Week 8 Post by Leslie - Interview with AT&T Product Manager

For this week's application assignment, I interviewed James King, a senior integration consultant and product manager at AT&T Communications, to learn about his experiences with informal networking at the telecom giant.

---

LW: Please tell us where you work and what you do. 

JK: I work for AT&T Communications (formerly BellSouth and South Central Bell). I’m on staff [LW: as opposed to a contracted employee] and work mostly on the wire line side of the business. I'm also an interface product manager in charge of acquiring costs and overseeing implementation of new features and functionality for select software applications.

LW: Social network theory introduces the concepts of knowledge seekers and knowledge sources. Do you find yourself in one of these roles more frequently than the other?

JK: In my particular job, my role is more that of knowledge source. Being on staff, your people reach out to you because you’re supposed to be the one that has the information before they do -- you are the point of contact.

But when I do reach out to other people, they’re usually my peers that know a particular part of the business. I keep going back to them because I find that their information is good. Sometimes you find people who aren't willing to tell you that they don’t know. You have to be able to say "I don’t know" if you don’t know.

LW: So a knowledge source is someone who has reliably good information. What else defines a knowledge source for you?

JK: You seek out information from somebody who’s willing to share it. Certain people in corporations do what you might call "keeping it close to their chest." If you call them one-on-one to seek information, it seems like they’re only giving you ¾ of what you're really asking for. It’s like they want to harbor some of it, as if they’re afraid that "if I give you too much information, then you’re going to end up doing my job."

LW: Social network theory predates today's perception of social networking as something that occurs on social media channels. But since AT&T is a key player in facilitating this type of social networking through its products and services, I'm curious: what tools are used internally to establish and maintain relationships? 

JK: We have web-based tools that we use to communicate. We have instant messaging, of course. We have something like a Facebook page called Tspace where you can put your personal and professional information on an internal website and invite other people to be within your network of information. You can put as much or as little information about yourself as you want to identify, but at the same time my corporation strongly recommends that you do this. From a public relations perspective I think they want to be able to say that we do this internally.

LW: Have these tools helped you forge new relationships in the firm?

JK:  Not really. It may be different for other people. We have another tool called Tstorm. It's supposed to get employees to share their ideas. In other words, you submit your idea and see how many people agree that it sounds like a great idea. Personally, I've never submitted anything myself. I've commented on one. I usually read other people's comments. Admittedly, when I read it, I'm thinking "this is probably meant for a younger generation than myself."

LW: Do you consider the knowledge you gain through informal networks to be superior or inferior to knowledge you attain through more formal structures?

JK: Neither. It's just different. Sometimes you find people are more willing to expand what they’re saying when you take it out of an official context into a more open context.

LW: How have organizational changes at AT&T impacted informal networks?

JK: Well, we've been downsizing our structure for the past 8-9 years. When we downsize, the higher levels in the company want us to believe they’re actually reducing work -- like they're taking certain work out of the business -- but it doesn’t work that way in the end. That work is going to go to someone else that already has a full plate of work.

So you’re finding that where you might have reached out to five people before, now you’re just reaching out more often to four people. Maybe one of them has taken on that other person's function, or maybe the work has been spread across all four. So networks get smaller but also denser. 

Networks also change as we sell off parts of the business. We just sold Yellow Pages a few months ago. You wonder, “am I really allowed to reach out to those people anymore?" because we sold off that business and it’s no longer part of the internal structure. You have to find a new source for that advice you were getting.

---

In our interview, Mr. King describes effective knowledge sources as those who not only possess good information but are willing to share it. According to Levin and Cross (2004), this tendency to be forthcoming has little to do with the natural disposition of a source. Rather, the development of "strong ties" (Levin & Cross, 2004, p. 1478) characterized by trust will increase a source's willingness to provide useful knowledge.

Cross, Borgatti, and Parker (2002) emphasize the importance of supporting informal collaboration among employees, and AT&T seems to have equipped its employees with a number of  technological tools built for this purpose. Tspace, for example, helps address the need for employees to be aware of one another's areas of expertise (Cross, Borgatti, & Parker, 2002). However, Mr. King raises an interesting point when he describes a generational divide between himself and the younger employees who readily embrace these social technologies. Perhaps AT&T should identify more organic ways to foster the development of informal relationships. Ibarra and Hunter (2004) cite the example of Nissan's cross-functional problem solving teams, while Cross, Borgatti, and Parker (2002) advocate "pointed interventions" (p. 39) to increase group integration.

Finally, Mr. King observes that a culture of downsizing and divestitures has impacted social networks at AT&T. What happens when key sources of knowledge or advice exit the defined boundaries (Hanneman & Riddle, 2005) of a social network? Ibarra and Hunter (2004) might suggest that these relationships could continue to provide value through integration into Mr. King's personal networks. But, as King acknowledges, it may be necessary to identify new knowledge sources within the organizational network to continue "getting work done efficiently" (Ibarra and Hunter, 2004, p. 5).

References

Cross, R., Borgatti, S. P., & Parker, A. (2002). Making invisible work visible: Using social network analysis to support strategic collaboration. California Management Review, 44(2), 25-46.

Hanneman, R., & Riddle, M. (2005) Introduction to social network methods. Riverside, CA: University of California, Riverside.

Ibarra, H., & Hunter, M. (2004). How leaders create and use networks. Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-11.

Levin, D. Z., & Cross, R. (2004). The strength of weak ties you can trust: The mediating role of trust in effective knowledge transfer. Management Science, 50(11), 1477-1490.