

More From Forbes

Edit Story

The No. 1 Predictor Of Career Success According To Network Science

Michael Simmons
This article is more than 6 years old.

It has been over three years since Steve Jobs died.



We think we understand what caused his success.

We don’t.






The Simple Variable That Explains What Really Causes Career Success








How A Closed Network Impacts Your Career

To understand the power of open networks, it’s important to understand their opposite.

Most people spend their careers in closed networks; networks of people who already know each other. People often stay in the same industry, the same religion, and the same political party. In a closed network, it’s easier to get things done because you’ve built up trust, and you know all the shorthand terms and unspoken rules. It’s comfortable because the group converges on the same ways of seeing the world that confirm your own.

To understand why people spend most of their time in closed networks, consider what happens when a group of random strangers is thrown together:

David Rock, the founder of the Neuroleadership Institute, the top organization helping leaders through neuroscience research, explains the process well:

We’ve evolved to put people in our ingroup and outgroup. We put most people in our outgroup and a few people in our ingroup. It determines whether we care about others. It determines whether we support or attack them. The process is a byproduct of our evolutionary history where we lived in small groups and strangers we didn’t know well weren’t to be trusted.

By understanding this process, we can begin to understand why the world is the way it is. We understand why Democrats and Republicans can’t pass bills with obvious benefits to society. We understand why religions have gone to war over history. It helps us understand why we have bubbles, panics, and fads.

The Surprising Power And Pain Of Open Networks

People in open networks have unique challenges and opportunities. Because they’re part of multiple groups, they have unique relationships, experiences, and knowledge that other people in their groups don’t.

This is challenging in that it can lead to feeling like an outsider as a result of being misunderstood and under-appreciated because few people understand why you think the way you do.  It is also challenging, because it requires assimilating different and conflicting perspectives into one worldview.

In one of my all-time favorite movies, The Matrix, the main character, Neo, is exposed to a completely new world. Once he is, he can’t go back. He’s an outsider in the new group, and he’s an outsider in his old life. He’s had an experience that everyone he’s ever met would never understand. This same phenomenon happens when we enter new worlds of people.

On the other hand, having an open network is a huge opportunity in a few ways:


The Revisionist Timeline Of Steve Jobs Success

As a result of pursuing his curiosity in different fields throughout his life, Steve Jobs developed an extremely unique perspective, skillset, and network; one that no one else in the computer industry had. He turned these unique advantages into the largest company in the world by having a razor sharp focus. Within Apple , he cut out people, products, and systems that weren’t world-class.

Curiosity-Based Experience Application
Tinkering with machinery with his father Understanding craftsmanship and attention to detail
Dropping out of college and sitting in on a calligraphy class Appreciation of design (Macintosh’s varied fonts)
Exploring India and buddhism Apple’s simple aesthetic
Living on an Apple orchard The inspiration for the Mac logo
Pursuing his hobby electronics in the Home Brew computer club Creating the first Mac with Steve Wozniack
Starting NeXT during his wilderness years. Using NeXT’s operating system as a core in the new MAC operating system
Lifelong passion for music (particularly U2, Beatles, John Lennon) Launch of iTunes

Many are quick to label parts of Steve Jobs' life as the ‘lost’ or ‘wilderness’ years. However, when we view his life in retrospect, we see that his diversions were critical to his success.

What is labeled as the magic of Steve Jobs or the quirks of his character become replicable principles we can all follow.

It is from this vantage point that we can begin to understand the following quote from a Steve Jobs interview for Wired in 1995:





Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Throughout human history, all societies including our own have created myths that share one common element, the hero’s journey.

Here’s what the journey looks like according to Joseph Campbell, the originator of the term...

Things are going great. You feel normal and fit in. Then something, happens and you change. You start to feel like an outsider in your own culture. You hide parts of yourself to fit in, but that doesn’t help. You feel called to leave and fulfill part of yourself, but that has a lot of uncertainty. So, you hesitate at first.

Finally, you take the plunge. You go through difficult times as you’re learning to navigate the new world. Finally, you overcome the challenges. Then, you go back to your old culture and have a huge impact because you share the unique insights you’ve learned.

The hero’s journey myth is embedded in everything from our society’s classic movies (i.e., Star Wars) to the heroes we glorify (i.e., Steve Jobs), because it hits on core parts of the human experience.

The field of network science shows us two things. (1) The hero’s journey is the blueprint for creating career success. (2) We can all be heroes. It just takes a little faith as you follow your heart and curiosity into unknown worlds. As Steve Jobs said, “ You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

WATCH: Mid-Career Advice From Jill Abramson

Has building an open network worked or not worked for you? I'd love to hear about your story in the comments and potentially share it in a future article.

Follow me on TwitterCheck out my website

