#344 from Innovative Leader Volume 7, Number 6          June 1998

Energize Your Network
by Robert J. Ballantyne

Mr. Ballantyne is principal, Ballantyne & Associates, Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada (phone 604-947-0815).  Email robert@ballantyne.com. ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Ballantyne.

Over the past 15 years your role as a project leader has changed. You’ve done the exercises which show that groups make better decisions than individuals, and you have learned to hold stakeholder meetings. Instead of acting like a boss, you are your team’s facilitator. You attend the related conferences, study the trade publications, take courses, and inform your group of trends and developments in their field. As every manager knows, the world is full of people you don’t control who can influence the outcome of your project. So you cultivate those people in other divisions and your suppliers. They like you and your project, and you know that they’ll go the extra mile for you when you need it.

For some of the less gregarious of us, this has been hard to learn. We achieved our leadership position by performing well as a junior member of teams. We persevered. We discovered that these techniques are valuable, and often proved beneficial.

There’s a general principle here: the possibility of better results happens when people communicate. If you are a new project leader, this may be hard to grasp. You can manage a project with spreadsheets, PERT software, effective goal-setting and evaluation of the staff; but managing the environment around your project seems hard to quantify. I hope that you have learned to trust that creating a community of support is worthy of your time. Now I want to suggest that there another skill worth developing.

The community is rich in resources that you can use if you know how to locate them. The truth is that you don’t know they’re there and there’s no direct route to find them. Instead, solutions and resources will find you if you develop a powerful network of people who are always working on your behalf. I encourage you to learn how to energize your network.

Your network exists because you talk to people, and then they talk to others about you. The real power of this process occurs during the latter part—when they talk about you. I know this can be frustrating because you don’t see it.

It’s up to you to fuel the process. You do this by continually meeting new people in a business-like manner; not just socially. Unless sales is part of your background, at first you’ll find the routine uncomfortable. That will change as you discover it’s not personally threatening, and yields great benefits.

Developing the Network

Your goal is to have a meaningful meeting with at least two new people each week. The key is to find new people, not simply to re-visit the people you already know.

You have three objectives for each meeting. First, you will obtain information about the person’s business. As you do this, listen for mutual opportunities. Your secondary purpose is to express something about your project and about yourself. Lastly, don’t forget to ask for one or two referrals. Don’t be sidetracked from meeting all three objectives because you’re enjoying yourself. This is networking, not sales; so it’s enough that both parties develop a real and positive sense of each other, and learn something of each other’s business.

An eight-step program:

1.         Obtain contact manager software for your computer. You’ll be developing a database of people and details that your brain will forget. Read the instructions and be proficient with the software. You want the program to work for you, not fight you. Do it yourself; this process cannot be delegated. If you are a Luddite you’ll have to set up a card file.

2.         Begin with referrals from people you know. You’ll have to ask them for names. Tell them that you want people to learn about you and your business, and you want to discover more about the work of others. (Even this business of asking for referrals is networking, so if your acquaintances don’t really know about your project, make an appointment to see them.) When you ask for referrals, try to see the most senior person in any organization. If you cannot see one of the decision-makers, wait until you are networked to someone higher up.

3.         Call to say that the mutual acquaintance recommended that you get together, and ask for an appointment. Explain that you’ll need only twenty minutes. If the person isn’t available, don’t leave a message. If you’re stuck with voice mail, press zero and find a human. If an assistant attempts to put you off with excuses, cheerfully ask the assistant’s name, and offer to call back at a more convenient time. Log every call in your database. After you’ve called back a few times, you’ll be friends with the assistant, and probably this person will help you to have your meeting. If pressed to explain why you want to meet, the answer is to explore mutual opportunities—and mention the referral.

If the person (not the assistant) says that they’re not interested, then say thanks and ring off. If the person says that they are too busy (or other reasons not to meet), don’t assume that you’re being put off; assume that is true and offer to call back in two months, or whatever is appropriate. Offer to meet in their place of work. Unless you want to study the food-service business, don’t do lunch.

4.         Arrive for the meeting a few moments early and carefully observe how the workplace is run. Feel free to talk to the secretaries or other employees about working there.

During the interview ask if you may take notes, and do it. Most people will appreciate that you’re that interested. This will help you to focus on their business. If the person wants to know something that isn’t at your fingertips, you may agree to follow-up.

