It’s time that we rethink the way that we view power structures in our society.This is not your parents or grandparents world anymore, and  the concept of “climbing the corporate ladder” is being reinvented.  @thomasmcdonald passed on this article to me from the Harvard Business blog, titled On Twitter and in the Workplace, It’s Power to the Connectors” by Rosabeth Kanter. This article is a must read if you want to understand why those thatare moving forward and succeeding are achieving their goal. I highly suggest you  read the whole thing, but here are some highlights:

“America in the 20th century was called a “society of organizations.” Formal hierarchies with clear reporting relationships gave people their position and their power. In the 21st century, America is rapidly becoming a society of networks, even within organizations. Maintenance of organizations as structures is less important than assembling resources to get results, even if the assemblage itself is loose and perishable.

Today, people with power and influence derive their power from their centrality within self-organizing networks that might or might not correspond to any plan on the part of designated leaders…. Circles of influence replace chains of command, as in the councils and boards at Cisco which draw from many levels to drive new strategies. Distributed leadership — consisting of many ears to the ground in many places — is more effective than centralized or concentrated leadership. Fewer people act as power-holders monopolizing information or decision-making, and more people serve as integrators using relationships and persuasion to get things done.”

We, as a  society, are seeing a shift in power from power of title to power of influence.  The old adage is “it’s all about who you know”, this is certainly still true,  but now more then ever any average Joe can become an influential connector.

“This changes the nature of career success. It is not enough to be technically adept or even to be interpersonally pleasant. Power goes to the “connectors”: those people who actively seek relationships and then serve as bridges between and among groups. Their personal contacts are often as important as their formal assignment. In essence, “She who has the best network wins.”

This shift translates is often enabled and accentuated by new social media technology–but amassing friends and followers on various networks is not the end-all-be-all.

“Network stars have social capital — a stockpile of personal relationships with many people whom they regularly connect to one another. Though technology tools are increasingly common to help people find connections, from LinkedIn to Facebook, I find that even the most technology-savvy leaders rely on their own personal networks to find the best resources quickly. The technology is so democratic that the information is considered less reliable. The human networks are what count. In SuperCorp companies with far-flung global operations, personal networks of people that managers have met or worked with are often better sources for key assignments than data bases of resumes. One manager in a high-tech company called this “the old-fashioned way, the knowing people type thing: I know a person who might know a person…”

The question we are left with is simply: Are you willing to put in the difficult investment of time and emotional energy to not only build a network of people you know, but to build relationships based on trust and mutual respect–because it is those of you who will find success as connectors in tomorrows economy.

“But ultimately the power of connectors lies in themselves, not in the stars. It comes from their own willingness to continue making relationships, passing on information, and introducing people to one another.”

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