How Are You At Networking With Others?*

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One of the key conversations in my coaching work around finding a new position or career is about networking. How well does my client network with others? Networking is not what you know, it’s who you know. Who you know is key to creating a better future.

“The key to networking is to stop networking. Nobody wants to have a ‘networking conversation.’ They are hungry for real conversations and real relationships. It just has to be authentic, genuine, and sincere.” 

                                                                          – Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

What networkers don’t tell you, is that networking is like your smartphone – a source of distractions! You have to know what to avoid and focus on what is truly essential.

Your overall goal in networking is to be significant to those you meet. What value do you bring to the conversation? What is the value of knowing you? Your title, your status, and your success are about you, do nothing for those you meet.

Here are seven fundamental rules for effective networking.

First rule – is dress so as not to draw attention to your appearance, but to the conversation, you wish to have with others. This also means fresh breath, a warm smile, eye contact, and a good handshake!

Second rule – when you enter the gathering space, don’t wait to be found, go find! This may be a challenge for some introverts!

Third rule – have a crisp, professionally printed business card on high-quality thick card stock with your key contact information and some tagline that summarizes your purpose and hints at the value you may bring to your card’s recipient. Your business card is your one-of-a-kind miniature billboard. It helps create that positive first impression. It needs to be simple, clean, and easy to read. If you can’t get this info on one side of a business card, get help! There is lots of white space for my contact to jot down information.

Fourth rule – have plenty of business cards ready to hand out at all times. I always have cards in the chest pocket of my sport coat or suit. Extra business cards are in my business card case in my sport coat pocket as well as my billfold and briefcase…even more in the glove compartment of my car! Be prepared.

Fifth rule – If you have a drink, keep the drink in your left hand so your right hand is ready to shake hands (as well as not cold and wet!) Networking is not about telling, it’s all about asking and truly listening with good follow-up questions. This is at the heart of a real conversation and the beginning of a relationship. It is about being interested rather than interesting. People you come in contact with don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Great networkers ask great questions. The questions can be more important than the answers!

If someone shares something, refrain from telling your story on top of theirs. AND make sure you don’t try to one-up or compete with their story! Be secure in yourself. Ask another question about what they have just shared. And by all means, make sure your body language is in sync with your questions! There is nothing worse than asking a question as your eyes stray across the room!

A few of my favorite networking questions are:
– What has surprised or intrigued you about this gathering? Followed up with, That’s interesting! Tell me more!
– What are you expecting from being at this gathering? (This may be an opportunity to help make this happen!) Followed up with, That’s interesting! Tell me more!
– Who would you like to connect with here at this gathering? (You may be their connection and can help them out!) Followed up with, That’s interesting! Tell me more!
– What are you looking forward to doing or seeing? (Another opportunity for you to help make this happen!) Followed up with, That’s interesting! Tell me more!
– What has your interest and attention been on the Internet or what you are reading? Followed up with, ‘That’s interesting! Tell me more!’

Notice that none of these questions are:                                                                                                                                                                     – What do you do for a living?
– How long have you been at __________?
– How long have you lived in __________?
– Do you know _________? He/she works in HR at your company.
– “I’m looking to ______________. Who do you know that I should be talking to?”

If the “What do you do for a living?” question pops out of your mouth (after all, we are creatures of habit!) follow it up with, “Wow, that sounds interesting!” or “Wow, that sounds hard!” or “Wow, that sounds amazing!” or Wow, that sounds awesome!” or “Wow, that sounds edgy!” This response shows you are interested and can get the person to share more.

Sixth rule – ask for a business card. Jot down the date and keywords about this connection.

Seventh rule – follow up with those you meet at the gathering, immediately. I recommend a handwritten, snail mail note with your business card telling the person you’d like to continue the conversation over coffee or tea. Then follow up with a phone call or email to make an appointment roughly 4 to 5 business days later.

Are there other networking behaviors you would add and recommend?

* This is an updated blog I posted in June 2015.

How Do You Define Being ‘Woke’?

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USA Today/Ipsos released a poll recently offering two definitions of “woke.” In the poll 56% chose the definition of “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices and 39% picked “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” The first definition is correct. The term originated in the Black community as a reference to social injustice. 

The City of Asheville and Buncombe County, NC are working on becoming “woke,” by having formed a reparations commission to explore reparations in five key areas that impact POC (people of color) and their history including:

– health – average white male will live 5 years longer than a POC male; POC infant mortality is 2.5X greater than white

– education – only 57% of POC students have access to a full range of math and science courses necessary for college readiness

– justice – while POC makes up about 13% of our population, POC dominate our jails and prisons

– housing –  POC post a homeownership rate of 46% compared to 76% of white families

– economic – an average white family is 10X wealthier than the average POC family

There are very few communities in America doing this extensive work and study on reparations. Recommend reading From Here to Equality.

This conversation and study on reparations begins with learning and understanding the history of POC in this country and in this community. Knowing the history will help you to understand the inequalities listed above in the five areas of the reparation study. 

One of the first things an oppressor does is remove the history of its victims. I know I can trace my family history back to Scotland and Ireland for over 400 years. Most POC are lucky if they can go back 150 years.

Confederate monuments are a part of this history. If you have the courage, have a conversation with POC about Jim Crow-era monuments and their impact on them. To do a deeper dive, consider joining Building Bridges, attending an REI retreat, and/or becoming a part of CTTT.

The Vance Monument and three other monuments here in Asheville were a part of over 1,700 Confederate monuments erected during the Jim Crow era. Those monuments as well as 10 military bases, numerous streets, buildings, and schools were named after Confederates.

Those monuments are part of the caste system enacted in this country to control, dominate, and oppress POC. There have been three caste systems enacted in the world – India, the United States, and Nazi Germany. The German Nazis learned how to enact their caste system back in the 30s from the United States. They sent people from Germany to study Jim Crow tactics, and the United States sent people to Nazi Germany to help them control the Jews, gays, gypsies, and other ‘deplorables’. If you want to be “woke” to this, recommend reading Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. This was the non-fiction book of the year in 2020. Recently, Krista Tippett interviewed Wilkerson on this topic.

Robert E. Lee was a traitor to his commission and the oath he took to serve in the U.S. Army. More U.S. Army soldiers died under Lee than any other enemy our armed forces have ever faced in American history. Why do we honor Lee, Vance, and so many others for their traitorous actions? Does Germany have monuments to Hitler and other Nazi leaders? Again, if you want to be “woke” to this history, suggest reading U.S. Army General (retired) Ty Siedule’s Robert E. Lee and Me. Here is a link to Ty Seidule being interviewed on CBS about his book.

Beginning with cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, and the building of railroads, where are the monuments to POC on whose backs this country’s wealth was built? The Asheville community owes its growth to the enslaved building the railroads that led to Asheville back in the 1800s. Where is the monument to their work?

I haven’t covered what our forefathers did to the indigenous people of this country, the Japanese-Americans during WWII, or any other group of people who do not look white. That’s another topic!

Where are you now with being ‘woke’?

How Old Would You Be If You Didn’t Know How Old You Are?

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This is one of my favorite questions to ask others. The responses are interesting. Then there is the follow-up question, “Why would you be that age?”

“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time.” – Milan Kundera, Immortality

Traded navy blue blazer, oxford button-down shirt, tie, pleated cuffed trousers, Cole Hahn loafers, and briefcase for this!

While I am completely at peace with my current age and enjoy it, if pressed, I would respond, “47.”

At 47, I began climbing my second mountain. I began living my eulogy rather than my resume. I left the corporate world and took a position with Camp Joy in organizational and leadership development. I got out of my comfort zones. I was finally living my purpose full time, “Helping individuals and groups to learn to “seize the day” leading to reduced ignorance and suffering and to enhance living.”  This was the foundation of creating nurturing, inclusive communities. Relationships became more important. Family reunions were a joy. Being a part of a men’s small group that discussed issues other than work, politics, sports, and the weather helped me deal with my blind spots. I learned to be vulnerable and realized I was not the only one who experienced pain.

At 47, my marriage was in its 20th year and continuing to evolve in love, with one child in their teens and another not too far from becoming a teenager. My health was the best it had ever been, with great physicals and regular exercise. I was up on high rope courses, regularly facilitating groups from Procter and Gamble, Fifth Third Bank, and Cincinnati Childrens Hospital and Medical Center, to name a few.

I studied leadership in detail and read life-changing books like The Leadership Challenge, Fish Philosophy, and Tuesdays with Morrie.

There were life-changing and enduring relationships with adjuncts Lynn Watts, Scott Steel, Sarah Brown, Otis Williams, and Steve Coats. They continue to make a difference in my life today.

I traded meeting rooms for outdoor firepits.

I was no longer surprised to hear participants tell me they learned more about themselves and their cohorts in 2 days than they had in the past 5 years!

Many times I ended workshops and programs at Camp Joy by reading this passage from Michael Eisner’s Camp:

“Camp is one of America’s ultimate communal dwellings, a shared experience, and an anchor of stories that campers young and old exchange far from our camps, long after we’ve spent our last night in a tent or cabin. Camp is a laboratory of safe danger, and the science practiced in this lab will never be outdated. It’s God and humans teaming up to provide nature’s ultimate playground, where survival in the woods becomes an exercise in training for life’s real-world, man-made challenges; where young people (and old people) can develop their physical and natural skills while also maturing and growing socially.”

At 47, I began being a better version of myself. As you reflect on your version of How Old Would You Be If You Didn’t Know How Old You Are? when did you start becoming a better version of yourself?

 

Are Books Dumb?

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Whenever I facilitate a retreat, a workshop, or a program, I take along books that are relevant to the topic(s) and put them on a table in the room.

I would refer to key New York Times best-seller books, asking if participants were familiar with such an author or book. Much of the time, I’d get deer-in-the-headlight looks. I stopped asking.

I came across this piece by Thomas Chatterton Williams in the Atlantic. It speaks to what I have experienced. It is why I challenge people about opinions. Tell me the basis of your opinion and its foundation. 

“We have never before had access to so many perspectives, ideas, and information. Much of it is fleetingly interesting but ultimately inconsequential—not to be confused with expertise, let alone wisdom. This much is widely understood and discussed. The ease with which we can know things and communicate them to one another, as well as launder success in one realm into pseudo-authority in countless others, has combined with a traditional American tendency toward anti-intellectualism and celebrity worship. Toss in a decades-long decline in the humanities, and we get our superficial culture in which even the elite will openly disparage as pointless our main repositories for the very best that has been thought.”

I grew up in a home of readers. There was always a book or two on my father’s nightstand as he read every night. One of my mother’s favorite ways to relax was to pour a cup of coffee, light up a cigarette and read a book. (She quit smoking in 1969.) We went to the library a couple of times a month. Today, part of my lifestyle is to read a book for one hour per day…and I still have time for 4+ hours of screen time on my iPhone, computer, and TV as well as to eat, exercise, complete “to-dos,” and work.

“I submit that we’d save ourselves an enormous amount of trouble in the future if we’d agree to a simple litmus test: Immediately disregard anyone in the business of selling a vision who proudly proclaims they hate reading.

Agreed.

Consider reading Annie Dukes, Quit: The Power of Knowing When To Walk Away. Dukes, a former professional poker player, learned the secret to winning at poker was knowing when to quit. It turns out, it takes grit to quit! As a rule, most of us are terrible quitters! Dukes helps the reader to learn to quit in order to be successful in life.

I will be facilitating a book discussion on Quit this spring. If you want to learn more and sign up, email me at carrpe.diem@gmail.com