The Connect Effect

Mike Dulworth: Well we were looking for a title that, kind of, embodied the outcome of networking, so The Connect Effect is really just the embodiment of this principle of outcomes related to networking and that if you were a good networker or had a good network, that the effect or the outcome of that, would be something very, very positive. And in some instances it's actually, sort of, very unforeseen. It's, things just happen because of your good network, that you weren't really planning for or you didn't really intend to happen per se, it was just that occurrence that got created because you had a really good network in place.

Rachel Salaman: So why is it important to build strong networks?

Mike Dulworth: Well I think when most people think about networking, they think about it as it relates to their job or their career. First of all, people think about finding a job through networking, trying to tap into your network to identify people in organizations that you may wish to work for, and trying to connect with them about a potential job. So I think that's where most people probably start. We all, over our career one way or another, we all lose a job probably. We get downsized, right sized, outsourced, all those kinds of things. And then obviously having a good network in place is really important to finding a new job. But I also think beyond the job or a career that having a good network can really be thought of as a support infrastructure for you as an individual. Not just related to your career or your job, but your whole self, your own health and wellbeing. It's almost like an extended family, why certain cultures historically, and even today, have very large family infrastructures because they're very supportive, in very many ways. Having a strong network, I think, is very much or can be very much the same. It can be very – help you psychologically to know that you have this large group of individuals who care about you, and want to help you, and will help you. That structure being in place is really good for you emotionally.

Rachel Salaman: And yet a lot of people, as I mentioned in the introduction, do have a negative view of networking, largely because they find it difficult. What can they do about that?

Mike Dulworth: Well, I think there's a couple of things there, to answer that question. The first is that, I think some people have a negative view of networking because they think it's all about getting. "I'm only networking with you because I want something from you." And what I talk about in the book, and what my – I did about 35 interviews for the book, but all of my interviewees really stressed and really talk about is that networking is actually much more about giving. So I had this quote that I like, "Give first, give often." And if you follow that, if you think about that in the context of networking, you meet somebody, they may be somebody that you want to get to know, and, sort of, in a sense, leverage in the future. But if you give first, if you give them something of value first then, then in a sense they, I mean, I don't mean it in a negative sense, they will feel like they owe you something in return, or it's a way to just facilitate the network. So then to answer your question more specifically, the thing that I talk about in the book to do first is to map your network. And the way I mapped my network in the book is actually went all the way back to my childhood, when I was born. And the first two people in my network were my parents, and then my sisters, and then my cousins, and aunts and uncles, and all of those types of things. And I mapped my network from the time I was born, through today, not everybody of course, that I've met throughout my 45 years of life. But a lot of the people that I, kind of, remembered and that were important to me and that are still important to me throughout my life. And I think that really tells you a great deal about your network and how diverse it is, where you've had gaps in your network, where you may have strengths and weaknesses in your network, it will just tell you a lot of things.

And then, so from that point of really understanding your network, you can start thinking about how to improve it, how to make it stronger, how to make it more diverse. And then do things, sort of, I talk about doing things consciously, every day, think about how you're going to improve your network and do those things. Start small, do one thing every day or one thing every week. Start reconnecting with some of your old contacts that you identified in this mapping process, that you may have lost touch with, but that were important to you at that time of your life, and still maybe important to you today, but you've just lost touch with them, all of those kinds of things. And of course, the web is such a wonderful way to reconnect with people because one, it's pretty easy to find people that you've lost touch with, which in the past, it didn't used to be that way. But now you can Google them, or you can search for them, you can go and do personal directories of various types. You could go to a place like LinkedIn and try to find people. I mean, there's these enormous, sort of, databases if you will, of maybe not everybody in the world is in them, but a lot of people are, and you can track people down.

Rachel Salaman: So I suppose the idea is that everyone already has a network, they might not necessarily be aware of it, and by doing a mapping process, they can really put their finger on how large it is, who's in it, and then how they can develop it?

Mike Dulworth: Yeah, exactly, and I think that most people's networks are actually a lot better than they think and this mapping process, sort of, helps identify that for them. The other thing that I suggest people do, which is, kind of, a fun thing, is once you've mapped your network to play what I call the, "One degree of separation game," and we all hear about six degrees of separation, and how we're connected to everybody in the world by six degrees of separation. I actually don't, in this context I don't find that concept very useful because I think six degrees of separation is way too distant in a sense; it doesn't help you from a networking perspective. But one degree of separation really does help you a great deal, so if you just take your network, and then you were to say, "Well, who does John know?" And that's one degree of separation and it's just very interesting, I think, to think about that. And John may know the CEO of this company, and so that's one degree of separation between you and that CEO of that company, or this person that you would like to meet. And then you can really, kind of, see the power of your network, and then the question is, "Will John refer you to that person?" Do you have a strong enough relationship with John that John is inclined to refer you to that person because what he's giving up by doing that is he's giving up some social capital. He's making that referral to that CEO and in a sense he's giving up some social capital in the process of doing that. So he's going to want to know that you are going to connect with that person in a positive way, that there's some maybe reciprocity between what you're going to be connecting to that person about. Those types of things will come into John's mind, as he thinks about making that referral.

