It’s Who Knows What You Know

Whether we’re early-career or seasoned execs, looking through the lens of It’s Who Knows What You Know will open up more career opportunities.

What is It’s Who Khows What You Know?

Everybody has heard, “It’s not what you know, but who you know” to convey the idea relationships are often more important than skills. And many have probably heard somebody lament how some unqualified trust fund baby got a job at a hot hedge fund because their rich parent golfed with the CEO. But we’re bigger believers that “It’s who knows what you know” that matters most, especially as we progress in our careers.

It’s who knows what you know blends the idea of building relationships with people and ensuring they’re aware of our specific abilities. It’s building a reputation around what we know, what we can do, and how we can do it.

Because the stronger and broader our reputation is, the more opportunities will come to us.

For example, the more former colleagues who will try to recruit us, and, as we progress, the more executive search or VC/PE talent partners who will loop us into the “deal flow” of career opportunities. More and more, we won’t need to outbound to find amazing opportunities because, instead, they’ll be coming to us.

We can break apart It’s Who Knows What You Know a bit like an equation, creating a 4-box by asking ourselves where we fit along 2-axes:

What skills do we have?
Who knows about these skills?

[Top-right] The Ben Franklin: Ben Franklin is renowned by pretty much anybody reading this - certainly all the Americans - for his skills as a writer, a scientist, an inventor, a philosopher, a statesman/politician, and even a printer. He’s the ultimate polymath. Looking at our graph, he possesses an incredible range of skills on the Y-axis, and pretty much everybody knows he has these skills on the X-axis. Therefore, he fills out the entire 2 x 2 better than anybody else; honourable mention to Leonardo da Vinci and Taylor Swift [extrapolating her next 50+ years].

[Top-left]: The Mad-Skilled Inconnu: sticking with legendary East Coast figures, until he started writing on the MIT chalkboard, Will Hunting was only known to be “wicked smaht” by his boys, Chuckie (”Retainer!”), Morgan (”Double burger!”), and Billy (”It’s a good cahr”). Therefore, Will crushed what you know but failed miserably on the who knows it.

[Bottom-left]: The No-Skilled Nobody: this is the unfortunate quadrant for people with few skills and few folks aware of it. By definition, we can’t put anybody’s name in here, so we’ll stick with mid-90s films we enjoy and pick a nameless, faceless Scream mask to signify the no-no quadrant.

[Bottom-right]: The Self-Promoting Vaporwarer: here, people have achieved some level of renown, but it’s largely unfounded instead of based on actual abilities. Since we’re already having fun with mid-1990s films, both Austin Powers and Dr. Evil are perfect examples here: both characters are world-famous, incompetent buffoons selling their own vaporware as incredible spies and villains respectively.

Connecting to our own careers, it’s helpful for us to take stock of (a) what skills we want to have, and (b)what skills we want to be known for having, and by whom. Some of us want to be broad-based like Ben Franklin was; and others of us - moving into 2000s film-land - want to be known for possessing a “Particular Set of Skills” (like Liam Neeson did when all all-time great film speech in Taken). There’s no universal right or wrong answer; it’s our taking the time to consider where we aspire to go in our career path.

When to Use It’s Who Knows What You Know?

It’s Who Knows What You Know is relevant anytime others evaluate us based on our skills and capabilities: from as early as making our first sports teams as kiddos to as late as winning Honorary Degrees and lifetime achievement awards as more seasoned grownups. Narrowing to the professional world, 3 use cases come up over and over:

Promotions: for us to be promoted, anywhere from one person (usually our Manager) to a broader group of people (think promotion committees) need to believe we have the capabilities and results to warrant the promotion. Our work will speak for itself in a perfect world, but it’s naive to assume it’ll always work this way: if nobody knows about our many talents and magical contributions, why would a promotion be the obvious next step?
Internal mobility: It’s Who Knows What You Know is even more critical here. Sometimes, there are formal processes where anybody from across a company can apply for roles in other functions, but often, it’s a much more closed process: a role opens up, and the hiring manager scans across everybody they know at the company, including asking others for recommended internal candidates. If we’ve built both wide and deep roots across the company, others will reach out to recruit and recommend us; if we haven’t, we’ll be frustrated when we hear that a colleague just got this super cool new role we would have loved if only somebody had told us it even existed.
New jobs externally: this is similar to internal mobility, where as our careers progress, ideally, we’re getting a constant stream of inbound inquiries about roles. Whether it’s former classmates or colleagues or exec search or talent partners at VC/PE firms or miscellaneous others, the more people who think highly of us, the more roles that are going to come our way. And the better references we’re going to receive, whether front-door or back-door.

Common across all three use cases is an individual or small group of people is making a decision where our goal is they know we have the right skills to get the promo or new gig. Across all three, this is where strong relationships and references are so critical because they will not only build awareness for us, but will also actively recommend us to the key decision-makers at the right time.

How do we use It’s Who Knows What You Know?

James:

It’s Who Knows What You Know always reminds me of building a successful product: first, the product needs to be strong, and then we must ensure our target audience is aware of it. Silicon Valley has some purists who believe that an amazing product will market and sell itself, which usually ends with outright failure or the painful realization a few years in that Go-To-Market is as crucial as R&D.

