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Networking: Connecting the Dots, Building Matrices

All of us decided to attend this conference because we know that we don’t know everything. We know some things, and we have skills, expertise, or experience in some areas that we share with one another. But what we don’t know also brought us here to learn from each other. I’m here to talk about Networking, or Working Our Net. Not the Internet, which certainly overflows with more information than we ever may want or need. But Our Net, of colleagues and contacts, even family and friends—people we know well and others whom we will choose to get to know if we want to be in the know and develop professionally and personally. That’s what brings us out of our cubbyhole offices, our Dilbert cubicles, our laboratories, and classrooms. For although the Net can help us to connect with the world outside our professional realms, the personal, face-to-face connections we make are vital to charge and recharge our batteries, to stimulate us intellectually.

Here are some questions to assess your feelings about networking:

• Do you equate networking with the "old boys’ club"?
  
• Do you think that networking is just "schmoozing" or, worse, that it’s selfish, a what-can-you-do-forme process?
  
• Do you think it’s a term for the bragging, or flexing the oral muscle, that men typically do when they meet?
  

Wayne Baker, a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, debunks some myths about networking:

• Myth: Tough-minded business people don’t consider networking and relationship building to be important because the impact of these "soft skills" can’t be scientifically proven. Fact: Dozens of scientific studies show that those who network well are more effective, better paid, promoted fast, healthier, happier, even live longer! And, according to one study, 75 percent of us get our jobs this way.
  
• Myth: Professional success depends primarily on technical skills, training, and abilities. Fact: Successful leaders are the best relationship builders. Furthermore, as we advance in our careers, relationship-building becomes a larger, more significant part of our responsibilities.
  
• Myth: Rugged individuals win. Fact: We are all connected, and the more vibrant our networks, the more empowered we are.¹
  

Networking represents our richest resource, what Baker terms "social capital." If our network is well built and well developed, we can derive information, ideas, leads, opportunities, financial capital, power, emotional support, goodwill, trust, and cooperation. The Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women strongly promotes this: the program involves three week-long sessions; its participants work in small Learning Community groups to develop bonds that will connect them long after the program ends; a number of intersession assignments require fellows to reach well beyond their work unit to meet others at their institutions and learn about broader functions at the school and university levels; and the ELAM Forum on Emerging Issues, which closes each program year, brings together fellows and their deans for a highly interactive session. Some results?

• One ELAM alumna, at Vanderbilt in Nashville, nominated another from her class to be the dean at Meharry Medical College, also in Nashville.
  
• Those fellows, now both in Nashville, nominated another ELAM alumna, from a different class, to become chief of staff at the VA Tennessee Health System.
  
• Several graduates helped to recruit another to become the first woman department chair at their institution.
  
• One alumna, as a result of interviewing the executive leaders at her institution (an ELAM assignment), met someone who then nominated her for a new position, associate senior vice president of the university.
  

Here’s my own story about the value of networking. For more than twenty years, I was a full-time volunteer (chapter chair, regional president, national vice president) of a nonprofit organization. When I decided to seek a paying job, I sought advice from several people I’d met through my volunteer work who knew the level of my responsibilities and performance. One gave me wonderful guidance and offered me not one but two jobs—my choice.

Wayne Baker’s wife, Cheryl Baker, heads the Humax Corporation,² a consulting firm that, among other things, facilitates workshops using a networking concept called the Reciprocity Ring, which builds on Baker’s notion of social capital. It differs from traditional networking because it encourages participants to ask for help without incurring a sense of obligation and to give help without expecting something in return. ELAM will introduce the Reciprocity Ring³ for the first time this fall. Women may be willing and eager to offer help to others, but they typically are averse to asking for help, especially for themselves. We’re using this exercise to demonstrate the power of both giving and receiving help and to further enhance fellows’ networking capabilities. Networlding is another approach, similar to the Reciprocity Ring, described by Giovagnoli and Carter-Miller in their book by the same name.⁴

Several years ago, in Why the Best Man for the Job is a Woman, Esther Wachs Book examined a new paradigm of leadership, based on her study of fourteen women CEOs. These women demonstrated a shift from the traditional masculine, hierarchical paradigm, valuing individual efforts, and indirect, trickle-down communication. Book found that these women shared qualities of a new paradigm of leadership, including

• an obsession with customer service,
  
• using "feminine" traits—empathy, collaboration, and cooperation—to their advantage, and
  
• maximizing high touch in an era of high tech.⁵
  

Women have connected and built personal networks throughout our lives, from play groups to volunteer work. Why not recognize their value in our work life? We use our networking abilities to meet our children’s and family’s needs (think carpools, coop babysitting), but we try to do our jobs solo. Let’s apply our natural strengths to propel us toward achieving professional goals! Relationship building is natural for women; we have an affinity for it. What’s new, according to Deener and Fredericks,⁶ is the notion of applying the skill to professional advancement. Powerful networking, they state, is not based on need but nurturing. Rational and emotional support leads to deeper, long-lasting, and reciprocal relationships.

