Strength of Ties

Many of the frameworks in the Strategies section of this website speak to the importance of the connections or ties that we build. Building strong ties and authentic trust are core elements in the Collaboration Spectrum, Two Loop Model and some Communities of Practice.

But weak ties can also be very helpful.

The "strength of weak ties" theory was proposed more that 50 years ago by Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Granovetter pointed out that weak ties can connect you outside your circle and give you information and ideas beyond your close tie networks.

Strong ties tend to be close family and friends with lots of similarities and form dense, closed networks. Interaction tends to be frequent and support sharing information which is reinforcing and redundant. Emotional intensity of strong tie networks can be high which helps create local cohesion.

Weak ties are more distant and casual, with diverse membership. They tend to be open and expand an individual’s reach with novel information. Interactions tend to be infrequent with low emotional intensity but are important when trying to stimulate a broader collective action.

Although introduced more than 50 years ago, Granovetter’s ideas are still highly relevant with the advent of digital technologies and social media platforms. Social media facilitates the rapid spread of information across weak ties - both positive information (e.g., job opportunities) and potentially negative information (e.g., misinformation). Social media also helps create filter bubbles and echo chambers which facilitate the building of intensity and the consequent spread of ideas like wildfire.