Networks, Weak Ties, and Societal Change
In Cascades, Greg Satell argues that “power no longer resides at the top of hierarchies, but at the center of networks.”[1] Satell’s network dynamics include “small groups, loosely connected, but united by a common purpose.”[2] And if a leader needs “interconnectivity and interdependence”[3] to be effective, then perhaps this is at least part of the reason Eve Poole wrote the following in Leadersmithing: “I have a hunch that if we were to repeat our research in ten years’ time, networking would feature more prominently.”[4]
It is the network part of networking where Satell goes deep, albeit accessibly.
Networks are a big deal, and there is no small number of social scientists, physicists, professors, and popular writers who shed more light on why they matter and how they operate. They disrupt. They solve problems. They do a lot more than individuals could do alone. They matter for the well-being of leaders. There are so many things that could be said about networks, but perhaps one of the bigger things they do is affect change, as described by Satell. There are a few voices that stand out to me that seem to take up a large amount of real estate around the subject, two of which Satell references. They aren’t the only three, but they are three I included in my research this semester.
Mark Granovetter
Over the latter part of the 20th century, Granovetter was a leading voice (maybe THE leading voice) on the importance of weak ties in social networks. Weak ties are relationships that involve “low emotional intensity, and limited intimacy.”[5] He is regularly cited by others, including Satell.[6] In his 1973 paper, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” in the American Journal of Sociology, Granovetter described how weak ties provide help for job seekers, writing,
“In a random sample of recent professional, technical, and managerial job changers living in a Boston suburb, I asked those who found a new job through contacts how often they saw the contact around the time that he passed on job information to them. I will use this as a measure of tie strength. A natural a priori idea is that those with whom one has strong ties are motivated to help with job information. Opposed to this greater motivation are the structural arguments I have been making: those to whom we are weakly tied are more likely to move in circles different from our own and will thus have access to information different from that which we receive.”[7]
Weak ties provide new information and new connections.
Duncan Watts
Okay, so I geeked out when I saw that Duncan Watts had endorsed Cascades. Many years ago, I was a participant in the Santa Fe Institute’s (SFI)[8] Global Sustainability Summer School, the same institute where Watts has served as an adjunct faculty member. I came across the work of Watts as I researched other SFI voices, including Luis Bettencourt and Mark Newman. Watts provided a great definition of networks in Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age: “Stripped to its bare bones, a network is nothing more than a collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion.”[9] But what I noted in my research is how Watts compared happiness and networks. Watts writes, “Your happiness affects your network, and your network affects your happiness.”[10]
Networks matter not only for cultural change; they matter for the flourishing of leaders.
James Davison Hunter
Over the past few decades, James D. Hunter has become one of the more significant voices on the way in which culture does and does not change. Hunter’s To Change the World became the go-to text for many people around concepts such as power, culture, and faithful presence.[11] Though Satell doesn’t mention Hunter, he sounds a lot like him in the way he talks about the components of small groups and a shared purpose that “lead to transformational change.”[12] In To Change the World, Hunter writes,
“The impetus, energy, and direction for world-making and world-changing are greatest where various forms of cultural, social, economic, and often political resources overlap. In short, when networks of elites in overlapping fields of culture and overlapping spheres of social life come together with their varied resources and act in common purpose, cultures do change and change profoundly. Persistence over time is essential; little of significance happens in three to five years. But when cultural and symbolic capital overlap with social capital and economic capital and….these resources are directed toward shared ends, the world, indeed, changes.”[13]
Hunter and Satell emphasize the way networks of people, rather than individual leaders, affect societal change. Rather than a single “hero’s journey” (no offense to Joseph Campbell) we have a network of heroes journeying in sync. Better still, a network of networks, or a network of institutions (“…in order to compete with networks, they need to become networks themselves”[14]), or at least a network of leaders of institutions, accomplish a great deal of good.
Granovetter’s weak ties, Duncan’s happiness around networks, Hunter’s world-changing networks, and now…Satell’s cascades…are important resources I’ve added to my library, all of which have parts to play in my NPO.
[1] Greg Satell, Cascades: How to Create A Movement That Drives Transformational Change (New York: McGraw Hill, 2019), 21.
[2] Satell, Cascades, 19.
[3] Satell, Cascades, 16.
[4] Eve Poole, Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 143.
[5] J. Moreton, C. S. Kelly, & G. M. Sandstrom, “Social support from weak ties: Insight from the literature on minimal social interactions,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12729.
[6] Satell highlights Granovetter’s research, stating, “If you’re searching for a job, or if you want to coordinate activity across a large group, you’ll most likely do it not through close friends, but through the casual acquaintances of second- and third-degree links that connect you to the greater world.” (Satell, Cascades, 60)
[7] Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology, 78, no. 6 (May, 1973), 1371, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2776392.
