“Hey Elango, I believe you are in Pune on Monday, I have fixed for you to meet …” said a colleague. My first reaction was how on earth did she know I am in Pune and how did she manage to fix whatever! Intrigued, I probed further to find that my colleague has friends in travel from whom she figured out I am travelling to Pune, checked my calendar on outlook and cajoled my assistant to fix this meeting! Wow! I wish I had more people like this; most of us would have complained it is difficult to get time on people’s diary. There was no way I could wriggle out of this.
THIS is the power of networks… knowing the right people, in the right places and using that to productive use.
Murali Soundar, our Chief Risk Officer, is another amazingly networked professional; from getting your driver wrongfully apprehended by the police out, to getting an audience with the high commission in Srilanka, to having the collector to visit the office to assure employees that they have the government’s support – it is amazing what he does with alacrity.
I am not a great networker, so I looked at some of these folks to find out what they do.
See every interaction as an opportunity to network: Opportunities are everywhere. From the gates of your kid’s school where you drop them, to the smokers corner (this apparently is where many a relationship was struck – not for me I prefer to live healthy compared to network successfully), to person next to you in the cab, lounge, plane. Opportunities are all around – if you are a networker, you will see it.
Ability to establish common ground: Hero of this blog Murali I believe while speaking to somebody in Sri Lanka, established the person was in the Sri Lankan army, connected to his (Murali’s) Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) posting in Srilanka… and they had something in common to talk about. Something common could be movies, work, books, causes you are passionate about.
Of course, for this you should have varied interests. I bumped into a professional contact at the club while waiting for my spouse to pick me up in the middle of the FIFA world cup. In an attempt to make conversation, I asked him which team he supported, he almost looked like what FIFA, what football! Suddenly I remembered that I had to pick up a book at the library …
What’s your treat: By ‘your treat’, I mean ‘your value’. You must have something to offer – knowledge, connections, help… anything. This is KEY – you have to be a contributing member to the network. For instance, my contribution to the network is my job at MphasiS – I could open many doors within MphasiS for fellow networkers. Or the travel team person, who has access to information such as travel destinations, great holiday packages. Each of us bring our own value, however we have to constantly update this. We are in trouble if this is our sole claim to value. Diversity and sustainable value is important. Sustainable value is skill, talent, traits – something more intrinsic/internal; any value based on association with role, company, and person – extrinsic value – is short lived. By way of example, being available to people to hear them out, playing mentor, and advisor to some of people on my network, is my intrinsic value and easily sustainable. Intrinsic or extrinsic, you have to constantly update and stay relevant lest you slide in ‘treat quotient’.
Develop them and make time: Make time building your networks. Attend meetings, go for lunches, make and take calls – yes, it does take time, but its all worth it. I know someone who had this personal discipline. He would call people on way to office and back – one call and have a good conversation. Could be a past manager, acquaintance, vendor, just “hey I exist” call. Guess what this does, it keeps the memory fresh and next time when you want something it doesn’t seem like you call only when you want something.
A part of developing your network is returning favours. I had a colleague, who would call, ask for favours, advices all the time but strangely the minute something went wrong in his area chose not to use this relationship. On the contrary, start sending nasty emails, escalations and speaking around. I remember thinking to myself… ‘The least you could have done is call me and warn me of the issue, use me to fix it – just like the other times’. You must escalate if things don’t happen but sometimes you need to give the person you have asked for favours and taken up their time, a heads-up and insure you don’t compromise your relationship. You can’t be seen as a fair-weather networker or a I-take-only-professional.
Be authentic: You have to do this because you like talking to people, are genuinely interested in them and are willing to help. I read in a blog that if you do it as a check in the box – lets just get over with it – you wont be too successful.
Stay the course: Going out and talking to strangers, finding common ground, being authentic isn’t easy. You will wonder what on earth you are up to. Stay the course, it is worth it. The best way to do this weave it into your schedule and start enjoying it.
The biggest hurdle to networking like anything is ourselves. Most people I spoke with, even the great networkers say “oh! That’s not me, I can’t do it”. Oh! Yes you can do it, remember walk like a baby blog . Only question is do you have the burning desire? If you do, you will.
