how employees of a large global organization went about finding information they needed. Specifically, the researchers tracked search chains. Beginning with the individuals who initiated the search, they would trace the connection paths to those who possessed the sought knowledge. The researchers conducted the study at a large multinational consulting company that has more than 50 offices in 34 countries.
The researchers first identified those who were experts in certain topics: transfer pricing, asset productivity, enterprise resource planning and advertising strategy. Crucial to the study, these experts didn’t hold any official title or role to reflect their expertise. The researchers asked the consultants they were studying to name these individuals. If they couldn’t name them, the researchers asked them to name other colleagues who might know. Those conducting the study then asked the same questions to those intermediary contacts -- either to identify the experts or name others who could help. They repeated this step until someone could locate the experts. Overall, they selected nearly 100 consultants to participate in each of the four topics, and they initiated 381 search chains.
Some consultants could identify experts right away, but most could only name intermediary contacts, and some of the searches took three or four rounds. In fact, three types of people took longer to locate information: relatively new employees, those who resided at the periphery of the organization’s social network and those who were female. Each of these groups was considered an “out” crowd; women, for instance, made up just 20% of the professionals and were thus a minority. The researchers delved deeper into why these three subgroups tended to be less efficient in searching for knowledge.
The results were intriguing. Not only did members of these groups struggle more to identify experts, they also compounded their problems by starting their searches incorrectly, turning to others who were like them. There lies the essential problem: When new employees ask a similar colleague for help, they may very well be relying on someone who is similarly clueless.
A better approach would be for a newcomer to seek help from an old-timer, for instance. But this doesn’t happen for a number of reasons. It’s easier to approach those with whom we have something in common. Psychological safety is also a factor. People don’t want to appear ignorant, so they are more likely to approach someone they sense won’t be judgmental when they need help.
The study found, however, that those in an out group -- consultants with shorter tenure or those not centrally located in the organization’s social network -- would find it more effective to begin with a “crossover search.” (Because the researchers only included a small sample of women, their results for that subgroup were inconclusive.)
Companies that want to exploit their in-house expertise better should be aware of people’s tendencies to seek help from those like them. It seems a subtle and innocuous phenomenon, but one that could be hampering efficiency. One potential solution? Create a mentoring program that pairs newcomers with veterans and also tries to match people across various social lines.
For more information on this topic is available at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2008/spring/04/