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Commit to a New Networker Identity

WHAT DID THE three engineers who took their bonuses to the bank have that the others didn’t? A robust and positive networker identity. Imagine them saying to themselves, “Yeah, I can see myself having those kinds of conversations with my client to explore new ways our firm might be of service.”

Everybody has a networker identity. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to expand and strengthen yours so you can participate fully in the emerging Network-Oriented Workplace. As you analyze your attitudes, you’ll let go of misconceptions and outdated notions about networking. As you redefine networking, you’ll adopt new ideas and beliefs to build a solid foundation for your new role. As you manage your mindset, you’ll make sure nothing will hold you back as you begin to update and expand your repertoire of networking skills.

Analyze Your Attitudes

What’s your current networker identity? To discover it, look through the list of comments below. Do you find one or more that you might give in answer to this question: “How do you feel about networking?”

   “Networking comes easy for me. I’ve always done it, and I enjoy it.”

   “I was raised in a culture that frowns on talking about oneself. I’m not comfortable with taking credit for my achievements.”

   “I’m shy. Talking with strangers or even people I know is difficult.”

   “Isn’t face to face rather old-fashioned? I’d rather connect electronically.”

   “I do my job. Why should I have to promote myself?”

   “I know networking’s important, but I don’t have the time.”

   “I have to network for my job, so I’ve found role models and picked up some ideas. I’m sure there’s more to learn.”

Some 80 percent of people have beliefs that hold them back.

Those answers indicate the range of attitudes we see among employees. Our Contacts Count surveys show that only 20 percent of people are proficient networkers. If you’re in this group, networking comes naturally to you, or you’ve figured out how to do it. Your attitude is positive, and committing to a new networker identity will be an easy transition for you. The remaining 80 percent of people have beliefs about networking that keep them from doing it well—or at all. If you’re in this group, your attitude as you begin reading this book might be negative, or neutral, or fairly positive. Know that, wherever you are starting from, you can, if you keep an open mind, find your own networker identity that feels authentic and will help you succeed in the 21st-century Network-Oriented Workplace.

The Nine Biggest Misconceptions About Networking

The beliefs expressed here can prevent you from taking on your new networker identity. If you recognize yourself in any of these examples, think carefully about whether you want to hold on to a belief that limits your ability to learn and use the state-of-the-art skills presented in this book.

1. “I’m a CPA, I shouldn’t have to network,” says Manny. “My work should stand for itself.”

“The hardest people to get to network are scientists, engineers, and financial types,” say researchers Rob Cross, Andrew Hargadon, and Salvatore Parise in their 2008 Network Roundtable publication, “Critical Connections: Driving Rapid Innovation with a Network Perspective.” Some people have chosen what we call “quiet careers” that haven’t in the past required much interaction. But the workplace is changing: Today, individual contributors become collaborators. If you have a professional identity that does not include “networker,” it’s time to update your definition of yourself.

2. “I’m a professional engineer (architect, CPA, doctor, etc.),” says Andie. “I’m not in sales.”

Many organizations have now decided that “business development is everybody’s business.” That’s what the engineers in this chapter’s opening story found out when they were asked to talk with clients about expanding their engagements. In the new workplace, everyone takes ownership of the organization’s success and that includes bringing in the business, whatever your job title.

3. “I rarely get anything out of networking events,” says Mel, a purchasing manager, “so, I’ve quit going.”

In one Contacts Count study, more than 85 percent of people who attended a networking event said they hadn’t come looking for anything in particular. As the saying goes, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it.” If Mel had gone with goals in mind, he’d have a good chance to find what he was looking for. Skilled networkers make events pay off. And, of course, networking doesn’t just happen at networking events; in the Network-Oriented Workplace, networking happens all during the workday—and beyond.

4. “If I ask for help, won’t I seem incompetent?” asks Liz, a budget analyst. “I don’t like the feeling of owing people.”

Asking for help results in better decisions and outputs; giving help results in higher job satisfaction. There’s no downside in those outcomes. “Everyone’s work is improved by a dynamic process of seeking and giving feedback, ideas, and assistance,” say Teresa Amabile, Colin M. Fisher, and Julianna Pillemar, authors of “IDEO’s Culture of Helping,” a 2014 article in the Harvard Business Review. Liz is stuck in a tit-for-tat notion of networking: You give me something, I owe you something back. But in the Network-Oriented Workplace, networkers don’t keep score; they give generously.

In the Network-Oriented Workplace, networkers give generously.

5. “If I’m networking, people will think I’m job-hunting,” says Ernesto, an IT supervisor.

Networking was once pigeonholed as a job-seeking/career-advancing tool. But it’s much more than that. The new environment encourages people to network not just for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of their organizations.

6. “Networking is manipulative,” says Teresa, a project manager. “I don’t like the idea of arm-twisting someone to get him to do something for me.”