[8] See https://www.santafe.edu/.
[9] Duncan Watts, Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), 27.
[11] James D. Hunter defines faithful presence this way: “A theology of faithful presence means a recognition that the vocation of the church is to bear witness to and be the embodiment of the coming Kingdom of God.” (James Davison Hunter, To Change the World, New York: Oxford, 2010, 95).
[12] Satell, Cascades, 71.
[13] James Davison Hunter, To Change the World (New York: Oxford, 2010), 43.
[14] Satell, Cascades, 18.
About the Author
Travis Vaughn
10 responses to “Networks, Weak Ties, and Societal Change”
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Travis,
This was a very well written post. Thank you for introducing me to new voices…I’ve got more names to add to my reading list.
Travis, you’ve given me something to think about in Granovetter’s idea of weak ties. Much of our work as a church planter in a post-Christian culture is making connections with people and sharing our testimonies and the message of Jesus. Not always, but frequently, I’m looking to strengthen the ties I have with people in order to share Jesus more effectively. But if Granovetter’s premise is correct, then the depth of relationship isn’t necessarily the measure of how the gospel message will be received. This is actually something we talk about on our team from time to time – the difference between sowing seeds of the gospel broadly vs. cultivating those seeds that take root. Thanks for your thoughts; they were a good reminder.
Your comment around the depth of relationships not being the measure is a great reflection on Granovetter’s research. There are a ton of applications that I want to continue to explore with his work on weak ties, and so I’m including more of this in my research. The BBC had a helpful article in 2020 during the pandemic that talked about the importance of weak ties. You might find it interesting: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200701-why-your-weak-tie-friendships-may-mean-more-than-you-think
Travis, you have expanded my mind a great deal with this post. I was not familiar with any of the authors you referenced nor many of the corresponding concepts…but I am intrigued! Seriously. I’m going on Amazon as soon as this is posted.
This is one of the great byproducts of this degree and the cohort interaction!
I’d love to know what you think of Hunter’s book, if you read it. He is at the University of Virginia and he leads (founded?) the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture there. His thinking around how culture does/doesn’t change took up a lot of landscape in my mind 12 years ago. I included Hunter’s book in an assignment for a course I taught at a seminary in 2012. Fascinating stuff.
Two comments you made:
“Weak ties provide new information and new connections.”
AND
“Networks matter not only for cultural change; they matter for the flourishing of leaders.”
Struck me because they put the nail on the head of why this program is working for me, right now. New exposure to new people and new perspectives is helping me to flourish. (much the same as my argument for side hustles!)
Travis,
So much to glean from in your post so thank you! I will be delving into my NPO research in May and June so all added sources are helpful as I process the journey of change, transition, and transformation regarding my NPO.
Enjoy your summer!
Hello Professor Travis,
I am so glad that you provided those references. Cascades, spoke to something I have seen but had never seen articulated before. Your additional resources will help my NPO move along this summer.
I may have mentioned this, but in 2020 our World Relief small and medium sized churches worked together to feed 286,640 individuals in the USDA Farmers to Family Food Program. Wow.
Someone else did the math (I no longer do math in public), I was focused on the 41 small Spanish speaking and refugee churches in the Fort Worth area. Little people doing great things.
I do believe that the churches small and large need to step to the proverbial “plate” on refugees resettlement. The broader topic of immigration is something that I hope to address AFTER my Interlinkt – Linking Internationals to the new Homeland – telephone app is Beta tested by next March 9, 2024 -but I am becoming convinced that it is the cascade effect that will have an impact that happens now to serve the “alien amongst us.”
Once again, I am so grateful that this semester has been filled with cohort teachers.
Shalom…Russ
Travis~ You wrote:
Over the latter part of the 20th century, Granovetter was a leading voice (maybe THE leading voice) on the importance of weak ties in social networks. Weak ties are relationships that involve “low emotional intensity, and limited intimacy.”[5] He is regularly cited by others, including Satell.[6] In his 1973 paper, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” in the American Journal of Sociology, Granovetter described how weak ties provide help for job seekers, . . .”
Years ago, I came a across a book called The Defining Decade by Meg Jay and she hits the ball out of the park with working with young adults in their 20s. She had a chapter on weak ties which I found to be incredibly helpful as we’ve mentored our now adult daughters through college, graduate school, marriage and God’s leading with careers.
Thanks for that reminder! I have enjoyed reading your posts and hearing you process. I look forward to knowing you more as we meet in Oxford.
“a network of heroes journeying in sync”
So well articulated. I wouldn’t have known how to say it, but that’s my dream for my staff…and for my whole church.
I’m blessed to be in a cohort with you. Thanks for sharing your really clear and compelling thinking.