The Little Black Book Reflection

After reading these pages from The Little Black Book, I have realized that I have not been doing close to enough networking, or preparation to network.  I really need to start taking advantage of the situations when they present themselves.  I need to be more outgoing and vulnerable.  I need to learn how to present myself so that I make myself appealing to others.

I believe that networking is a very powerful tool and is underutilized.  This reading has made me think about the people I work with and how they got their jobs.  First of all, my cousin and brother got a job at my company because they know me and I put in a good word for them.  I know a lot of the entry level people out of college got jobs either because they knew someone who works there or their father was friends with someone, or one of their friends got jobs there. 

I was in a meeting a couple months ago with some upper level management and I noticed that they were all talking about the same person that I didn’t know.  They finally filled me in that it was somebody from a different company that they used to work with.  All of these higher level employees knew each other from previous jobs.  This was the first real moment that I said to myself, “networking must pay off”.

Since then, I have been keeping business cards of everyone that I meet and try to keep in contact with people when I find out that they are moving on to a new job opportunity.  I have been scared for a while to join social networking sites online, because I was afraid of the security of these kinds of sites.  I have since joined LinkedIn, but still feel like I am not utilizing it to its potential.  I have a lot of work to do in this area; I feel like I need a class in social networking.

It was a little comforting knowing that I am not the only one out there who has this problem.  From this reading, I gathered that there are a lot of people out there who are in the same situation as me.  We are just not sure or comfortable with going out and meeting new people and trying to connect with them.  I know that in order to move on, or up, networking is the way to go.  I need to start now, and network as often as I can, and be as effective doing it as possible.

One point that stood out to me in this reading is that you want to give before you take.  If you help someone else out, they will remember that and will want to repay the favor.  If you show someone that you are able to solve problems or show how you are valuable in a way that it helps them, it will leave a more lasting effect than just telling them how you can help.  This reading talks about how you want to get to know someone a little bit on a more personal level before you go right in and ask for whatever it is that you are looking for.  It is easier to connect with someone if you get to know them first.

Another part of the reading that I thought was interesting and I could relate to is how they talked about six-degrees of separation.  You should be able to make contact with anyone by talking to six different people.  But, it goes on to talk about the less contacts you use; the more likely you are to make the connection.  I have been thinking about that and I can apply it to my contacts.  I feel like I need to start thinking outside my immediate contacts.

One area that I think I am underutilizing that I want to improve on is taking advantage of my personal contacts.  Being in the Air National Guard, once a month I go to my base and work and interact with 75 other people.  These people come from all over and have all different backgrounds.  Normally when we are there, we just focus on work and talk about what needs to be done.  What I want to do is to really talk to these guys to see what it is that they do outside of the ANG.  I am close to maybe five or six of the guys and no what they do, but within my immediate circle for that weekend, there are so many more people that I can talk to for networking.

Outside of just the people in my shop, there is a whole base full of people who have other careers outside the ANG.  Once I talk to my immediate circle, I can extend outward to the rest of the people on the base.  From the TDY’s and deployments that we go on every so often, I really get to know some of the people that I don’t normally get to interact with.  I have made some good connections; I just have a lot more work to do to expand in this area.

Networking is an extremely valuable tool to have but, won’t do you any good if you don’t use it properly.  You need to be prepared to network all the time.  You can’t be afraid to approach people and you need the self-confidence to sell yourself.  I know that I have a lot of work to do to be better at networking, and I am going to what I can to prepare myself to be able to network wherever I am.