Rachel Salaman: Well talking about referrals, do you have any tips for people because it is a sensitive area? What happens if you refer someone and it doesn't work out? Are there any rules to follow?

Mike Dulworth: Well, yeah, actually there's quite a lot of information in the book about that, mostly from the interviews that I did, where people said things like, "Get to the point. Make – if you interact with me or you initiate an interaction with me, tell me what you want, sort of, get to the point quickly. We don't have a relationship yet, so I'm not interested in, sort of, shooting the breeze with you and things. I'm interested in you telling me what you want and why you want it, and see if I can help you in that regard." And I think at the end of the day, if you're referred, most people will be open to helping you because of that referral. That's part of the social capital between the CEO and John, that you're trying to leverage or tap into, but they really want you to get to the point and be efficient about that process. The other thing that people really mentioned a great deal is to be yourself and to be genuine, and polite, and send a personally written, handwritten thank you letter. Those types of things, kind of, the old school if you will, around networking and relationships, I think really go a long way.

Rachel Salaman: A lot of networking, as you've mentioned, is about keeping in touch and keeping your contacts active. How do you know you're not annoying people if you give them a chirpy keeping in touch email or phone call?

Mike Dulworth: Well I think you have to know the people to begin with, and then you can, kind of, structure your interaction with them in the way that you think is most effective based upon their needs or their personality. So if it's somebody who isn't very email oriented, obviously that's not going to be the way to communicate with them. There may be somebody that you want to have lunch with or have a drink with, or dinner or something like that. I mean, I do think that the web and email and social networking environments like MySpace and Facebook, they really are wonderful environments for staying connected with a large, large group of people within your network. And some of it is push if you will, like if you send out an email to 20 people with something attached to it, that's, kind of, a push to people. And there's other, like the social networking sites where people would come in to your site to learn about what's going on in your life and in a sense, connect with you. So that's what I would describe as a pull; you're not pushing something out to them, they're coming in to your environment to find out, or your blog or that type of thing. So I think there's all kinds of ways to stay in touch with people, but you have to, sort of, figure out what the best approach is. But I do think, I, kind of, say a couple of things in the book about virtual networking. And one is I think that, sort of, mass cc'd or bcc'd emails are not an approach, that the better approach is to do personal emails to one email address, address it "Dear John," personalize it and not make it seem like, "Oh I'm just one of 200 people that Mike is sending an email to, aren't I special?" If I sent you an email that was personally to you, you would respond in a different way.

Rachel Salaman: You mentioned websites like MySpace and Facebook, a lot of people see them as just another form of entertainment. Do you have any examples of concrete benefits that people have got from sites like these?

Mike Dulworth: Oh sure. I mean, I think that they are a way for people to stay connected with each other; it's just a different way of staying connected with each other. I mean, the concrete examples are things like people writing a blog: they're nobody, they have no brand; they have no reputation. They write a blog within an environment like that and hundreds of thousands of people, over time, start coming to it and they get to be incredibly well known, and actually even powerful in their industry or in the area that they're talking about. Politics in the United States, for example, obviously right now is on everybody's mind, and the Presidential election. There are bloggers that exist that, sort of, came out of nowhere through those kind of environments, that are now on CNN. I mean, they're being interviewed on CNN and those kinds of more traditional media outlets. So, I mean, I think there's all kinds of benefits that can be derived from interacting in those environments. I mean, people, sort of, migrate to some of the negative things, and there certainly are some negative things that get done or get accessed through some of those environments. But by and large I think they're very, very positive.

Rachel Salaman: Now you talked a bit earlier, you used an example of a CEO who was helping someone in his network. Why would you want to network if you were already CEO, wouldn't you want to stop people accessing you rather than invite new contacts?

