As an almost daily blogger over the past 10 months, as well as a member of Twitter and LinkedIn, I've been struggling to understand the distinctions between some of the media platforms and real networking, a subject about which I've coached clients for nearly 10 years. In a recent post, Harvard's Rosabeth Kanter identified a number of distinctive differences and shared several original and immensely practical insights. Among other important differences, she pointed out that real networking changes the very nature of career success, a terrifically important matter for most anyone in this economy. So, networking should change the way you manage your career.
The key to understanding Twitter is that it gives away access to information in each tweet and rewards the giver by building followers. It's a circular process. The more followers, the more info comes in to be distributed. However, in contrast to face-to-face networks (what I call "real networking"), Twitter can't be controlled and there is no collective interaction, seriously limiting the quality of what you need for personal input. The term "collective interaction" has a background in science referring to organized patterns like insects, colonies of bacteria, or even geese that may be controlled and in some settings commanded. As Kanter implies, real networks have the potential to be accessed or managed by individuals for their own use. But you can't control twitter like you can manage other networks.
Put it this way. If you're a member of an organization you can create and access networks for career needs, be it information, strategy, contact with power and opinion leaders, resources or even new opportunities. In the last century, as Kanter points out, America was a society of organizations with formal hierarchies and clear reporting relationships which gave people their position and their power. Organizations and leaders controlled and limited power. For career success in that world you had to be "technically adept" and "interpersonally pleasant" (thus, the skills of brown nosing and sucking-up).
Today, people from any level of the organization can manage influence and power by working with networks that were organized by other people. The organizational hierarchy has no real control over that power. If you actively set out to connect and build relationships among the various groups, you can get things done. Or as Kanter suggests, "She who has the best network wins." And you don't have to be the formal boss to have power.
In sum, power is no longer controlled or limited by the organization. It is accessible to all via face-to-face networking. The caveat, of course, is that you also act with the understanding that the purpose of a network is to make a contribution, not merely to get.
In conversations with my Gen-Y protege, a networking genius, he tells me that it takes about six months from the start of your job to begin to see results and access information of various sorts. He, for example, wanted information on other job opportunities, various supervisors, organizational insight and needed competencies for his own career. What's also intriguing, he says, is that very few play the network field, leaving it wide open for proactive networking entrepreneurs.
It takes moxie, strategy and focus, as well as conversational skills to get moving on networks. Thinking of networks as social power, Kanter says that networking control is tied to two issues: the length of your organizational experience and whether your job encourages getting know a large number of people. Entry-level people rarely have jobs that ENCOURAGE getting to know a lot of people, but the fast-trackers, like my protege, have shown themselves adept at managing that barrier.
Ultimately the power to connect with others and span all kinds of organizational boundaries lies in yourself, not "in the stars." Committed networkers can readily access the rewards of real networking: extensive knowledge of opportunities, better pay, faster promotions, and promotions at younger ages. Those are very exciting "goodies."