Deener and Fredericks outline an approach to nurturing they call "Yes I C.A.N.":

• Connect: You with others, others with each other. I do this countless times every day as codirector of ELAM.
  
• Acknowledge: Let people know you notice (their achievements, publications, speeches). One quick and easy way I accomplish this is by sending e-cards through Blue Mountain (www.bluemountain.com).
  
• Nurture: From calling or writing a note to lift spirits to helping to solve a problem. The ELAM program’s network delivers this to its 300-some members.
  

Deener and Fredericks emphasize that we must allow ourselves to ask for and accept nurturing from our network, and when we deny others the opportunity to nurture us, we actually damage the bonds we’ve created. Think about the last time you were in a bind. Did you ask for anyone’s help? Or contact a close colleague to rehearse a difficult conversation? Time and again, I learn after the fact that an ELAM fellow has faced a tough situation, either in her personal or professional life (an expected promotion dissolves or an elderly parent requires extensive, time-consuming care), and in many cases, these women—highly intelligent, highly accomplished—have isolated themselves and deprived themselves of the benefit of others’ nurturing support or practical help. At ELAM, we are working to break that pattern.

So how do you connect the dots and build your own matrices? Here are some suggestions from Deener and Fredericks:

• Attend at least two new events a month (seek appointment to a new committee or join a high-profile community service group) with the goal to meet three new people at each. (Tip 1: When you get someone’s business card, write on the back of the card the date and event and any pertinent details to capture your conversation. Then, file the card after you’ve contacted the person. Tip 2: Don’t sit next to a colleague; get out of your comfort zone!)
  
• Add at least five people/month to your network.
  
• Contact each new person in your network with a Yes I C.A.N. item.
  

Other suggestions come from Misher and Morgan,⁷ who contend that networking is as much hen-party as old-boy. Among their "Keys to Mastery":

• Embrace the Givers Gain philosophy. Think first "What can I do to help?"
  
• Work in a disciplined structure to develop (and renew) contacts, and always remember to follow up.
  
• Plan networking: be purposeful and strategic in meeting key people. Try to learn ahead of time who will be at an event, and know which ones you want to meet.
  
• Have a database of resources to help others. Remember that knowledge is power. Cultivate a reputation for knowing people who can get things done.
  
• Make relationships part of your life. People share knowledge, information, and contacts with those they share relationships with.
  

Glaser and Smalley (who wrote Swim with the Dolphins: How Women Can Succeed in Corporate America on Their Own Terms), in their new book,⁸ conclude: "For many women, networking is all about cultivating relationships, celebrating personal and professional successes, and sharing information in a safe, noncompetitive environment. But strategic networking is also about making contacts, finding new leads, striking deals, and fitting in. And the good news is there’s certainly no rule that says you can’t meet all of those goals simultaneously." Fisher and Vilas, authors of Power Networking,⁹ sum it up this way: "Even if you learn all the skills, say all the right things, and go through all the right motions . . . networking is only truly powerful when genuine human caring exists."

Each of us has valuable personal and professional resources. Sharing them can help others; and by doing so, you will connect with others and allow them to connect with you. Remember, it’s not just what you know, it’s whom you know. And if we have chosen to work as professionals, we must, then, choose to embrace what will help us to succeed as professionals.

	Footnotes

 
Ms. Richman is codirector of the ELAM Program, Drexel University College of Medicine. Direct correspondence to her at ELAM Program, Drexel University College of Medicine, The Gatehouse, 3300 Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19129-1191; 215-842-6909 phone; 215-842-1041 fax; rosalyn.richman{at}drexel.edu.

	REFERENCES

Top References

 

1. Baker WE. Networking smart: how to build relationships for personal and organizational success. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.
2. At: www.humax.net. Accessed: July 29, 2003.
3. At: www.humaxnetworks.com/reciprocityring.pdf. Accessed: July 29, 2003.
4. Giovagnoli M, Carter-Miller J. Networlding: building relationships and opportunities for success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
5. Book EW. Why the best man for the job is a woman: the unique female qualities of leadership. New York: HarperBusiness, 2000.
6. Deener C, Fredericks N. Dancing on the glass ceiling. New York: McGraw-Hill Trade, 2002.
7. Misher I, Morgan D. Masters of networking: building relationships for your pocketbook and soul. Atlanta: Bard Press, 2000.
8. Glaser C, Smalley B. What Queen Esther knew: business strategies from a Biblical sage. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 2003.
9. Fisher D, Vilas S. Power networking: 59 secrets for personal and professional success. 2^nd ed. Atlanta: Bard Press, 2000.

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