In reality, that kind of approach to networking doesn’t work anyway. Subterfuge, indirection, and pushiness don’t get results. Those actions repel people rather than attract them. The best networkers teach their contacts to trust them. The trust-building process eliminates any hint of manipulation.

7. “Networking is just schmoozing,” says Karla, a manager of administrative services. “It’s boring and… uncomfortable.”

Strategic networkers sidestep superficialities and get down to business. They go beyond chitchat into conversations that can help them solve problems, come up with new ideas, and access valuable resources.

8. “I’m an introvert. I’ll never be a networker,” says Kyle, a manager in corporate planning.

The experts agree: Slightly over half of us are introverts. And often introverts find interacting overstimulating and energy-draining. But they have the edge when it comes to planning and listening—two qualities that are very important in building relationships. And they especially appreciate the detailed, step-by-step instructions we give for the skills in The 8 Competencies. In a Network-Oriented Workplace, we’d expect half of the employees to be introverts and capable networkers.

9. “I don’t need face-to-face skills,” says Lee. “Meeting with people is a waste of time. I just zap out an email or text message.”

Why take an either/or approach? Why not use both? There’s no doubt that people build trust faster when they’re face to face. That’s why strategic connectors choose in-person networking when they can.

Once you’re rid of beliefs that hold you back, you can replace them with new beliefs that help you move forward.

The Definition of Networking

If you had to define networking, what would you say? Here’s our definition:

Networking is the deliberate and discretionary process of creating, cultivating, and capitalizing on trust-based, mutually beneficial relationships for individual and organizational success.

Note that networking:

   Is a process that takes time and intention.

   Involves initiating, maintaining, and making use of relationships.

   Is based on trust and benefits both parties.

   Impacts your results—and your organization’s as well.

Once you understand this definition, use it in your belief system. These three beliefs are all you need:

1. Networking is valuable—to me and to my organization.

2. It can be learned.

3. I can learn it.

Believing in the value of networking shouldn’t be a stretch. You’ll find a wealth of examples of the benefits throughout this book. Look for examples that show the value of networking in getting your job done, in advancing your career, and in contributing to the success of your organization. Notice, too, the mounting evidence that organizations are recognizing the value of face-to-face networking and will be more and more supportive of your efforts.

Believing that networking is a set of skills you can master is also easy. The 8 Competencies include everything you need to know to create, cultivate, and capitalize on relationships.

Believing that you can learn these skills comes as you shed self-imposed restrictions and misguided misconceptions. Throw away any remaining remnants of reluctance that you notice when you catch yourself thinking, “I can’t be an expert networker because….”

Become a Strategic Networker

If you’re ready to expand your networking horizons, you’re on your way to becoming a strategic networker by:

   Choosing your mindset/beliefs (you’ve begun this process by buying this book).

   Learning a wide range of skills.

   Making strategic networker who you are and how you operate.

Make strategic networker who you are and how you operate.

Imagine your life as a strategic networker. You believe in the power of networking to help accomplish your—and your organization’s—goals. As you move from individual contributor to collaborator, you make a bigger impact on your organization’s success. You understand the steps in the trust-building process and choose face-to-face interactions over electronic ones whenever possible. Because you’ve mastered the state-of-the-art network-building skills, you feel comfortable, confident, and professional as you develop and leverage your networks. You are able to adapt these face-to-face skills to build trust with your at-a-distance contacts. ou add strategic networker to your self-concept. When dealing with a problem or challenge or project, you immediately think, “Who do I know (or who could I know) who could/should be involved or who might help with this?” Your specific job is fresh and exciting as you find ways to involve others and align your work with desired organizational outcomes.

On a more personal level, with your new networking expertise you connect in richer ways with family, friends, and your larger community.

Activate Your Networker Identity

As you use the skills in The 8 Competencies to activate your new networker identity, you’ll be faced with many decisions and opportunities. Let these three principles drive your responses:

1. Reframe networking.

2. Risk reaching out.

3. Reinforce the collaborative culture.

REFRAME NETWORKING

In the past, many people had a self-serving approach to networking; they saw interacting as the way to get something for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your efforts to bear fruit. But that’s only part of the story. Networking is not just about talking and taking; it’s about teaching and giving.

Reframe networking as teaching and giving.

When you reframe networking to include teaching, you’ll immediately feel more comfortable and professional. With a teaching mindset, you put aside any sense of manipulating people and focus instead on providing useful information about yourself and your organization. If you’ve thought of yourself as shy or introverted or bound by cultural prohibitions, you’ll feel liberated as you begin to think of networking as teaching. The other side of teaching is learning. Deciding to learn about others also feels easy and energizing. As you master the skills in The 8 Competencies, you’ll discover many ways to teach about yourself and learn about your contacts.