Speak glowingly about your project; just don’t let it dominate the conversation. Decide in advance what’s confidential and what isn’t. Be sure to achieve all three objectives.

5.         Within twelve hours of the interview, write up your notes in your contact manager. Comment on your impressions of the person, the workplace and their business. You’ll find these observations of yours will be invaluable as your database grows. Set up new records for each referral.

6.         Call the referrals and set up appointments. If there’s any follow-up promised, do it in a timely manner.

7.         Quickly review your database at least once a month so that you’re familiar with the people you’ve met, even though it may be some time since the interview. Update it when additional contacts with these people occur. Find reasons to call your people with tidbits of information; it keeps your network current without taking much time.

8.         Keep expanding your network. If you stop the process, your network quickly loses it vitality. Don’t let this activity dominate your life. Limit it to two or three interviews per week.

Why Networking is so Important

At this point, I can almost hear you saying, what’s the point of all of this? Where are the quantifiable returns on my time? To understand why this works for you, you need to know a fascinating fact about the way our society operates. The phrase, “six degrees of separation” has crept into the language. The concept is based on research demonstrating that, in the United States, no one is more than five acquaintances away from knowing anyone else. (“Six” is supposed to refer to the whole world.)

You may live in a city of a few million people and feel lost in the crowd. You are not. You’re probably only three or four referrals from knowing everyone. My point is not that you have to meet everyone, but that the community of people, whom you want to reach, need to be talking about you. This you accomplish by quietly and persistently building your network.

Following your interview—assuming that you made a decent impression—in conversations you cannot imagine, you’ll be discussed. It’s here that opportunities for you and your project can develop. Because you’re now aware of this process, you’ll sense the significance of your response when someone casually asks you if you know about so-and-so and his project. Word-of-mouth information travels far and quickly; and it can have real impact.

If you want to see this in action, observe the people you know who seem to be the luckiest. These are the people who repeatedly seem to land the great jobs and always find extraordinary members for their team. Almost invariably you’ll find that such people have developed a powerful network of enthusiastic friends. Many of these people network passionately and naturally. There’s no reason that those of us who aren’t driven to network cannot learn how, and reap the benefits. And you’ll hear the losers grumble, “It’s not what you know...”

Be Alert to Consequences

If you accept this argument, then you must accept some other consequences. Since you now see that your community is really tiny and your actions can have a great influence, it means that if you gripe about your project to people you think have absolutely no connection with your work, you are negatively prejudicing all of your professional opportunities. Keep in mind that you and your team are not working on your project just for the sake of a pay check; you’re doing it to build a better world. As the leader, you have to be clear about that vision, and to know that you radiate the value of your project in all of your social actions. You have no idea when the spread of your vision will net an opportunity.

The database itself will become a direct benefit of this process. (I’ve had people offer to pay for a copy of mine. Of course it’s not for sale.) Some years ago, an instructor of travel agents gave me a sarcastic gem; but I didn’t fully understand it at the time. When a travel agent screws up, some traveler is usually quite miserable. She said, “Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to know who to call to fix it.” After your database has grown, you will be amazed how often you’ll refer to it to contact someone who can provide exactly the help that you need.

For instance, when you require new staff or a consultant, you can advertise or publish a request for proposals. This is a tedious process and the results are often disappointing. You know that the best people are busy and won’t bother to jump through such hoops. If your network is working, you can quickly discover who can solve your problem. You’ll probably have a trusted mutual acquaintance who will speak well of you when you decide to make your proposition. Even if your file doesn’t have the person you’re seeking, you know who to call to spread the word.

The real power of this is that the community will start to work for you. People will call you with opportunities you didn’t know existed. Because you’re participating in conversations with new people all of the time, you’re causing your situation to be discussed “behind your back.” The more you’re talking, the more situations will arise where they’ll be discussing you. Some of these will result in friends or strangers calling you with offers of mutual benefit. It won’t take too many “out of the blue” calls to convince you that networking is worth all of the time you put into it.

Let me assume that you have accepted all of this; won’t it seem as if your real motive is to seek a better position for yourself? It’s my conviction that the whole community benefits from this form of interaction. Yes, eventually it will result in job offers to you, and probably to members of your staff too. That’s to be expected because you’ve been telling everyone about your great team and your terrific project. The process works both ways, and wonderful people will be seeking the opportunity to sign on. Someone with great new skills will want your job when you’re ready to move on. Encourage your employees to develop their networks too; you and your project will be among the beneficiaries.