In today's economy most professionals are juggling responsibilities with more learning demands than ever. As a result, networking cannot be an afterthought. Indeed, a developmental network will be key to career success, and without one you're doomed to both obsolescence and failure as the latest recession has shown.
Herminia Ibarra, Organizational Behavior prof, at INSEAD, Europe's top business school puts it this way,
Other things being equal, what is going to give you an edge? It's the relationships that you have that allow you to augment what you know and allow you to take the 'what you know' and actually to translate it into practice, into something the organization can use. It makes all the difference.
One of the most relevant and amusing reasons for a network is a case I learned about last year. Rock Havland (fictitious name), a manager in supply chain technology at a Northeastern grocery products company, was on a cut list given by a new director to the VP during the past summer. The company had lost market share to competitors and was starting to get hit by the recession. The VP quickly nixed the cut, not only because Rock had the most extensive development network in the company, but also because his technology expertise had been networked to the CEO, and Rock had become his preferred personal provider. No smart VP is going to mess with the boss’s tech specialist. On occasion your network can even save your job.
In spite of the fact that many of us were taught that it's what you know, not who you know, the truth is that what you know is who you know. The best kept secret in business is that everyone believes in networking, but very, very few have one. There are plenty of reasons for that, but the most basic is very simple: they don’t know how to build them.
Building your developmental network
In contrast to strategic networks that tend to be planned vehicles for helping professionals become business managers and linking them up with senior managers, developmental networks usually evolve. They are driven by frustrations with a task or project and provide relationships to support coaching, learning and growth. Network growth, at least initially, is often a stop/start matter, a messy learning process in its own right. In the later stages, with success under your belt, network growth is usually more straightforward.
In a typical scenario, you're faced with an assigned project objective, but your manager is neither available nor the top resource for project execution. Not only does today’s manager have his/her own bosses to manage, but he/she also spends a great deal of time with managers from other groups and divisions because of overlapping projects or strategic issues. Furthermore, managers often have both internal and external clients for whom they are responsible, putting a serious drag on time and priorities. As a result, professionals are expected to be more and more responsible for themselves.
The dissonance and frustration before initiating a network regularly takes on both an emotional and behavioral pattern. What usually happens is that they sit and stew, muddling over their lack of knowledge. (Muddling refers to aimless thinking, playing with ideas that seem to go nowhere). After a period of time in which they try on specific solutions to no avail, they eventually engage the insights of a trusted friend to talk over the problem. When that goes nowhere, a surprising number of professionals just stay stuck until their boss calls them in for a come-to-Jesus party. BIG MISTAKE. Staying stuck is an announcement that you need to initiate a development network.
The real key is to start the search for expertise and get beyond friends and acquaintances. Talk to any person who might be able to point you to those who can help you to resolve your problem. Typically, the first recommendations are of little value. However, when you learn they can't help, the next step is to ask for two or three recommendations of people who might be able to assist you. It may take three or four attempts. As a consequence, you'll also learn who knows what, which can provide future assistance on other problems.
Now let's debrief the process to figure out what the clues reveal about networking patterns.
It isn't easy to initiate a network when you've survived and succeeded by using your own raw talent. But in today's world, you've learned--sometimes painfully--that you've got to operate outside the box to succeed. This may take the form of a paradigm shift, a drastic change in the way you look at work and success. Studies confirm that it's difficult for most of us to collaborate across workgroups. We tend to perceive that our own workgroup and friends are more advanced, more sophisticated or more important. As a result, as Wayne Baker, the Michigan prof and business guru writes, we stick with our tight, homogenous network of very similar people: an echo chamber. Although good for building team loyalty and a sense of common purpose, it is usually marked by groupthink, minimizing conflict for consensus and failing to critically analyze or test ideas.
Successful networkers start with colleagues. They bridge the gap between other networks by searching for people who can serve as brokers to more open, diverse relationships to help them resolve problems that no one in the echo group can manage. These arms-length networks operate completely outside your echo network. The more diverse networks you can access at arms-length, the better you're able to get lots of new information, coaching, resources and learn about new opportunities. The real issue is not how many people you know, but how many networks you can access. Admittedly, you'll experience tension and conflict in those networks, but so what? All you're after is knowledge and coaching.
Think of the echo network and the arms-length network as two extreme poles, both of which you will need in order to achieve career success: the echo for consensus, support and achievement of common goals; and the arms-length for information and resources. The best development networks are usually composed of people who don't know each other, don't work with each other, or don't like each other. Sometimes the most valuable person to help you is that well-known asshole up on the next floor. Swallow your pride and ask for help. Usually, assholes love giving advice to somebody they may consider to be a dumb ass. But learn to play that game. After a few conversations, you two may actually become friends, and the insights you'll gain for growth, employability and career success are worth eating crow.
Building a development network takes time. It evolves as your needs evolve. As Ibarra says, it's the quality and not the quantity of contacts that matter. If you only pick up the phone when you're in a crisis, you won't get far. Network relationships evolve, meaning that they take time, effort and have their own rhythm.
