In this video, we're going to talk about Social Capital Theory and how we can
apply it in our own professional lives. So, let's get into the details.
Hey there.
Welcome back. Alex Lyon here and this channel,
Communication Coach, is here to help you grow as a leader. And in this video we're
going to talk about social capital, specifically Robert Putnam's approach
then Peirre Bourdieu's approach. But, ultimately I want to talk about
practical applications because this concept has real use when we talk about
our own careers as leaders and as professionals in the world. So first I
want to talk about Robert Putnam's approach to social capital. He's written
about this extensively over the years, and especially in his book called
Bowling Alone which became very popular. And his summation of the concept is this,
that social networks have value. So he's talking about not just the companionship
or the emotional support we get from relationships, but our social connections
themselves provide us as individuals and as a community value. What exactly is
he talking about. Well let's break down four of the ways that we get value out
of our social networks. He mentions these on his website,
RobertDPutnam.com, and I'll put links to all these resources in the
description below the video so you can look at those on your own. But, the first
benefit is information. Our social networks provide us information that we
would not hear about otherwise. When we're talking to people we know we hear
about job and career opportunities. We hear about potential investment
opportunities. And if we didn't know these people and weren't interacting
with them, we just would never hear about it and so those doors would not be open
to us. Another benefit is reciprocity or what we might call mutual aid. In other
words, people that have relationships and connections help each other and then
people return the favor and that's one of the ways that relationships work. If
you invest in these relationships, you get the benefit of mutual aid. Number
three. Collective action. As a group, you're working together and that group
action has a lot more impact than any individual action that you might take.
When you're working on a group or a task or something together, you build a
foundation of relationship connections that then you can put into use in the
future so that collective action is a very powerful resource or benefits of
good relationship connections. And fourth our identities and our sense of
solidarity is another benefit of having relationship connections with other people.
There's a sense of empowerment that we feel when we feel like we're part of a
group, like we're connected to a community. We're a real member of that
community. Now, Putnam talks about all these ideas
but he's really concerned about the disintegration of relationships, the
weakening of the ties that we have with other people. And when these get weakened,
we lose the benefit of all of all those resources that we just mentioned. He
talks about over the past 25 years how there's been a 58% drop in
attendance at club meetings. So a club meeting at some local club you might
belong to like Rotary Club or some other community club.
We're losing those connections. A 43% drop in family dinners.
We're, not as much as we used to, eating dinner together as a family in one place.
It becomes a struggle. We're all so busy. We're all so, we're pulled in different
directions. It's very difficult to do that. A 35% drop in having friends
over. I know this is true in my life. It's very hard to actually get together with
friends. Now, this is very ironic if you think about it because we're more
connected than ever through technology. You can get on social media and connect
with people and despite this technical connection our relationships, our actual
strong relationships with in-person people, are really weakening over the
decades. So that's a big concern because by losing those relationships, we
lose all the benefits that come from those social ties. We're missing out on
that potential social capital that we could have. So let's pivot now and talk
about Pierre Bourdieu. He is a French theorist and actually
he wrote about this before Putnam, in the 1980s.
And he wrote about it extensively in articles and books. I actually cited him
frequently in my dissertation and in several journal articles that I
published. His look at social capital is described this way. The collection of
resources or potential resources that our durable network of relationships
connect us to. In the same way as Putnam, our relational ties, our network
of relationship connections connect us to other valuable resources or
potentially valuable resources we might actually use those resource where
they're they're part of our network. Now, where Bourdieu differs is in the aspect
of power. He looks a lot at how power gets maintained through the exclusivity
of relationships. So he was really looking at powerful groups and
communities in in France and he was noticing how there was a direct
management of the access to that group membership. Because if once you're in the
group, you had access to a lot of the resources that the group had. So, he saw
this management of access and membership in a group as a way to keep society
stratified. so rich and powerful people continue to associate with rich and
powerful people and the rest of society's [members] don't have access to that. Now, I
understand this point of view and I definitely see this in society and all
over the world this is obviously happening. But, if you think
about, it it's not necessarily done for some evil purposes. In fact, you do it and
I do it. So you might have a group of friends that you grew up with, a group of
friends that you have known over time and you feel a sense of group membership
with them. But, that doesn't mean that every new person you meet instantly
becomes part of your trusted inner circle. In some ways, quite innocently,
you manage access to your social networks as well, and you manage, by doing
so, access to the resources. So until you trust someone and really know someone,
you're not going to open up your life to them. You're not going
connect them with other people that you know and love and trust, unless you know
them for long enough to establish some foundation in that relationship.
Now, let's pivot now to talk about how you can use these kinds of concepts in
your own professional life. There are five ways that you can begin taking this
concept of social capital seriously for your benefit and for the benefit of
everybody around you. And the first one is to build positive relationships with
the people right around you. This might seem obvious but I I know a lot of
people who don't seem to care about the quality of their relationships with the
people around them. They might not care how they come across they might not care
if they take advantage of somebody but when you start caring about the people
around you and treating them well, in the long run those relationships will then
be there for everybody's mutual benefit. The second way to apply this is to
provide some value to the other people. In other words, what can you do for
them? How can you help them and you begin to look for ways to add value and help
other people? And that's where you become a giver not a taker. You probably know
some people in your circles who are more takers. They're looking for whether they
can get out of a situation and you don't want to be that person. You always want
to look to give. The third way is to help other people connect. You might not
have any direct help that you can really offer a person that you know or meet but
you might be able to connect them to somebody who can. I have a good friend
who's really into real estate and he knows everything about it.
But, he doesn't really help me directly. If I have a question, I text him
or call him and he almost instantly gets back to me and connects me to someone
who can help me like a contractor or plumber, someone that can help me
with an important question. So by connecting me to other people, he's
investing in his relationship with me. That's another way you can help people
out. You might not have anything directly to offer but connect them to the people
that can help them and you become a part of the solution. You become an important
part of that social network. The fourth way is to collaborate. When you're
working with people even on somewhat ordinary jobs or tasks or
projects, you build a foundation of trust and working knowledge with each other
and then those relationships will be there later if you need to pull another
team together for a future project. think beyond any one project and how
this can help for future projects future mutual aid and collective action.
Number five, never take advantage of other people. there's a lot of short-term
thinking out there in the world and people are looking for an angle and how
they can quickly take advantage and get the upper hand but what that'll do in
that network of relationships that are you're connected to is that word will
get out people won't trust you as much. It's really going to undermine your
credibility and even one bad decision can take years or months to rebuild from.
Consider the long-term value of your relationship connections, not just some
short-term momentary strategic advantage. You have to think about the long run.
Those are some of the tips and ways that we can apply this theoretical concept to
our own professional lives. So question of the day. How does social capital apply
to you as a professional? I would love to hear your comments possibly your
questions in that section below the video and I look forward to reading
those. So thanks for tuning in. God bless. And I'll see you in the next video.