Connecting these ideas to our careers, it’s romantic to think that opportunities will come knocking if we put our heads down and just crank out amazing work. But, in reality, we must build our abilities and successfully market and sell them to others. I like our 2 x 2 above with Matt (Damon) and Ben (Franklin) because it helps us think about where we want to expand over time: where we want to expand our skill set and where we want to expand our relationship and reputation for a given set of skills.

I'll have fun with an old slide: below, I’ve pasted a slightly different 2 x 2 from 2010 on how and when I envisioned expanding my role at LinkedIn. [Spoiler alert: I went in a very different direction]. To execute on my proposal, I needed to expand both my abilities and my internal reputation.

John:

I love the product analogy. In my new role at Maze.co I’m throwing around the term “understanding your problem space” with reckless abandon. However, great companies and great professionals have a deep understanding of what problems need to be solved and, more importantly, what problems they can uniquely solve. The depth of understanding comes with experience and trial & error.

Connecting this to careers, here’s a great shortcut: seek out bosses and mentors who see potential in you that you may not see in yourself. Figure out why that thing they see in you matters and why it can be a relative advantage in your career.

James:

It’s a great point that sometimes others see skills in us that we don’t initially see ourselves. There’s nothing better than working for managers and leaders who stretch us so we can see with time what they already see today.

One related framework to It’s Who Knows What You Know I’ve found useful is a similar 2 x 2 framework - the Bainie in me remains strong! - but with Valuable on the Y-axis and Visible on the X-axis. As we think about taking on new projects - whether initiating themselves or joining with others - the sweet spot is to find initiatives that are both valuable and visible. Usually, these axes correlate - the most valuable projects get well-deserved visibility - but sometimes, a really valuable project falls more under the radar. I’m supposed to write, “Do the thankless but important work because your company needs it, and otherwise, it won’t get done,” but the reality is that we’re better off investing our time in equally valuable projects that are more visible.

John:

It’s interesting to reflect on both our LinkedIn journeys because we both checked the box on (1) being recruited by former colleagues - me by LinkedIn folks I knew from Yahoo!, you from LinkedIn folks you knew from Bain - and (2) on moving functions internally; you used your relationships and reputation to move from the sales org to marketing and then to product, and I spent the first 4 years in Sales Ops before doing likewise to lead a sales team. I didn’t formally use It’s Who Knows What You Know as my exact framework, but I definitely was always aware that my relationships and reputation would be critical to ensuring that new opportunities would continue to find me.

James:

“Ensuring that new opportunities would continue to find me” is the crux of It’s Who Knows What You Know. It’s also a helpful framework to measure by tracking how many opportunities are finding us and whether they’re the right opportunities. I’ve had ebbs and flows over the years - how much I was being recruited internally at LinkedIn, whether to work on special projects or for full-time roles, as well as externally - and I’ve always found it helpful during the lulls to think about whether I have a product problem (a lack of abilities) or a marketing problem (a lack of others’ awareness and estimation of my abilities). And now that I’m currently working as a fractional exec for startups, It’s Who Knows What You Know is very top-of-mind because as I meet new founders, it’s my job to demonstrate that my abilities are a good fit to help them (as well as that working with them and their company is a good fit for my career).

Want to learn more?

WANT TO GO DEEPER ON RELATED FRAMEWORKS?

As we think about recruiting and promotions, we love Holly Procter’s idea of The Company-All Test and ensuring that we have a crystal-reason to hire or promote or be hired or promoted.

In addition, given part of everybody’s career is being passed over for the job we really wanted, we’re also big fans of Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset and not being ready YET.

In part of the research for this article, we came across this article from HBR, which is a promotion-focused version of a similar concept to It’s Who Knows What You Know:

When It Comes to Promotions, It’s About Who Knows You … Not Who You Know

During your first year in the workforce, what you know is the most important. Developing the competencies and base-level knowledge essential to succeeding in your role and often determine eligibility for advancement. A few years in, when you’ve gained expertise in your function or domain, who you know becomes just as important as your skill set — especially if you wish to move up into a management role. The tipping point comes after you’ve gained some experience as a people manager and are well-rounded in your subject matter or field. This is when you’re ready to lead a larger team and who knows you matters. How do you go about it? Positioning: To build trust and reliability with influential people, you need to establish yourself as someone who is dependable. You need to make an intentional effort to “position” yourself the way you want others to see you as a person and professional. Publishing: Other people don’t know what’s going on in your head: your thoughts, ideas, opinions, passions, and visions for the future. If you want these things to be known, you need to make them visible. Write and share your ideas on social media, sign up for public speaking engagements, or simply raise your hand more in meetings. Collaborating: As a rising leader, you should attempt to collaborate with your senior colleagues whenever the chance arises. If you can show them your value, they will continue to support you in future endeavors and may even become your champions or ambassadors down the line.

hbr.org

When It Comes to Promotions, It’s About Who Knows You … Not Who You Know

And to indulge in sharing one final film reference from the early 2000s - albeit with a different connotation, given he played a cop - it’s always good advice to listen to Denzel: