Networking Part II: what exactly to do?

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

As Jeffrey Pfeffer, the renowned organizational theorist, puts it, our success in the professional world often depends less on the hard skills and actual deliveries and more on the connections we build along the way. Networking isn’t just about exchanging business cards and attending social events; it’s about cultivating meaningful relationships that can shape the trajectory of our careers.

While many sources mention the importance of networking, there is not so much information on what to do exactly. Some – mainly American – articles imply that if you let it happen to you, it will, naturally. At the water cooler, coffee machine or just being friendly to colleagues. In practice, perhaps because I have never worked in the sales department in a country with super-expressive culture, I have always felt that networking does not come naturally and requires some focused effort. It is not just my personal experience: research proves that individual effort and skill building make networking successful, rather than character traits and extroversy.

Inspired by that, as I wrote in the previous post on this site, last year I did a small non-academic survey on how people network in reality. The results are not published anywhere, but can be summed up as follows:

• The majority do not actively network beyond the people they already happen to work with
• The only active networking activity that was commonly mentioned was office parties, outings, and team-building days organized by the employer
• Respondents did not feel that networking is part of their job, although mentioned that they do perceive it as important for career success

What are my suggestions? What can you do without feeling like a fraud or simply an intrusive human being?

1. Find purpose in networking and use your weak ties

Simply talking to random people might indeed seem like a waste of time – for both of you. But what if you actually have a purpose to talk to them? During my studies, I was impressed by my professors Marion Poetz and Reinhard Prügl and their research on pyramiding. The research actually focuses on innovation, but what was most interesting for me, was that seemingly far-fetched weak ties, as long as they had a purpose, could help to produce extremely innovative results.

The way pyramiding works in practice: “You identify people who might have some knowledge of or interest in a given topic area, and you ask them who else might know even more than they do — or who else might know of others with greater knowledge. Then you contact those people and repeat the process until you’ve gotten to the top of that particular topic area, or pyramid, and found individuals with the highest levels of expertise and passion.“

I have tried it myself. Instead of just working with my usual team of experts and finding solutions with them, I have started asking people I was just “weakly” connected with. Some of them were people I just once might have seen in a meeting or read an article about. Many of them did not know me. Did it work? You bet it did. It is an intense, tiring process, but I have met some amazing people I would have never met otherwise.

2. Maintain your contacts and follow up

What do the majority do after meeting a new person? That is right, absolutely nothing. They expect that the other party will come back to them and offer amazing opportunities or interesting activities. In reality, nothing happens.

In order to turn this around, take the responsibility to maintain the relationship on your own shoulders. Follow up by e-mail, LinkedIn message, just by walking by (if you are in the same office), initiate a coffee meeting or shared lunch from time to time (virtual, if physical is not an option). What is the worst that can happen? That is right, you will have somebody to enjoy lunch with. At best, this will help you grow.

3. Commit to learning something new

For those that still do not dare to try out the two above methods, formal training activities are by far the best possibility. Everyone who signs up for training is open to meeting new people and typically these trainings have networking built into them.

Even if you start feeling awkward silence creeping up, there is always a shared topic right at your hand: the one you either have just heard something about or will soon learn. Something already unites you. Besides, you have likely dedicated the needed time and have cleared up the calendar to remove the other stuff. So did the other participants.

The only effort needed from you is to actually come with an open mind and heart. What is the catch? In order for the magic to last beyond the few days the training takes, you need to move to method number two: maintain and follow up.