Bill Gates and Warren Buffett - In networking, friendship and business relationships can bounce off each other

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are probably the two biggest business magnates there are. Interestingly, they collaborate with one another as well. It’s a relationship based on a friendship that began while playing bridge in 1991.

This demonstrates how friendships can lead to successful business relationships, too.

In 2009, sociologists Simone Ferriani and Fabio Fonti contacted hundreds of companies in the Bologna area in Italy, where their university was based. They asked the companies who their suppliers were and drew maps of the companies’ business connections. Then, the company leaders detailed who they went to for advice or whom they just considered friends. Ferriani and Fonti then made a separate map for company-friendship connections.

Needless to say, the researchers found that business connections and friendships often overlapped with each other. At this point, they asked participants what had come first, the business relationship or the friendship?

Interestingly, when a friendship formed the foundation of a relationship, the probability of the two friends also going into business together was double that of a business connection resulting in friendship.

Speaking of friendship, research has also shown that there is much to be gained when business colleagues become friends. In 2015, management researcher Jessica Methot examined whether work performance improved when friendships existed between work colleagues.

She surveyed the employees of a large insurance company and mapped out the primary work connections within the company.

Employees with work friends were found to be better performers when independently evaluated by their superiors. However, employees who had work friends also tended to get more emotionally drained than those without. That’s most probably because maintaining relationships requires emotional investment.

Emotional fatigue seemed to slightly reduce work performance, but this was more than made up for by the increase in performance resulting from the added motivation of having a friend at work.

So there we are! You now know that it’s necessary to network because it can boost your creativity and innovative power. And you’ve also learned how to do it – not least by avoiding social mixers. Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to becoming a Super Connector with a soaring career!