At a recent workshop one of the participants complained that she had been giving referrals and developing her network for a number of years but had never received anything in return. "It's all fine", she said of the principles I was outlining, "but it doesn't work in practice."
I like a challenge and I certainly don't want to see anyone frustrated by developing a network but feeling that they were getting nothing back in return for the hard work and effort being put in. So I asked a few questions to try to understand her situation better.
It quickly became clear that she had certainly been doing a lot of the right things, such as keeping in touch with people, finding out what their issues are and making valuable connections for them. But she hadn't been asking for help in return.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talked about the concept of 'The Emotional Bank Account'. "If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve", said Covey. "Your trust towards me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to."
Covey was focusing on interpersonal relationships in our day to day lives when he wrote about the concept of Emotional Bank Accounts. But many networking experts have referred to it in terms of the need to make deposits into a networking or business relationship before looking to withdraw...in other words, give before you ask for something from the relationship.
I think that this concept has a very clear relevance to networking, hence its common use. Perhaps we can look upon our relationships as Social Bank Accounts. Most often the focus is on the need to deposit before looking to withdraw. But there is another side to the equation.
In the case of the participant of my workshop, she has no problem depositing. In fact it was clear that she had probably built a big balance in her metaphorical social bank account with her network. The problem was that she never asked to withdraw anything.
We can't simply give and support and then expect people to do the same for us in return. If you continually pay into your bank account but never cash a cheque or go to the cashpoint, you'll simply make the bank wealthier. If you don't ask, you don't get and with a social bank account you need to ask when the time is right.
Towards the end of my session I was setting an exercise for the group. A key part of the exercise was to identify five people they most wanted to meet and then build a picture of their network to see where the mutual connections may lie. At this point, this particular member of the group sat there looking blank.
"I don't know who I want to meet", she told me.
And therein lay her problem. If she doesn't know who she most wants to meet, how can anyone else know? And if they don't know, how can they possibly help her? With all the will in the world, with all of the desire to reciprocate they probably have, they can't give anything to her.
It's not enough just to give and to expect to get something back in return. You have to first know what you want and then clearly communicate it to the people in your network if you want to enjoy the dividends from your networking.