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Dunbar’s number and why we should care

Relationships not connections drive our world, whether in business or personally. Building a strong sustainable business means building your relationships and growing your network

In the 1990’s anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar postulated that the number of relationships that any one person can maintain is based on the size of their brain, in this case the neocortex. Since humans have the largest brain of any mammal it makes sense then that they are best equipped to manage the most number of relationships.

Why should we care about this number – 150?

Dunbar says in his research that the maximum number of stable relationships any one person can maintain is 150, beyond that, factions appear. Let’s take a moment to think about how that number has impacted our world and driven our evolution, here’s a quick example:

From our earliest days, humans have built communities based on 150, from stone age villages, through medieval times, villages have, on average, topped out at around 150. When that number is exceeded, a new community is formed. That’s why the human population has been brought together in many thousands of small communities. When villages become towns, you will find sub-communities within those towns, in larger cities you will find townships or suburbs. You are probably living in one of these right now. Even our postal system is based on street name, community name, town or city name.

Relationships not connections.

In our modern world it would be very easy to dismiss the number 150 as something that is no longer relevant. Our digital world now allows us to connect globally to tens of thousands, even millions of people without ever leaving our home. That’s a great opportunity for us to expand our connections but please remember, these are not relationships they’re just connections.

Our social media world encourages us to make more and more connections, these are not relationships. It will take another evolutionary leap forward in the size of our brain for us to maintain more than 150 relationships.

It’s science, embrace it, don’t fight it.

Let me show you some maths, don’t worry it’s easy. There is a very simple formula which shows how many relationships exist in a group of any given number, here’s the formula:

(N x N-1) / 2 = R Where R is relationships and N is the number of people in the group

Let’s put some numbers on that.

Imagine a group of 6 people – (6 x 5) / 2 = 15 Relationships. How about a group of 10 – (10 x 9) / 2 = 45 Relationships. How about an average family size of 14 – (14 x 13) / 2 = 91 Relationships.

I know what you’re thinking…15 – that’s easy, 45 – that’s okay. I think I’m happy managing 45 relationships. 91 – so now I’m feeling a little under pressure – imagine coping with 91 different levels of conversation, communication and relationship?

This is a biological reaction.

Just to be clear, the number of relationships to be maintained is not only the relationships that you have directly with individuals, but includes an understanding of the relationships between the other people, and you. In business terms, I have found that our natural number is 12. 12 people with whom we have 66 strong business relationships.

Why should we care?

Relationships not connections drive our world, whether in business or personally. If you want to build a strong sustainable business, you need to build your relationships and grow your network…up to a certain point (the Dunbar number), Those relationships must be cultivated so that they become strong and deep, not just superficial. To leverage the power of your network it’s necessary to tap into the relationships you have and develop them into business generating opportunities. More is not better, more it’s just faster and more diluted.

Strength and depth have and will always work more effectively in the long run. Put simply, it’s evolutionary science, don’t fight it.

Relevant Reading:
How to plan for increased productivity through professional networking

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