When you reframe networking to also include giving, you may initially feel some reluctance or apprehension. You might worry that you’ll be taken advantage of or that you don’t have anything to give. You may be used to thinking of networking as an equal exchange: I give; I get. You can go beyond the idea that networking is trading. Move into a “give first, give freely” mindset. Giving generously aids the trust-building process and enhances your likeability. Your willingness and ability to give are aspects of your networker identity. As you give, you help to create the giving culture that characterizes the Network-Oriented Workplace and sets it apart from the old command-and-control system. That old system put you into competition with your coworkers; the new Network-Oriented Workplace draws you into collaboration for mutual success.

RISK REACHING OUT

How did reaching out to another human being become something that feels scary? Analyze your apprehensions about connecting. When you feel that attack of nerves that alerts you to a risky situation, take a look at your fears. You may decide that your concerns are quite silly. Feeling reluctant to join a group of people who are talking with each other? Does that experience tap into a long ago, high-school-age angst about being excluded from the in-group? How to overcome this? Catastrophize. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Many fears about interacting can be quashed with a good dose of reality. Prepare and practice. Certainly, after you have internalized all of the skills in The 8 Competencies, you’ll feel well equipped for your networking adventures. Having the skills reduces the risk. As you build trusting relationships, risk diminishes. In those relationships, others have your back and will go to bat for you. As trust grows, you’ll be more willing to take risks, think out of the box, and innovate. Be brave. Dare, act, go boldly, take the first step. Risk reaching out!

REINFORCE THE COLLABORATIVE CULTURE

In the past, networking at work has been undervalued, unappreciated, and underutilized. Now organizations are beginning to value, appreciate, and recognize the power of your networks. Any new idea needs its champions. Become a champion for the Network-Oriented Workplace.

To put this principle into action, advocate for best networking practices. Act as a networking role model whenever you can. Mentor and teach networking concepts and skills to younger workers and new hires. As you participate in the Network-Oriented Workplace, you reinforce the collaborative culture.

Manage Your Mindset

You’ve analyzed your attitudes, off-loaded debilitating ideas, and begun to establish your strategic networker belief system. But you still may have some negative images lurking about in the nooks and crannies of your mind. What can you do to knock out negativity, energize yourself, and transform yourself from an “I can’t…” to an “I can…” networker? Use these tips, tools, and techniques to take charge of your mindset.

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE

There’s no denying that the term networking has, through the years, collected some negative connotations. Several common comments give networking a chilly aura. Brrr! People say:

“He gave me the cold shoulder.”

“What can I say to break the ice?”

“I hate to make cold calls.”

“I got cold feet when I thought about going to the meeting alone.”

“I just froze up.”

It’s hard to feel excited about making contact when your mind is full of pictures like these. If you think of other people—people you might network with—as cold and rejecting, it will be hard for you to enjoy the moment, exchange information, or explore future opportunities. When you hear yourself thinking or making any of these comments, reject these images and come in from the cold.

Some of the other words and phrases people use when they are talking about networking devalue and demean networking. Here’s our list of the top 10 turnoffs in the language of networking and why we don’t like them.

1. “Schmoozing.” That word can make networking conversations seem unimportant and worse, insincere!

2. “30-second commercial.” Why refer to a hard sell when you’re teaching someone what you do and trying to build trust?

3. “Pick your brain.” Here are the vultures coming in for the carrion. We wish people would say, “I’d like to get your thoughts about something.”

4. “Work a room.” So depersonalizing and one-sided, this phrase sounds as if you intend to work people over and take all you can get from them.

5. “Elevator speech.” This phrase diminishes the teaching and trust-building that could occur when you tell what you do.

6. “Tricks of the trade.” Let’s not imply anything that smacks of manipulation. There are no “tricks” in our approach to networking.

7. “Favor bank.” Doing things for others is the right thing; just so they’ll “owe me one” is the wrong reason. Give without strings, without expectations of getting—that’s the way to create networks that work.

8. “Power lunch.” Yes, invite a powerful contact to lunch, but don’t call it that. It sounds too much as if you value people just for their positions.

9. “Business card exchange.” Exchanging cards without building trust is nonproductive and makes only a “cardboard connection,” not a real one. When you leave a networking event with 20 or 30 cards, what do you do with them? Put them in your database? Invite those people to link with you, even through you don’t remember who most of them are? Toss ’em into the trash? Only exchange cards with people you have genuinely connected with.

10. “Important people.” Don’t you hate it when you are talking with someone and that person is looking over your shoulder in search of someone better to talk with? Give your whole attention to the person you are with. Seek out contacts based on their expertise, not their titles.

CATCH YOUR CRITIC

You climb into your car to go to a networking event. You put your key in the ignition. You turn into the street… and all of a sudden, you’re there. You have no recollection of the route you took, the traffic you coped with, or the signs and houses and businesses you passed.

You’ve been on autopilot. But, when you think about it, you remember that your Critic—the voice in your head—has been haranguing you.

