Professor Ronald Burt’s research on competitive advantage in careers featured in London Times article

If you want to be successful in your job, it’s the quality -- not quantity -- of your contacts that makes the difference. Ronald Burt, Hobart W. Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy, has identified two types of “connected” employees according to a June 9 article in the Times of London .

What sets each employee apart is the structure and use of his or her networks. One type of employee knows lots of people inside a company and employs this knowledge to get things done. The other type brings new ideas to the company gained from outside contacts.

Burt notes the second type of employee serves as a “broker” with access to several different groups. That person tends to be seen as more creative and valuable to the organization. According to Burt, “they have all the luck.”

This conclusion is based on his work with managers at Raytheon. The statistics were impressive. Burt found that brokers had over a 40 per cent better chance to get a good performance rating and were almost three times as likely to get promoted or retained.