The real reason many people dislike networking is the only reason to love it
Jane uncovers the secret of making great connections
Even the most senior people can find business networking challenging. That’s why Anthem offers techniques and tips that enable even the shyest of executives to learn to love and excel at networking. But being connected isn’t an end in itself. It’s just the start of building a relationship of trust and mutual benefit.
Robert Cialdini’s book Influence discusses what most successful networkers see as the key to making it work for you: the concept of the law of reciprocity. Essentially the idea is that when you do something beneficial for a person in your network, they will feel bound to return the favour and do something meaningful or helpful for you.
Now this may seem cold, calculated, self-centered and with the potential to be far too pre-meditated to have anything to do with generosity, and I’d have to agree. In the wrong hands and with a self-obsessed cut-and-dried mono-focused rain-making motivation, networking becomes little more than schmoozing, the domain of “have I got a deal for you!” For me, real networking is not this.
I think of strangers as friends we haven’t met yet. To me they are capsules of excitement and interest, people who are doing things I’d love to hear about. Sure I want them to expand my thinking and the boundaries or my universe, but it has more to do with the wonder of opportunities that might lie ahead of both of us. You see I’m a nosy beak at heart! And I’ve always loved the verses in the book of Luke 6:38 – “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”
Now I’m not a glass half full kinda gal. More a glass running over type. Why settle for second best I say? And the key to it frankly is that little gem contained in the first powerful word of that verse, an action and state of mind we find so hard to maintain. Giving. Learning to give and be generous is a tough gig.
“Most people just laugh when they hear the secret to success is giving,” say Bob Burg and John David Mann, authors of The Go-Giver. “Then again, most people are nowhere near as successful as they wish they were.”
That’s the real reason many people find networking so tough, and in my view it’s the only reason to love it.