Managers and executives in every industry hunger for growth. Growth for their employees, growth for their bottom lines, and growth for their customers as they improve products and services over time. For a school leader the quest is the same, though much more personal. How can we create an environment that helps our students grow and fulfill their unique and enormous potential?

For over twenty years, I have studied the puzzle of growth, trying to understand where it comes from and what happens to it. During that time the theory of disruptive innovation emerged, which asserts that massive growth opportunities are available by developing simple solutions for individuals who have historically not had access to existing offerings. As disruptive innovations improve over time, entire industries and sectors are transformed.

For the past ten years, we have been applying disruptive innovation theory to our schools, and concluded that online and blended learning stand to transform teaching and learning for every single student. And although this transformation serves to disrupt the forces influencing what our students know, Julia insightfully points out that there is perhaps an even more powerful disruptive opportunity in our schools—one that will dramatically impact whom our students know. This next wave of disruption has the potential to provide new and powerful relationships to millions of students who are left behind in our schools simply because of the limits of their surroundings.

For school leaders searching for new growth opportunities for their students, Julia's work is groundbreaking. All the academic interventions and supports in the world do little to change the opportunities contained in a child's inherited network—the collection of individuals in her home and community given to her at birth. Fortunately, tools and services are emerging that can change a child's fate by giving her a chance to interact and build relationships that expand her horizons, alter her perspectives, and generate opportunities. Like all disruptive innovations, these solutions are simple applications targeting simple problems. Over time, however, they stand to upend the ways students can access and capitalize on meaningful relationships.

I have gained so many marvelous insights from my time working with Julia and watching her lead this important work. A large part of my appreciation has come as I have reflected on the “strong ties” in my own life. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Salt Lake City, I was fortunate to have been born to parents who had both attended college—an outright anomaly in my community. My mother wrote and spoke about politics and important issues in our home, and my father ran for the Utah state legislature despite his simple background as a grocery store manager. Together, my parents and community gave me a vision that I could be someone important in this world and have an impact—which is something every young person deserves, and every school should aim to deliver.

Over the past twenty years as an educator, manager, and father, I've realized that it's not professional accolades that will be the measure of my life. Instead, what will matter most is how I helped individual people become better. This book suggests a structure of school that would allow more individuals—even those that we don't think of as part of our traditional education system—to mentor, support, and inspire young people. In that vein, Julia's research and vision are indispensable to building a world in which individuals—even those from wildly different backgrounds—can help one another.

I'm indebted to Julia for helping me see how disruptive innovation can play a part in providing diverse, meaningful, and enduring relationships for our students. Academic supports may last for a time, but the impact of relationships can bless a student's life forever. How can schools take advantage of this monumental opportunity? Who You Know points the way forward.