According to Rob Cross at U VA, the answer is a definite yes. In an intriguing piece of research reported in the Sloan Management Review, he and colleagues focus on how informal networks affect the decisioning of leaders. Two conclusions are very significant:
--Leaders often try to rectify inefficient and ineffective decision making by increasing collaboration. Cross found that engineers and scientists looking for info were more than five times as likely to turn to friends or colleagues than to a different network or research.
--Leaders are often blind to the way their own informal network bias affects how they frame decisions.
Both of these conclusions also apply directly to career development. When we have career questions regarding decisions who do we usually go to? Our network of friends. And networks have a high tendency to be composed of birds of a feather. Social scientists have known for years that "who you know" has much to do with "what you know." Big echo chamber.
That suggests that if we want to control our careers in a volatile environment, we'd better start looking beyond our friends.