The voice makes it very hard—sometimes impossible—for you to connect easily with others. Notice how your Critic sabotages you.

During introductions, the voice in your head taunts you. Just when the person you’re talking with gives his name, the Critic yells, “You never can remember people’s names.” Sure enough, while the Critic is hollering, the other person’s name is blotted out.

In the middle of a conversation, the Critic’s voice mutters, “You never can think of anything to talk about.” And guess what… a self-fulfilling prophecy… you aren’t able to think of anything to say.

After you’ve been talking with someone for several minutes, the Critic’s voice harangues, “This person would rather be talking to someone more important.” And you fade out of the conversation, stammering something about needing to freshen your drink.

Change your Critic into a Coach.

The Critic is bad news. Your brain believes what you tell it about yourself. The good news is you can transform your Critic into a helpful Coach.

If you notice what your Critic says and don’t like it, you can reprogram that voice in your head to give you positive and encouraging messages instead of negative and discouraging ones.

Teach the voice in your head to say something helpful and supportive. Whenever your Critic makes you feel uncomfortable and incapable, think of encouraging statements that make you feel confident and strong. Come up with the words that reflect your beliefs that networking is valuable and that you can do it well. Use statements like:

“This is going to be interesting.”

“I’m well-prepared and eager to talk to people today.”

“I wonder what great ideas and opportunities I can discover as I connect with these people.”

Change the way you talk to yourself about your ability to network. Combine your new mindset with the specific skills in this book to become a confident, strategic networker.

BELIEVE THE BEST ABOUT YOURSELF AND OTHERS

Your beliefs about yourself and other people will help you succeed at connecting. Take Paul, for example. He used to be apprehensive about entertaining out-of-town clients at dinner. But, to cope with his reluctance about meeting new people, he’s gotten in the habit of giving himself a pep talk. “I say to myself, ‘They’ve got kids and hobbies and hopes and dreams just like I do.’ I think about all the things we have in common. If I prepare myself like that, I’m okay.”

Paul discovered through experience what psychologists have verified by studying the conversational patterns of people meeting for the first time. Numerous researchers have found that if people meeting for the first time believe they have a lot in common, they act very much as if they are old friends. They pay attention to subtle conversational cues and match each other’s progress through the conversation. If one brings up a lighter, more informal topic, the other responds with a light topic of his own. If one says something self-revealing, the other follows.

On the other hand, if the strangers are told they have nothing in common, conversation limps along, and both parties feel they haven’t connected. This research reinforces the idea that your attitude toward others impacts your success as a networker.

ENERGIZE YOURSELF

Brian, who works in IT, says, “I prepare myself to walk into a room full of people. In my spare time I play in a rock band, so I imagine my ‘entrance music.’ I hear my favorite song playing in my head, and it makes me feel upbeat, positive, and confident.” Can’t you just see him walking in with his head high and his smile bright? What’s your entrance music?

No doubt about it, your body language sends a message to others. But Amy Cuddy, professor at the Harvard Business School, has determined that your body language sends a message not only to other people, but also to your own brain. Her research shows that if you change your body language, you can change the way you feel and behave. Taking a “power pose” for two minutes before you go to a networking event or give an important presentation or deal with a difficult person changes your hormone levels and actually makes you more confident and able to take risks. You can invent your own pose. You might clasp your hands behind your head and put your feet on your desk—the very picture of the powerful and confident CEO. Or you can spread your arms above your head, making a V for Victory, and take a wide stance. Your goal: Take up as much space as possible. A powerful pose is expansive and open. In contrast, a powerless pose is contracted and closed, hunched in with your arms touching your torso and your legs crossed. People have said, “Fake it ’til you make it.” Using this technique, you can literally fake it ’til you become it.

You can watch Professor Cuddy’s popular TED Talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” for more information about her intriguing research.

FIND ROLE MODELS

Look for people who are comfortable and confident networkers and use them as role models. Find several people so that you get several points of view. It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Don’t be reluctant to let people know that you consider them good examples to follow. In fact, interview your role models to find out how they came by their expertise and what barriers they had to overcome. You may be surprised when they say they’re shy or introverted. Role models can be good sounding boards and mentors as well as people whose behavior you mirror.

When one CPA firm wanted to instill the idea that business development is everyone’s business, the partners took part in a panel discussion to share stories about their rainmaker activities. The younger employees were heartened and encouraged when they discovered that the partners weren’t born with the “gift of gab,” but had developed over many years the networking behaviors that helped them attract clients.

Your networker identity arises from your positive mindset and your mastery of networking skills. It’s not about just changing your hat. It’s not a mask. It’s not a fake self that you put on when you go to a conference or meet with a prospect or work with colleagues on a project. It’s not a performance or a technique. It’s about making “networker” who you are, an authentic self-definition.