Posted
on March 6, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
Networking for the bankers in the City of London is a full time job.
It is not going to speed networking events at all!
A Dutch anthropologist is studying bankers in the City of London. He’s interested in their daily activities and routines. When we read his studies we find very interesting pearls about the connections between bankers and how they do their “networking”.
They know the importance of trust in any professional relationship.
They know that trust takes time to be created and nurtured.
They know it is very important to achieve their professional goals.
Read, for instance, this excerpt from a conversation between a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) lawyer and a corporate CEO:
“I want my man at Morgan Stanley on board, the MD of M&A. He’s been useful to me over the last few years and he’s having a bit of a lean patch. Besides, he told me over golf that he’s in trouble with his wife and needs some positivity. He’ll drive their price down through the ground.”
Would you get such valuable information if there was no real trust in that professional relationship? No, not at all.
This is why informal shared activities, such as gold in this case, are important.
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Posted
on February 28, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
You are organising a conference and want your attendees to network. What should you do?
You know how to connect with other participants when you attend conferences. You know how to prepare, what to do during the conference and how to follow-up. How do you help your attendees do the same?
This is not an easy question. Conference organisers are asking it to themselves. They agree that just throwing more technology to the event (or more coffee-break time) doesn’t really solve the issue.
You will need to:
- facilitate the “discovery” of people interested in each other,
- design the program appropriately,
- encourage serendipitous encounters,
- remind them all along of some “networking tips”,
- stimulate them to follow-up, and
- do so many more actions!
Connecting is much more than exchanging business cards. Otherwise, there is no point in attending the conference. Just receiving the attendees’ list would do. Connecting is seeding for trust to develop later on. You should help your conference participants to achieve this.
At present, we collaborate with an event in New York to be held in November 2012 and will be doing exactly what I suggest above. Will keep you posted…
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Posted
on February 21, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
Leon Segal (from IDEO) is famous for saying that “innovation begins with an eye”.
However, many innovations begin with TWO sets of eyes!
I’ve posted before on how the diversity in your contacts can help your innovation. Let’s see today one particular example: the start of Media Mouth Inc.
While Corey Wride was in Brazil he noticed that many Brazilians were quite good English speakers. English-learning schools were a thriving business.
One evening, his eye met the eye of Julia Trentini… He realised that she spoke better English than the average Brazilian. To his surprise she had not attended any English-learning school. She had learned it by watching movies!
This is what put Corey in the direction of developing a platform to watch movies in foreign languages where you can slow down the speech, have individual words pronounced or defined and many other features to facilitate language learning. Media Mouth Inc. was about to be born.
Should Corey (one eye) not have met Julia (the other eye), that innovative company would not have seen the light.
Keep your eyes open,
not just to spot innovative ideas,
but also to spot diverse people
through whom you jointly discover innovative ideas!
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Posted
on February 14, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General,
Tools.
You must prepare your self-introduction before you start your job.
During the interview process you will gather information about the corporation and how you will fit in. You can read the recent annual reports and press clippings to prepare for your new job. Such information will allow you to have a self-introduction that is succinct but full of information.
Let me stress the importance of having an initial version of your self-introduction before your very first day at the corporation. You do not want to replicate what happened to me. The fourth day in my new job I caught the lift on the ground floor and was alone in it. On the first floor, one person entered the lift⎯the CEO! I knew his office was on level 31. I should have been able to produce a self-introduction during the thirty-floor run. However, as the floors were going by, I felt more and more naked.
When we reached the 28th floor I started mumbling ‘Hello, I just…’
But then he said in a very straightforward way, ‘Bye, have a great day.’
We had reached the 31st floor. Game over! During the many years I worked at that corporation I never ever again had the opportunity to meet the CEO. I missed my only chance to leave a great impression.
Of course, you need to continuously adapt the self-introduction so that it remains valid. You will adjust it as you learn more about the culture of the corporation and its departments. You will also take into account how different colleagues react to it. You do not want to have a self-introduction that generates too much surprise. You want to dispel any myths or fears generated by the corporation offering you that position.
Remember the adage: ‘Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation.’
Excerpt from the book Connecting Forward.
You can buy the book or take complementary tests.
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Business opportunities can elude you. Get your network on board!
In recent posts you could read my views on how your diverse network can help sparking innovation. The benefits of diversity in your network go even further. It can help you spot business opportunities unseen by others.
This is exactly the topic I’ll be speaking about at the round table within the 4th International Excellence Convention in Madrid (on Wed 8th Feb 2012).
We are all very good at our jobs. However, it’s hard for most of us to look towards other disciplines. By seeing things from different perspectives, we could spot new market needs, new business opportunities.
What can we do if it’s so hard to look into other domains? Diversify our network! When we interact with the network, it will be the diversity that will bring the different points of view to the table. With this interaction you will spot new opportunities.
So, how can we diversify the network?
Several things come to mind:
- Go to conferences outside your domain.
- Volunteer at cross-sector associations.
- Talk to people form different backgrounds.
- Entertain dinners with diverse people.
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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You’re a great innovator but… ideas spread slowly.
Can your network speed it up?
The type of people that compose your network might play a crucial role to the spread of your innovations. I wrote (long time ago!) an article about the speed of new technology introduction and how to model it.
