Please make sure you read Ibarra’s Ch 3 (Network Across and Out).
Discussion Questions:
- What is your view of networking? Do you do it? Are you good at it?
- What type of networking do you do? Operational, personal, or strategic?
- What are the BCDs of network advantage?
- How dynamic is your network?
- Complete Your Network Audit.
Your Network Audit:
- Think of up to ten people with whom you have discussed important work matters over the past few months (you are not required to come up with ten). You might have sought them out for advice, to bounce ideas off them, to help you evaluate opportunities, or to help you strategize important moves. Don’t worry about who they should be. Only name people to whom you actually turned for this help recently.
- Take a moment to examine the names you listed. List up to three strengths and three challenges of having this set of connections at the core of your network:
- The main strengths of my network as it exists today are …
- The main challenges of my network as it exists today are …
Please calculate your network’s density. As you review your network’s density, do you all know each other? Density represents the percentage of people who know each other in a network. The lower your density score the less inbred your network – which may or may not be a good thing.
What is your opinion of your network’s density? Why?
Next Steps:
- Identify twenty to twenty-five key stakeholders you wish to stay connected to in a meaningful way.
- Assign these contacts into key categories (i.e., most-senior clients, most-senior people, most-senior women).
- For each category, select the three to five people you want to stay connected to.
- Decide how frequently you will reach out to each contact.
- Who can you ask for referrals and introductions?
- What are two things you can do to cultivate a relationship with each of your three to five people you want to stay connected to?
