Organization Behavior Study
Analysis of Your Network
For this exercise, you will be completing a network analysis of your professional network (i.e., career related) OR your personal network (e.g., friendship network). You should select only one network to analyze and you do not need to fill all the lines in the table below, but you should try to be as comprehensive as possible to get the best understanding of your network. Let’s get started!
| Name of contact | What role does this person play in your network? (e.g., information, political support, personal development, sense of purpose, work/life balance) |
Who introduced you to this contact? |
Now that you have finished your network list, let’s consider a few questions (see next page).
- In looking at the people in your network (second column of your network analysis), what role(s) do they tend to play? Which areas need development and which areas need de-layering (i.e., reducing of redundancies)?
- In looking at who introduced you to your contacts (third column of your network analysis), what patterns do you notice? Do you tend to be connector? Can you identify a broker in your network? What changes, if any, should you make in terms of how you connect with people as you build your network?
- In our Video Lecture 8.3 we discuss network analysis, and in particular, network tendencies such as the similarity and proximity principles as well as networking traps. Does your network show evidence of any of these challenges; why or why not? Draw on the video lecture to substantiate your point.
