In this lecture, we'll talk about a few common mistakes that people make as they build a network and cultivate relationships. The first and probably most important is the mistake of waiting to network until you have an objective. The ideas we've been talking about today are much more about a way of life. It is a means rather than an end. You should think in terms of social capital. You should think about your informal networks as social capital you build and cultivate, just as you might build your human capital. Your network is something you bring to any situation, just like your education and it's something you should grow in and of for itself incrementally over time. Second common mistake, focusing on networking up. It's appealing, alluring even, to try to get to know those who're all ready in positions of power but there are few problems with this. One, there's more competition, it's a scarce resource and the folks in those positions of power have even less time to give then those at lower levels. It also puts an undue focus on formal hierarchy and you forget if you're only looking at those in positions of power, you forget the informal sources of power as well. Finally, a very practical consideration is one of the greatest sources of your network is going to be who you know now and how they evolve over time. The folks you were going to school with, the folks you're starting organizations with, will move into positions of influence over time. If you've neglected them along the way, then you won't have those networks when they're actually in the positions where they can really make a difference. Third common mistake, thinking that your formal position is unrelated to the informal network. We've spent so much time talking about informal network, we don't want to neglect that there are relationship consequences, network consequences, that come along with your formal position. The job itself can drive the network, in fact, it's going to put you in proximity, it's going to give you regular interaction with a distinct set of people. It's an important way to think about that job, actually. What is the informal network that's going to be impaired or facilitated by the formal position? It also takes a little bit of pressure off of the need to do the informal networking, because you know that some of it's going to come from the formal side. Finally, some folks make the mistake of thinking of a tie as an endpoint, they want to get to know a person, they neglect the network that, that person sits. Everybody you meet is embedded in their own network. Hopefully, one of the things you carry away from this discussion is how everybody is influenced and everybody brings a resource and everybody brings the constraints of their networks. When you're getting to know people, it's not just that person, you're getting to know the social context that they live and work in. It helps better understand them, it also helps you better understand opportunities that might exist, also the constraints that exist. One caveat here is the danger of treating people as a means to get to their network, though. You're on thin ice, in many ways, when you start thinking about people as a means to your end. Even though we want you to think about them in the context of their network, we don't want you to think about them only because of their network.