Mike Dulworth: Well, no, because I think that the metaphor maybe to use is, do you ever want to quit learning? Just because you're the CEO, doesn't mean you know everything, and doesn't mean you need to stop learning. I think that same idea relates to networking and creating and maintaining a vibrant network is things change and the world changes, and if you don't have a broad, diverse network, you may overlook something, you may miss out on some change in the marketplace or something that's incredibly important for your company. I mean, just – I mean, a good example would be Microsoft, I think, in how they, kind of, missed the internet to begin with, and Netscape, kind of, came out of nowhere and created the browser. And Microsoft didn't really understand the power of the internet and they were very late to the game around the web, and it's really hurt them a great deal, I think, over time. I'm not sure that they've ever really gotten over that initial mistake that they had, and they were so focused on the PC, that they missed to the web. And now they're trying to buy Yahoo because over the last 20 years they've not been able to really compete in the web space. And if, I don't know this, but if Bill Gates would have been, had a broader network and been more tapped into that technology, would that have made a big difference to him, at those critical junctures when they were making decisions that had ramifications ten years and 20 years out? I mean, I can, kind of, conjecture that it would have made a big difference, so I think that's the thing you have to be concerned about.

Rachel Salaman: Now in your book you identify several types of sub networks within people's overall network. We've already talked a little bit about virtual networks. Let's talk about some of the other ones. Can you tell us about peer to peer networks?

Mike Dulworth: Yeah, these are very special, I think, types of networks where it's actually what my company does as a business. We form and facilitate and manage peer network of human resource professionals. So if you're the Head of Human Resources in a very large company, in my example, we connect those people together. So if you're the Chief Human Resource Officer, you're the number one HR Executive in Unilever and Credit Suisse and Wal-Mart and Time Warner, and those kinds of companies, we form a network of those individuals, so they have, in a sense, the exact same job in very large, very complex organizations, and they come together as a network to benchmark and to share best practices, and to help each other solve critical problems. And really to also just be there as a support resource because as you attain those positions it gets to be somewhat lonely in a sense, who do you talk to? You're supposed to be the expert, you're supposed to be the go to person, you're supposed to be the boss, and who do you talk to about certain things? And so these peer networks are a way to really dig deep into a domain area like Human Resources or Human Capital Management, and to network with people that really understand your issues, and are facing the same things, sort of, on a day to day basis that you are. The real important word there is "peer" from a job standpoint or a position standpoint.

Rachel Salaman: The next type that you go into in your book is organizational networks, which is networks within organizations. How useful are these?

Mike Dulworth: Well, there's a couple of different types of networks in organizations. There's formal and informal, for example. There are domain networks, so geologists within Chevron could be in a network and that is, in a sense, like an internal peer network if you will, but it may not even be peers. It might be all geologists from whatever level they are within the company, all in a domain network where they're really talking about the content of being a geologist, the ideas around that, the concepts around that. So I think those are types of networks that exist within companies.

There are, sort of, affinity groups; you could have your women's executive network within a company and that type of thing, or your African American network within a company, or your gay network within your company. There's all kinds of different networks, both formal and informal, and I just make the point in the book that if you're working in a bigger organization typically, that you just need to know that networks exist, these formal and informal networks exist, and understand their place within the organization. Some of them can be very, very powerful types of networks; they can have a lot of influence. Somebody's informal network can be more powerful than, kind of, the formal organization chart or the organization structure. So you need to, kind of, understand who knows who, who's a node in a network where information flows, because they tend to be very powerful people within an organization; they're in a sense, gatekeepers around information flow. And they may not have the title, they may not have the job per se of Manager or Director or that kind of thing, but they could be very, very powerful people within organizations. So I just make the point that you should look to uncover those types of networks within an organization, and understand your place in them or where you may want to join or you may want to try to become a part of those networks, or build your own type of network within an organization.

Rachel Salaman: What about the type of network you call, "Communities of Practice?" How do these networks differ from the others we've talked about?

Mike Dulworth: Yeah, I mean, in some respect a Community of Practice embodies all of them. It's a very large, sort of, intellectual concept that was put forth by a Researcher by the name of Etienne Wenger. And his, if anybody's interested, his website is www.Ewenger.com, and he's the, kind of, world leading authority on Communities of Practice so these ideas. And he would say everything we've really talked about are Communities of Practice, and, sort of, sub types if you will, under a broader umbrella of Communities of Practice. But when I think of, when I think about Communities of Practice, is I think about domain-specific networks. For example, it might be people that are interested in mountain biking, so they have this domain interest in mountain biking, and then they come together to share information and to talk about mountain biking. So there are those types of networks that, you could be a 12 year old and you could be a 65 year old, integrated into the mountain biking network, talking about different issues and different things that are of interest to people who are into that sport. So that's, kind of, my thinking at least, around what a Community of Practice is.

Rachel Salaman: Your book focuses on some key tools and concepts that people can use, once they've decided they want to nurture their network. One is the Networking Quotient, what's this?

