Jodi Glickman, author of Great on the Job, says the secret to successful networking during the obligatory professional gatherings over the holidays is to start thinking about networking in a less selfish and more generous frame of mind.
“As the holiday season nears and you gear up for those obligatory cocktail parties and professional soirees, remember to make it about others, not about you,” Glickman writes. “Be generous — open up your virtual Rolodex, share your contacts, offer to make introductions, try out a new product or check out someone's service.
“You'll have more fun that way, you'll learn about new people and ideas, and you might just get something out of it in return.”
In her blog post for Harvard Business Review, ‘Confessions of a Networking Pro,’ Glickman tells of dreading yet another “networking-event-disguised-as-a-cocktail-party,” but managed to turn her attitude around by conceiving of the event in a different way.
“I decided on the spot that it wasn't about me,” she said. “I was not going to try to meet a single person of interest to me professionally. I wasn't going to think about advancing my own cause for even a moment (even though there were likely potential new clients in the crowd). I was going to try to refrain as best I could from telling anyone about my own business or area of expertise.”
Instead, Glickman built relationships with people at the gathering by asking who they were, what they did, and what they needed. She proceeded to hook up the people she met at the party with friends, relatives and other professional contacts of hers who could help out the people she was meeting.
“The laws of Karma are no less relevant in the world of networking than anywhere else,” Glickman wrote. “At some point down the road, chances are…someone will go out of his or her way to repay your favour or random act of kindness. If there's one thing we know for sure, it's that life is a virtuous cycle — when you keep on giving, eventually you get.”
