A few years into my career, I watched a colleague get a project unstuck in a single afternoon. There was no budget meeting. No escalation. She just walked over to someone three departments away, leaned on a relationship she’d quietly built over coffee runs, and the logjam dissolved.
I had been emailing the “right” people for two weeks. She knew the actual right person.
That afternoon taught me something the org chart never could: the boxes and lines tell you who reports to whom. They don’t tell you how anything gets done.
What Are Informal Networks at Work?
An informal network is the web of trust, advice, and conversation that runs beneath the official structure. It’s who people go to when they need a real answer, who they trust with a delicate question, and who they actually talk to about the work.
Harvard Business Review made this case decades ago, and it still holds. Consultants David Krackhardt and Jeffrey Hanson argued that much of the real work of companies happens despite the formal organization; through relationships employees form across functions and divisions to get things done fast. They mapped three networks that quietly run every workplace:
- The advice network. The people others turn to in order to actually get work done.
- The trust network. Who shares sensitive information with whom.
- The communication network. Who talks to whom about work, regardless of title.
Here’s the kicker. None of those three show up on the chart on your company’s intranet.
Why Does The Org Chart Miss So Much?
The org chart is a snapshot of authority, not activity.
Researchers studying organizational communication have long noted that formal organizational charts may not represent actual flows of communication at work. It’s a point traced all the way back to studies of “water cooler” conversations in the 1960s.
The chart assumes you mostly work with the people in your reporting line. In reality, the most valuable collaboration often happens between people on different teams and at very different levels of the hierarchy.
Think about your own week. How many of the people who actually helped you ship something sit directly above or below you on the chart? If you’re like most professionals, the honest answer is: not many.
While the org chart is the map, the informal network is the terrain.
Before you post, pitch, or position yourself, take the Career Visibility Diagnostic to find out where you actually stand.
Loose Connections Carry Real Weight
If you’ve ever felt guilty that your “network” is mostly acquaintances rather than close allies, that’s not a weakness. It might be your edge.
In 2022, a landmark study analyzed more than 20 million LinkedIn users over five years and put one of social science’s most cited ideas to a rigorous test. The study found that “weak ties” on LinkedIn are more beneficial than close connections for finding new jobs.
The logic, first proposed by sociologist Mark Granovetter back in 1973, is that weak ties allow distant clusters of people to access novel information that can lead to new opportunities, innovation, and increased productivity.
Your closest colleagues tend to know what you already know. They swim in the same pool of information. It’s the looser connections—the person from another team, the former coworker, the acquaintance from a conference—who bring you news, openings, and ideas you’d never have stumbled into alone.
There’s even a sweet spot. The study found that moderately weak ties (i.e., connections where you share roughly ten mutual contacts) delivered the best results, and that weak ties mattered most in fast-moving digital and tech fields where fresh information ages quickly.
In other words, in a world that changes this fast, the breadth of your relationships is a genuine career asset.
How To Build Your Informal Networks
Informal networks is not collecting business cards like Pokémon, or sliding into someone’s DMs only when you need a favor. Influence built on transaction collapses the moment you stop transacting.
Real informal influence is built in the in-between moments; it’s generous, and compounds over time.
Here’s where to start:
- Map who already runs the place. Forget titles for a moment. Who do people actually go to for answers, for honest feedback, for a quiet word before a big decision? Those are your advice and trust networks. Notice them.
- Become a bridge, not a hub. The most valuable position in any network is the one that connects groups that wouldn’t otherwise talk. Introduce two people who should know each other. Bridges get remembered.
- Invest before you need to withdraw. The afternoon my colleague unstuck that project, she was cashing in trust she’d deposited months earlier. Build relationships when you don’t need anything. That’s what makes them real.
- Be useful across the lines. Share an article. Flag a risk before it lands on someone’s desk. Offer help to a team that isn’t yours. Generosity travels through a network faster than any memo.
- Tend your weak ties deliberately. That former colleague, the person you met on a panel, the acquaintance two teams over. A thoughtful check-in twice a year keeps a loose tie warm. Rather than being fake, you’re being intentionally human.
Informal networks aren’t automatically virtuous. The same channels that jump-start a stalled project can just as easily sabotage good plans or harden into cliques. The goal isn’t to play politics, but to build relationships of genuine trust and use them in service of good work.
The Mindset Shift on Informal Networks
Here’s the reframe: You don’t need a bigger title to have more influence. You need better relationships—and the awareness to see the network that’s already humming all around you.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, overlooked, or unsure how to move forward, this is the lever hiding in plain sight. Promotions are slow and often outside your control. Relationships are something you can start building today, from exactly where you sit, no permission required.
So this week, reach out to one person outside your reporting line just to reconnect or be useful. That single conversation won’t change your career overnight. But strung together over months, those conversations become the quiet infrastructure that careers are actually built on.
The org chart shows where you sit. But your informal network determines how far you can reach. So, go build the map that actually matters.