Mike Dulworth: Well, it's the same as your IQ, Intelligence Quotient. EQ, which people think of as your Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence Quotient, NQ is your Networking Quotient, and the idea behind it was that by measuring your Networking Quotient, and there's actually a survey questionnaire in the book, that will get you a measure of your Networking Quotient, that you can, sort of, like you have an IQ of 120, you could have a NQ score that would tell you how good of a networker you are, and how good of a network you have. There's really two separate but integrated components to what makes up your NQ. So I just think it's a, sort of, stake in the ground that you can create through this survey, which can then, over time you could retake the survey and see if you've actually made any improvements in your NQ. The thing that I talk about too in the book is I have a formula that I created what I – it's a success formula and it's IQ, plus EQ, plus NQ equals success. So IQ is your cognitive ability to learn or to create, absorb knowledge, I mean, understand things. Your EQ is your Emotional Intelligence, how mature are you? How able are you to deal with different things and respond to them in a positive way emotionally? And then your NQ is your Networking Quotient. I think if fundamentally, you have a decent IQ and you have a strong EQ, and you are a good networker, and have a good network, that you are – you have a very high probability of being successful in whatever you're trying to accomplish in your life, not just work success or job success, or career success, but in total life success.

Rachel Salaman: Another really interesting concept is the personal Board of Directors, and you go into that in quite a bit of detail in the book, can you explain how that fits into networking?

Mike Dulworth: Yeah, like if you were to map your network as I talk about, you probably would identify some very, very key people that have really, sort of, been there for you throughout your life, and throughout your career. And you may, what I say is, you may want to, sort of, formalize a small group of people who become your personal Board of Directors. And this is, sort of, just like an organization of a Board of Directors. It's six to eight people who really care about you, are very responsive to you, are willing to help you. And they know that, you actually tell them that, you invite them to be on your Board, your personal Board, and then as things come up into your life, you tap into your Board, and you ask them for advice and guidance, and assistance, and help. And they're there for you in that regard, so, and you might have one of your parents on your Board, you might have a sibling, you might have your best friend, people from your life in that way. But you might also have your Pastor, you might also have an ex-boss, who was really a mentor, you might have your wife. I mean, it can be anybody who really cares about you, and who you really respect, and who you really listen to. And I think if you formalize it into this, kind of, Board of Directors, it becomes a more powerful force in your life, than it being, sort of, an ad hoc group of people that don't know that they're thought of that way by you, because you've not told them. And you don't really tap into them as a collective group of people seeking diverse advice and guidance around things that come up in your life. So I just think it can be this incredible form of, sort of, positive effect on your overall life.

Rachel Salaman: But presumably, without regular Board meetings?

Mike Dulworth: Well, it's interesting that you say that. I mean, maybe, maybe not. I mean, you might have a teleconference with these people every six months, put together a conference call. I don't know, I mean, it, how it, the form that it takes, is really up to the individual, but I actually could see that. You could have a meeting of these people every six months and you could come to the table with, "Here's some things that are going on in my life, let's have a conversation about it."

Rachel Salaman: Well finally, do you have three top tips for people who want to kick their networking skills up a notch? What are three things they could do tomorrow to get started?

Mike Dulworth: The first, I think, would be to tap into your existing network. So start by mapping that network and really identifying what are the gaps in your network, where do you have strengths, really, kind of, get a picture and understand your network by mapping it. The second thing, I think, would be to be conscious of your network and networking. And what I mean by that is, almost like put a sticky note somewhere where you see it every day and just write, "Networking," on it, or something that will prompt you to, kind of, get it into your mind every day, that no matter what you're doing, you're doing a lot of networking. Whether you, kind of, recognize it as networking or not, is the question, but it is. I mean, you're talking to people on the phone and you're meeting friends for lunch, or corresponding with people in lots of different ways, which at the end of the day, is networking. So just make it more conscious, and what I would say too about that, is to have a goal in mind. "I want to connect with a new person that I think would be a great new member of my network." Every week or every month, whatever's comfortable for you, and just go out and try to make that happen, whether you're an extrovert and you want to go to some meetings, and meet some new people that way, or you're an introvert and you want to connect with some people online first and, kind of, get to know them online. And then potentially meet face to face after you've gotten to know them. I mean, you have to, kind of, follow what works for you as an individual. And then really I think the final thing that I would say is to really form this personal Board of Directors, because I think it can be an incredibly powerful, sort of, life changing group that can help you in so many ways with your life.

Rachel Salaman: Mike Dulworth, thank you very much for joining me today.

Mike Dulworth: Oh thank you inviting me Rachel, I really enjoyed it.

Rachel Salaman: You can find out more about Mike and his book, The Connect Effect, here. I'll be back next month with another Expert Interview, until then, goodbye.