Stroppy, Slack or Slick - Our True Networking Personalities
Networking, both online and offline, is a gentle art that can be both life and business enhancing. But it can also be uncomfortably revealing about our true personalities.
Yesterday I met a charming man at an event I was speaking at who told me how he had been reprimanded for making what sounded like a polite and understated approach to someone on LinkedIn inspired by a mutual contact.
The person wrote a very self-righteous note to this man telling him off for making even a polite approach.
Alas such self-importance undermines not only the reputation of such pompous people - and they deserve this - but also can inhibit the true, but perhaps nervous networker. I know of a self-styled "well known" entrepreneur who made some money a few decades ago who is just the same. Although he's manic charm personified when he approaches you, he's maniacally rude if you approach him in similar circumstances!
Admittedly, some people are slack in their networking, certainly on sites like LinkedIn, and don't bother personalising approaches to people with whom they have contacts in common. Some are slick. But some are just stroppy.
Politeness costs nothing. The stroppy types never seem to understand who they may be dismissing and, just as importantly, who these people might know who could also have been of use to them.
So, self-importance will only do you a destabilizing disservice. So, get over yourself!
Yesterday I met a charming man at an event I was speaking at who told me how he had been reprimanded for making what sounded like a polite and understated approach to someone on LinkedIn inspired by a mutual contact.
The person wrote a very self-righteous note to this man telling him off for making even a polite approach.
Alas such self-importance undermines not only the reputation of such pompous people - and they deserve this - but also can inhibit the true, but perhaps nervous networker. I know of a self-styled "well known" entrepreneur who made some money a few decades ago who is just the same. Although he's manic charm personified when he approaches you, he's maniacally rude if you approach him in similar circumstances!
Admittedly, some people are slack in their networking, certainly on sites like LinkedIn, and don't bother personalising approaches to people with whom they have contacts in common. Some are slick. But some are just stroppy.
Politeness costs nothing. The stroppy types never seem to understand who they may be dismissing and, just as importantly, who these people might know who could also have been of use to them.
So, self-importance will only do you a destabilizing disservice. So, get over yourself!
posted: 7 Oct 11