Develop Your Team's Social Capital, Not Just Their Skills
Qualitative research with 21 professionals across functions and career stages found that organisations systematically build technical skill and job performance while neglecting social capital — the trust, credibility and advocacy that determine whether performance becomes visible. Participants described it not as networking but as concrete organisational dynamics: who gets extended trust, whose advice is sought, who gets argued for when they are not in the room.
Exposes the blind spot in skills-based workforce models — a taxonomy captures capability but not the relational infrastructure that converts capability into opportunity, so a development plan that is only a list of skills leaves the variable that actually moves people to chance.
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