PREFACE
The Overwhelming
Case for Face to Face
Here’s the challenge: Network with a new purpose, collaborate in ways you never have before, and impact your organization. A new paradigm is emerging, a paradigm we call the Network-Oriented Workplace.
In the new workplace, whether you’re a CEO or an employee, you have a new role to play—and new opportunities for contributing to your organization’s success. Strategic Connections shows you how to commit to this new networker identity.
But, to become a player in the new environment, you’ll need more than the mindset. You’ll need to master advanced face-to-face skills. What’s the value of face to face? Trust. Without trust, the collaboration needed to excel in today’s environment is very unlikely.
We know something about this topic. Since 1990, we’ve been talking about, thinking about, and training people in face-to-face networking. A wide variety of corporate, academic, and government organizations have been not only our clients, but also our proving ground for the state-of-the-art tools and techniques presented in this, our eighth, book.
The Way to Collaboration
Figure P–1, The Big Picture, depicts the only route to collaboration. There are no shortcuts. Start reading at the bottom and work your way up. Equipped with The 8 Competencies for the Network-Oriented Workplace (see Figure P–2), you can move along to teach your contacts, both inside and outside the organization, to trust you. With trust, you can advance to relationships that are more productive and useful. As these relationships progress, your networks are energized. With your networking contacts, you connect, converse, and ultimately collaborate. (Many leaders assume—and it’s a huge misconception—that most people instinctively know how to take these steps and that there are no skills that can speed you onward. Those assumptions simply are not true.)
Chapters 1 through 8 are devoted to helping you acquire each of these competencies, and each chapter is filled with examples, tips, tools, strategies, and stories to help you learn. Mastering these skills will assure that you’re able to use networking to make the strategic connections you need to achieve your goals at work, in your career, and for the wider organization.
Make an Impact
In the new Network-Oriented Workplace, you direct your networking efforts to impact the big organizational issues.
Your collaboration impacts strategy execution, speeding responsiveness and improving productivity.
Your collaboration impacts innovation, prompting more risk taking, thinking outside the box, and experimenting.
Your collaboration impacts engagement, raising satisfaction and eliciting your best.
Your collaboration impacts competitiveness, streamlining processes, bringing in the business, and keeping and expanding the current client base.
This book is your guide for creating your success, as well as contributing to the success of your organization, by developing the networking skills that drive 21st-century collaborative workplaces.
