Back to basics

To progress from a transactional network to a strategic and transformational one, you've got to first assess who is in your network right now. This requires some sorting.

The SORT process will help you:

• identify who is in your network right now
• assess the true diversity and integration of your network
• highlight any gaps that may exist.

Think of this as a top-level triage health check. You're going to zero in on what your network looks like right now and understand how it's currently serving you, assessing how these people are helping or hindering you when it comes to your goals and aspirations. Only once you have processed your existing network in this way can you get serious about your next steps, which will culminate in your seeking out those people who are missing from your network.

There are two steps in the SORT phase:

1. identify
2. assess.

Let's work through each step in detail together.

Step 1: Identify

First up, who's in your network?

You might be surprised at how hard this simple question can actually be to answer! This isn't about doing a brain dump of everyone you know — or getting out your phone to check your contacts or your Facebook feed (as a lot of people in my workshops do). As you will soon see, there is a big difference between people you know and people who add value to your life and career and therefore have a right to belong in your current core network.

When assessing your network, think about the individuals you currently go to or rely on for support, information, advice, inspiration or simply as a sounding board for your thinking. This might include your partner, colleagues, friends, family members, or your existing or former boss.

As you think about your network, consider how you interact and connect, and what exchange of information or support happens.

YOU'VE GOT TO UNDERSTAND YOUR CURRENT
NETWORK BEFORE YOU CAN CHANGE OR
IMPROVE IT. SO WHO IS IN YOUR NETWORK
RIGHT NOW?

Step 2: Assess

Now we're going to delve a bit deeper in order to assess how diverse your network really is. Consider the following three questions:

1. What is the gender make-up of your network?
2. What similarities are apparent among the individuals in your network?
3. Where is everyone located?

Let's examine these questions in some detail.

1. WHAT IS THE GENDER MAKE-UP OF YOUR NETWORK?

Is your list evenly balanced between males and females, or does it err heavily to one side of the gender equation? Are both genders even represented?

I find it amazing when facilitating this exercise how many times my clients have realised they have all men or all women in their network. I've lost track of the number of studies that link a gender-balanced workplace and leadership team to positive business performance and employee engagement. The same can be said for your network.

Lisa Torres, a sociology professor at George Washington University, and Matt L. Huffman, a sociology researcher at the University of California, Irvine, studied groups of men and women and tracked census data to identify patterns in the way the sexes network. In their 2002 study ‘Social Networks and Job Search Outcomes Among Male and Female Professional, Technical, and Managerial Workers', they confirmed the truth of the saying ‘birds of a feather flock together'.

They found that both men and women have a tendency to gravitate to networks of their own gender. This sheds some light on why men continue to hold the majority of senior positions in most organisations across the world. When it comes to job openings and career opportunities, we naturally share these first within our network, and in this case it's in a network of mainly male colleagues. Women often won't hear about these opportunities until after they've done the rounds in the all-male network.

William T. Bielby, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, explains:

Women have tended to be better connected overall, but they and many of their female contacts tend to work in more female-dominated jobs. So their networks may be wider but not reach to as high a level as men's, who tend to be better connected, particularly in getting professional news, to more high-status people.

So being connected is not enough; you need to build a diverse network to create a ripple effect for change. A broad range of different thinking and ideas generates competitive advantage. It is from differences of opinion, ideas and thoughts that opportunities emerge.

2. WHAT SIMILARITIES EXIST IN YOUR NETWORK?

How many of the people in your list are attached to the same company, community, sporting club, co-working space, university, church, mothers' group or other group? How many are your relatives or friends? How many do you work with, perhaps in the same department? How many are at the same seniority level?

It's common to find ourselves gravitating towards the people we see regularly, spend most time with or have most contact with, so it's likely they will be the first ones to spring to mind at step 1 of the SORT process. We often find it easier to connect with people who have the same knowledge, background or work focus as us. We tend to be drawn to clusters of ‘sameness', staying in our comfort zone.

When we start working in a new job or role we mix mainly with co-workers in our department or those at a similar seniority level as us. As we stay longer in a company, opportunities arise to expand our network simply through promotion and tenure. We may be thrown into roles that force us to collaborate with other departments or companies. We may work with virtual teams including people based interstate and overseas.

How many people do you know outside your area of expertise? Do your connections actually suggest you are working in a silo?

3. WHERE IS EVERYONE LOCATED?

Knowing people in different areas of the same business as you or with differing levels of expertise increases the diversity of your network. Including among your contacts people from different geographical locations does the same. Think about where the people in your list are based. Are they in the same city, state or country? Do you have people in your network who live overseas?

While we may not always be geographically close, thanks to technology we have never been more closely connected or had more opportunities to communicate regardless of geography. We should therefore not discount individuals from our network based on their location, whether it be a different city or state, or even a different continent; in fact, we should embrace such opportunities.

Your organisation may have offices around the world. It's likely you sometimes travel, either for work or on a holiday. These trips create valuable opportunities for meeting people and nurturing connections in different locations. How many times when travelling have you bumped into someone you've swapped business cards with at an airport or in a local café, for example?

SO DOES THE REALITY OF YOUR NETWORK REFLECT
THE REALITY OF THE DIVERSE WORLD IN WHICH
YOU LIVE?

What did you discover from the SORT process? For example, do you have mostly males in your network? Or females? Is your network made up mostly of your friends, family members or current colleagues? Are most individuals in your network co-workers, clients or customers? Do they all live in the same city as you or are they spread out interstate?

Getting your network right is all about getting started. And that's exactly what you've just done, so good on you!

