I get a lot of requests on LinkedIn and other social media for connections. It’s interesting that very often these requests come with no introduction other than the standard boilerplate request. This leaves me trying to guess why the person wants to connect. Without any information I have to guess and then decide if I want to connect.
So what criteria should I use for deciding? While I ask myself, “How well do I know this person?” the natural and instant categorization that takes place in the brain is:
1) Will they be useful to me?
2) Will they be a drag on me… ask me for something I may not want to give?
Cynically, these questions get to the center of social grooming. Will I be required to groom another…pick nits off them, or will they help groom me? You should be aware that you might create this reaction when you ask for a connection. So I recommend also sending a note with your invitation. I actually link both directions.
I have met thousands of people, I know a one hundred to two hundred, I have good connections with forty and I am close to seven. The Internet and social media allow me to have a large number of connections. However, one can have only so many significant connections that are anything other than very casual.
There’s been quite a bit of discussion of Dunbar’s number over the last several years. Dunbar’s number* is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar’s number. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 230, with a commonly used value of 150.
Dunbar’s number was first proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who theorized that “this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size … the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained.
However, real social grooming and support happens only at numbers less than 12 and often less than 7. This number, Stocking’s number, is determined by how many that would tell you that you have a booger in your nose. How many would really help you in an emergency or visa versa? There’s a reason most basic military units (the squad) have been formed around this range. The same holds true of effective business teams.
The next sized unit is the “platoon” at 26 to 55. I have a basic belief that most sales people can manage between 12 and 15 active deals and maybe be aware of twice this number. That’s why you need marketing. Otherwise all you would have to do is scale sales people.
After that comes the “company” at 80 to 225, similar to the range of Dunbar’s number. (In another post, I’ll discuss the growth of companies by size and these numbers. There is a natural barrier to company size that correlates to each of these levels, just as there is a natural change in social relationships at each of these sizes.)
I do see people with 500 or more connections on LinkedIn or Facebook. With these people, I just assume they are connection hounds. Their number of connections is like a banner ad and is supposed to say something about how important they are.
So now the question I ask myself when I get a request for a connection without information is really which group would I put this person in? I don’t have to limit my connections, just understand the group and its function. Social media can extend my reach, but my capacity for connection remains essentially the same. (No doubt because of my limited neocotex size or the fact that I have boogers in my nose.) Unfortunately, I haven’t found a great way to categorize these groups within any social media. Please let me know if you are doing this.
Do Great Things!
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry with Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)
* Section on Dunbar’s wretched from Wikipedia