“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.
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