As you've learned, a strong strategic network relies on one key principle — diversity. A diverse network spans gender, age, experience, culture, industries, organisations and geographical locations.

Imagine you're having a party. If you invite all the people on your list, how many of them would already know each other, having met before, or have heard you talk about them? The more they know each other, the more closed and tight your network is. If hardly any of your connections know each other, then you probably have a pretty open and diverse network.

Are you open or closed?

Like most of the people who do this exercise for the first time, you've probably discovered you have a fairly closed network. This means you surround yourself with people who are similar to you. Most of them do the same sorts of things you do, think like you, value the same things; they may even do the same job or at least be at the same seniority level or life stage.

An implicit level of trust and loyalty operates in this kind of tribe, and it naturally creates an environment of mutual value exchange. However, if you're forever surrounded by people who say and think the same thing, then you begin to accept this as the norm and dismiss anything else as deviant. You don't question where you are in life or how you're going to get to the next level. You don't push yourself; you just accept the status quo. You do the same things, go to the same restaurants, have the same conversations and stay in the same job. Put simply, you put your blindfold on.

In her book Wilful Blindness, Margaret Heffernan discusses how as human beings we naturally associate with like-minded people. Our challenge is that we are deeply influenced by the norms and standards of those around us, such that our brain edits out facts that aren't in line with that world view. Heffernan explains, ‘When we are wilfully blind there is information we could know and should know but don't because it makes us feel better not to.' This is why a closed network of contacts can create a blinkered approach to networking and limit opportunities, options and ideas.

At its extreme this attitude leads to groupthink, a term originally coined by social psychologist Irving Janis in 1972. Evidence of this tendency can be seen everywhere, from political parties and sporting teams to schoolyards and the media.

Sticking with the same people, with the same in-group, is safe and boring. You might expect that a diverse group means you'll always be wrestling with a lot of different, conflicting opinions, but the opposite tends to happen.

A more open and diverse network often means that individuals in your network often do not know one another and may have different values and beliefs. This greater diversity can have a profound, far-reaching impact.

AN OPEN NETWORK ENCOURAGES DIVERSITY OF
OPINION AND INSIGHT, WITH ACCESS TO OTHER
WAYS OF DOING THINGS STRETCHING OUT-OF-THE-
BOX THINKING.

If your network is too open, however, managing it can be exhausting. Keeping up with everyone, maintaining different conversations at different levels, is demanding. You'll wear different hats with different people, and feel like a chameleon as you morph to fit in with whomever you are connecting with at that time. There is no continuity of discussion, and perhaps no shared insight or opinion. In the end, all you can do is flit from one conversation to another while never actually moving forward. Social media is the best example of an open network at the extreme, with millions of people maintaining irredeemably shallow connections online.

Balance is the answer

We also get the balance of our network wrong when we choose to keep work and home totally separate from one another, convinced that this is what work–life balance is all about. This may have worked when we lived in the world of 9 to 5, when we switched off at the end of the day to head home and live our isolated family life, but things have changed dramatically since technology infiltrated our lives.

We are now contactable 24/7, with every aspect of our lives on show (if we choose it) online. Where, how and when we work will continue to evolve. The boundary between work and home life is more and more fluid, and the effort to keep work and home totally separate is draining and futile. It's time to stick with one hat. It's time to integrate our network so it can become truly diverse.

The ideal scenario is a balanced and integrated network that bridges smaller diverse groups and is:

• cross-hierarchical
• cross-functional
• cross-organisational.

A BALANCED, INTERCONNECTED NETWORK
ENABLES DIVERSITY OF LEARNING, REDUCES
BIAS IN DECISION MAKING, AND INCREASES
OPPORTUNITY FOR PERSONAL GROWTH AND
OPPORTUNITY.

Businesswoman and accountant Melissa Browne exemplifies this perfectly. When I interviewed her about the diversity of her network she said:

When I first started my accounting firm I imitated other successful accounting firms. That's how I presumed you ran a successful firm. What I quickly realised was how limiting that was to growth, cash flow and the opportunity to attract clients because I wasn't offering anything different.

So I looked outside my world to what other interesting entrepreneurs were doing: fitness gurus, stylists, military coaches, fashion brands, franchises and more.

I believe if you want to be a clone of someone else then look to your industry but if you want to innovate, you need to look outside your own world. I join tribes and organisations where business owners aren't the same as me. I make a point of being uncomfortable so I can continue to challenge any unconscious bias.

Inwards, outwards and upwards

Knowing what you want in terms of your goals and aspirations is one thing, but achieving them is something else again. The process you've just completed is the start of your journey to achieve greater success.

It's only by looking inwards that we start to look outwards and then move upwards. Some people find this a confronting idea; for others, it blows their mind!

It's important to remember that this is not a one-off, set-and-forget process. Your life and career goals and the people around you change constantly based on where you are in life and at work. So your network must constantly evolve too.

That's why you'll find you will need to access this book's website resources time and time again to work through this process and the ones in the following chapters. I recommend you keep coming back and assessing your network long after you've finished reading this book.

Now you've completed the sort process on your existing network, it's time to shift focus to assess whether you are really connecting with the people that matter to achieving your goals — it's time to build your network, your own Nexus of Core Four and ultimately the 12 key people who will fast-track your success.

As you work through chapters 5 and 6, you'll keep coming back to your network list as you ask yourself who you already have in your network and who is missing. But to do this properly, strategically, first you need to meet the Core Four individuals that form your Nexus, the essential heart of your network. That's what we'll look at in the following chapter.