If you don’t still have the burning desire…hear this! The best jobs, the plum assignments, the cool projects, the surprises come through networks. Mamta was mentioning that a large investment bank actually promotes internal transfers only through networking. Though I said I am not a networker, I realized many of my big turns in life happened because I had a mentor, friend and well wisher who gave that nudge.
I spoke of value you bring, you should also be aware of value of other people in your network. There are some links in the network that provide you access to people and areas you could not otherwise have accessed. It is these links you need to nurture and keep alive.
Let me bust another myth about networking – you need to be a brilliant conversationalist, need to be humorous… it is all bunkum. You need to be a good listener not a talker, be interested in what they are saying and be able to add your perspective. Most often people like to talk and if you listen, they love you!
Just one request – don’t do want a young man did in a session with me. This instance is from one of the forums I was speaking in. When I speak in forums, I enjoy the after talk conversations with the delegates. You walk off the dias and you have people walking upto you, either saying they enjoyed your talk or don’t agree with a certain point. Interesting sparring. Some amount of self promotion and card exchanging happens. In this session, a young man walks up says Hello, asks for my card… I reluctantly hand it over, he takes it and stretches his hand asking for another. Half curious and more irritated, I remind him I just gave him one… he blithely replies “Oh that was for me, I want one for my friend who didn’t attend the session!” Sure … can I give you one more for your neighbour?? Grrr.
Please don’t be a card collector – meet interesting people, strike up genuine conversations, learn and hopefully mutually benefit from each other.
Good luck happy networking!
Rahul Bora – Now I feel better that I have redeemed my commitment to you of writing up a blog on networking.
Nice one…
I have read one of your blog recently … ended up reading all at a stretch, must admit I find it insightful to read your blogging.
The most important aspect of networking is to strike a genuine conversation and building on it !
Faking it = Breaking it ! 🙂
Nice one Elango and well thought through post. The strange thing is Networking neednt be all manipulative and objective oriented ,” mathlabi” as we in India would say. Meeting people of diverse experience opens up our mind, and oh by the way , maybe we can also enjoy doing some business together….
Keep writing…
Boss
Very good post…I enjoyed this one; you made some great points…I could actually visualize you getting annoyed with the young card collector…somehow this blog makes it feel like you are not so far away.
Julio – you are right I connect more with people now and feel more connected than before through the blog! see you and i talk once every other post atleast! thanks for reading and commenting and do feel free to pass onto your colleagues incase they will find this useful
“Card Collector”… Gracefully entitled write up. Expected some disfavor thoughts on Networking or Negative impacts of over networking which might cause a network Jam. Like the way you have drifted down with examples. Will definitely look forward for upcoming posts.
How very true – ” to see every interaction as an opportunity to network”.Had to simply share this incident after reading the blog ‘Card Collector’ . I run Master Mind Academy, (Mumbai based)which is into various activities like Abacus, Spoken English, Soft skills etc for children and young adults. I had just got some very good response from schools in Bangalore and i did’nt know a single soul who could follow it up for me there. Was waiting in Bangalore airport for a flight to Mumbai which got inordinately delayed (thank god for that !) and i had 3 hours to pass. After a few phone calls and trying to read a book, and a constant prayer that i find someone in Bangalore who could be a part of my team… i felt the need to talk to someone. A friendly lady beside me appealed to me and all it took was a smile. Within 5 minutes, i knew she was my person. SHe was already into abacus (as an instructor for some other company),had experience and i did’nt even have to sell my idea. Miracles never cease to exist. Within a week, we had signed the deal and today Malathy continues to be my best franchisee and Trainer and she is an asset to our organisation. As long as there are people, and we are willing to communicate, the opportunities are endless. Most of my team was ‘recruited’ in unexpected, informal places (including beauty parlors, PTA meetings)and all of them were strangers first. And all it took was a smile.
Really good one… often times, the young kids lose their way at events like this. Good one on the importance of networking Elango…
Excellant & Very useful points …
Actually, was not following your blogs regularly anymore because this request was pending for too long 😉 (actually busy relocating) Yesterday at a business dinner I was told that The Networking Blog is there and hence I am back on air!
