Is your network deep or wide?

Tiger Woods‘ network is very wide–but it turns out it’s not very deep. Few top players turned up to play his tournament over the Fourth of July weekend. When Tiger, Inc., was at its height, the tournament was a who’s who of stars.

I heard one golf commentator state that players feel that Woods has never supported the PGA Tour. Sure, he made everyone a lot of money (including himself), but when was the last time you saw him play the Frys.com Open or the John Deere Classic?

Networks exist in many shapes and sizes. Most of us have a private network of family and close friends that’s walled off from our business selves. It’s deep, but not overly wide. Beyond that innermost circle, we have ever-wider ones of friends, then colleagues, then contacts.

The best networks are both wide and deep. You want breadth to be able to identify potential partners, new business opportunities, and step outside your own bubble. You want depth so that you have a network of friends and colleagues who have your back. How wide and deep our circles are depends on how we nurture them.

When Tiger Woods private life crashed into the open, it opened up the schisms in his network. So we see he may hit a golf ball brilliantly, but he has no well of goodwill among his professional circle.

What kind of network do you have?

Photo by ellenm1 (Flickr).