Forget networking, build relationships instead
Holy mother of dragons, I’m turning 30 in two weeks. And the older I get, the more “professionalized” my network becomes. These days, I often catch myself saying “I know him/her” about someone, yet what I should be saying is “yeah, we met a couple of times at an industry event.” It’s gotten so bad, it applies to 9 out of 10 new connections I make. That is some seriously depressing shiitake, isn’t it?
We are plenty, I suspect: reasonably smart folks stuck in a rat race to beef up our networks. Let’s crank it up and get that 500+ on LinkedIn. Got no idea who they really are? Who gives a fuck?! But wait a second, I’m turning 30. In practice, this means that I have no more than 30 years of a relatively good life ahead. After 60, things are going to get pretty ugly, pretty fast. Time isn’t slowing, and 30 is a scary line to cross.
I had been living in Japan for almost four years. People there build networks in a way which is fundamentally different from how we do it in the West. In Japan, deep understanding of who you are is infinitely more important than knowing what you do. Interactions in Japanese society are typically based on trust and strong relationships forged over time. Which is why, by the way, the Japanese prefer to use Facebook instead of LinkedIn for professional networking: it gives a glimpse into the real life of your connections and allows people to relate on a deeper level. One of my American friends in Tokyo wasn’t entirely comfortable with that and even created a separate Facebook account just to accommodate the Japanese way of networking. James Riney, head of 500 Startup Japan, has a nice post about this cultural phenomenon: Why Japanese Don’t Use LinkedIn.
Western minds tend to put a lot of effort into separating professional and personal. Until very recently, and despite my experience in Japan, I felt that this is the right way. But doesn’t this “impression management” make us empty-handed in the long term? Wouldn’t it be better to go the Japanese way and make an effort to scratch beneath the surface?
Successful and fulfilling life will never be measured by the amount of LinkedIn connections we have. Period. It is meaningful relationships which we make as we move along in life that count. I deliberately avoid the word “friendships”, though. Friendships are complicated, and not everyone should, can, or will become a friend. But every singled person we meet is more than an entry in our contact list. Each of them has a personal brand of unexplored depth within, and it’s up to us to discover it. I’ve started exerting an effort to do so only a few weeks back. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Making time is tough
Building relationships is something that we’ve all been great at before graduating from school, and have gotten terrible after. It no longer comes naturally, and you’ll have to make an effort to make it work. Specifically, you’ll never have enough time, or you’ll never have the best time. Force it. Make time.
I found lunch to be the most convenient time slot for meeting folks, although it limits me to people whose offices are close to mine. Drinks after work or over the weekend are a good alternative.
You must get uncomfortable
When we engage in “professional” networking and ask people out for lunch, we tend to default to “professional” conversations (or smalltalk, which is even worse). Those conversations are just as comfortable as they are meaningless. Are you seriously going to dedicate an hour of your life to an extended “director’s cut” of a watercooler chit-chat? So I thought.
Asking people out for lunch or beer and not talking strictly about professional stuff is difficult. Professional networking comes with a set of expectations about future conversations, and breaking those expectations is a new territory for many, which can make both you and your interlocutor uncomfortable. Well, at least at first. But guess what, it’s actually more fun. Experimenting with conversations is tough, especially when everyone has gotten used to traditional networking talk. Disrupt it, then own it.
(In all fairness, I must admit that I’m still not doing a great job here. I’m struggling to hold to my own imaginary standards here.)
Some people won’t buy it
This should be obvious, but not everyone will be interested to meet up. Some won’t find time because they don’t yet see value in moving beyond old ways of formal professional networking. Some will have a wrong first impression about you and then decide you’re simply not worth their time. That’s all right. People have different goals, and the best thing you could do is to respect that. Say thanks and move on.
It doesn’t feel like networking (because it’s not)
And this is the best part. Getting to know people is far more rewarding than your regular run-of-the-mill networking. Strangers make us richer. Go learn from them, don’t be an ant.
Thank you, great folks whose examples fuelled this transition: Katrina Too, Sebastiaan Deckers, Luke Miller, Yi Chiao Cheng.