Firstly, Thanks for writing this blog! The piece that I think is most important and gets one a long way is: Be authentic. This is one thing which help earn real/genuine friends rather than JUST increasing the list of people you know.
Thanks once again for writing this blog. Now I have a new request ;-)…will post that after I collect my thoughts around that and also verify that it is not covered in the blogs that I have not yet read!
ha ha will wait for your new request hopefully i will write it quicker this time
Hi Elango,
I was reading “I failed and I’m proud” blog today that was posted on Facebook and found it really interesting and something that I could connect myself to, and to my surprise I saw some interesting topics on your blog site and my first reaction was ” I should read em all..”..Since this is the first time I ever tried responding to Blogs or posting my comments, I’m sure you would find it the most lengthiest comment of all 🙂
I really liked SS (Shining Star)..believe me I could relate myself to it so much that I kept wondering whose fault was it—the SS who got carried away with those excellent ratings for years, not realizing what a potential hazard was in store for her or was it the reporting manager who expected so much from her ( knowing her competencies) that she was always overburdened with tasks and at the same time not providing ample feedback on her capabilities/incompetencies which ultimately led to such a disaster…a very intersting article.
Following which I read “walk like a Baby” and “London Eye’s article”, both were equally good, but something which caught my eye was “Card Collector”.
I always thought I could never be good with networking infact the very thought of perpetual talk was way beyond my imagination. Things changed ever since I joined the corporate environment 7 years ago when I started my career with GECIS. I just completed my graduation then and was learning ABC of leadership styles, corporate etiquettes, people management.
I was still learning how to build relationships and continue to learn even until today knowing the importance it holds in work environment.
I often used to think great networking was possible only by those who could make people go gaga over their speeches and who have the gift of the gab, but realized those were not the qualifiers. So I let my inhibitions/ego sink in and started to actively take part in building my networking with friends, colleagues, Managers , ex-colleagues in all possible media via Phone, emails, msgnr, and off late Facebook and Blogging sites..and trust me this helps us to stay connected.
The importance of “people” and “Success” was very well explained to me by Manish Soman (C.E.O 3Di- Systems India Pvt Ltd and a friend of Avtar Monga) during a flight journey to Delhi.
It was way back in 2005-2006 when I was travelling to Delhi to support the BOA HR recruitment team in hiring pilot batch for GGN site (u were part of the team too). I never knew that the journey would turn out to be so memorable, as the person sitting next to me was a friend of Avtar. Initially we started talking about life, the hurdles one faces and shared our experiences too, and during this 2 hour flight ,we spoke of how one needs to learn from the failures/obstacles in life. He said there is one mantra in life for success.. “The Three Little Fingers”. He said , if one wants to be successful in life look at the three fingers starting from the last little finger (the smallest of all)- The smallest finger signifies “Knowledge” a very important
factor for success; no matter which field , organization, process, MNC we are in; we need to know the subject that we are working/teaching/speaking on, as subject matter expertise will help us gain command on our day-to day activities right from our childhood. The second finger (ring finger) holds more importance than the first; not only by its appearnce, but also because it signifies “People”. It not just important to have knowledge in our arena, but very important with whom this knowledge is being shared/used- it is definitely people. Be it any industry, no matter how much ever knowledge we possess, it would be futile if our people skills are bad , as they would no recievers for the same. So it is imperative that we maintain our people management skills. Last but not the least the middle finger the tallest of all and of greatest importance- it signifies “Fire in the Belly”. He said one may have great knowledge and excellent people skills but if he/she does not have the desire to succeed its pointless to have those skills. One must have the fire in the belly and the desire to achieve success no matter how many obstacles we might encounter or how many ever failures we may come across..
Wow ..it was a great learning and never realized how 2 hours flew and when I landed Delhi Airport. He gave me his card and infact suggested that I meet Avtar and convey his wishes. This conversation not only created a long lasting impression but helped me learn something, and till date its been close to 5 years since I met Manish and I still recollect those 3 guiding principles. After reading your article I realized how important it is to be active on networking as these kind of interactions canbe cherished for lifetime.
Thank you Elango..for posting such nice articles. Will look forward for more articles from you