A well-accepted model for technology (or innovation) diffusion by E. Rogers classifies users among 5 types depending on when they adopt new technology:
- innovators;
- early adopters;
- early majority;
- late majority, and
- laggards
The composition of your network will affect the speed of introduction of your new ideas, technologies or innovations. If your network is biased towards having more innovators and early adopters, your ideas will spread faster.
To spread your innovations, get to know more early adopters!
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Posted
on January 24, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
Two very different personalities meet.
Two complementary objectives.
Their meeting sparks innovation.
Tubular Bells is born!
As F. Johansson writes in The Medici Effect: “Oldfield had some strange ideas about music, and Branson wanted to start a record label.” If they had never met, we would not have Tubular Bells…
This might sound like a distant example (at least in time!). However, when I use it in my keynotes about the link between networking and innovation, it resonates with most executives.
After this initial “resonance”, the question that comes along is “How can I put myself in such a situation that sparks innovation?”
One of the answers is: “Maintaining a very diverse professional network”. It is not enough to have diversity in your network. That diversity brings the potential of innovative seeds. However, you need to activate those seeds. This might happen when you maintain your network: you keep in touch with those diverse people.
At some point, in one of those exchanges, you will say something that will prompt the other person to develop that idea. In turn, you develop it further. And just like that, during the conversation something innovative is born!
To best place yourself to see “innovative sparks”:
create a very diverse network of professional contacts.
Maintain it regularly!
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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You will enjoy listening to an excellent interview at VoiceAmerica: Chris Cooper with Andy Lopata and Dr Ivan Misner.
In that interview you can listen to very important aspects of networking. Even if you already know them, it’s great to be reminded by two of the most knowledgeable people on networking topics.
There are sentences about networking in general, like:
- “Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. It’s about cultivating relationships”. (at 10’55” from the beginning of the interview)
- “The real power comes from people that know, like and trust you”. (3’00”)
- Andy gives a great quote from the 19th Century: “Give without remembering, receive without forgetting”. (27’45”)
- Ivan makes a great point: “It’s gotta be more about the relationship than the transaction. Otherwise networking is just face-to-face cold calling”. (37’00”)
Other quotes about what networking is not, for instance:
- “Myth: networking is only about events”. (5’20”)
- “Networking is not about selling per se (…) We network to become better connected”. (7’20”)
And about the biggest errors of networking, such as:
- “Going to networking events to sell”. (9’40”)
- “One of the biggest mistakes is failing to follow-up” and then Andy gives a great example. (15’30”)
Towards the end of the interview (52’45”), Ivan gives his opinion about networking differences across countries: “There are differences but they don’t make a difference. We all want to do business with people we know and trust. And trust transcends cultural differences. (…) There are superficial differences that you need to know.”
This brought to my mind a sentence from Prof. Ibarra (Insead): “I haven’t seen any national culture (in which) things don’t get done through networks.” (See also a recent blog post by Andy on British vs German differences.)
Networking is based on trust and, as I explain in some of my seminars, the parts of the brain that deal with trust are very primitive parts of the brain. They were developed when we were living in caves. Different cultures or countries hadn’t developed yet.
Thus the underlying framework on which trust is based is common to humans. The details about how to hand out a business card are just that: details.
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Posted
on January 10, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
Does exile itself make you more creative?
Or is it the first step towards valuable contacts whom help you develop innovative ideas?
Research by INSEAD and Northwestern University found a link between going abroad and creativity.
However, I don’t think that it is just the fact of living abroad that enhances your creativity. From my personal experience, having lived in several countries and across different continents, I agree: you see things differently when you are out of your comfort zone. Having said that, it is the links you create and establish both far-off and nearby that facilitate the combination of different ideas.
A recent article in The Economist relates how Indians living in the USA got the idea to work on a cheap fridge for rural Indians while they were visiting relatives back in India. There are countless similar examples in other countries and cultures.
Living abroad helps you getting better ideas.
Go one step further: make connections from abroad and your ideas will turn into innovation!
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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Posted
on January 3, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
Welcome to 2012!
While you start implementing your New Year’s resolutions (hopefully focused on helping others), here you have the most read Networking&Business posts during 2011:
- TEDx: Get More Weak-Ties
Attending a TEDx event is much more than just listening to the speeches. It is a great way of effectively extending your network with very valuable links.
- Collecting Business Cards Is Not Networking
When you start building your network in new territory you might be tempted to collect lost of business cards. This is just collecting business cards… Networking is adding value into your relationships.
- Santa Claus, The Great Networker
Santa Claus is a great networker and you can learn from him.
Read about what he does…
-
Who Will Benefit Form What You Are Reading?
When you read an article, always keep your mind trying to find people in your network who would benefit from it.
-
Take An Empty Networking Suitcase
While you are on holidays look for opportunities to bring value back to your contacts.
-
Serendipity On The Plane…
Luck does not come your way; you must go and find it.
So, how to encourage serendipitous encounters on a plane?
-
MBA Networking Is Not Working
Some MBA programs have started including “networking techniques and strategies” within their leadership skills syllabus.
-
Face-To-Face Will Be King
With the Internet you can base your business anywhere and live in an idyllic location, right? Wrong.
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
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