Networking
In the business world, there are those who spend their energy being part of the “who you know” universe, and there are others who stay comfortably within the “what you know” world. In my day, I liked to think I was a top-notch content manager who spent a lot of time focused on what I needed to know to do the job best. I always figured that if I did that well, I would become known both inside my firm and, eventually, in the broader marketplace. That pretty much happened at every stage of my career, to one degree or another. I knew lots of Rolodex guys who had stables of contacts and spent a great deal of time cultivating those relationships. I am reminded of the movie Schindler’s List, where Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, is the quintessential wartime industrial maneuverer. Oskar gets his start in Krakow with a suitcase of nice suits and a strong sense of self that can only come from someone bred in a conquering country like Germany. Usually, in business, there are salesmen and product specialists, but in reality, Oskar is neither. In fact, he lands on a business opportunity by simple happenstance, leveraging his Germanness into the ownership of an enamel pots and pans business that takes on war production activity. Oskar is not a businessman in one sense in that he knows almost nothing about the product and not much more about the accounting and finance of the business. For that, he has to enlist Ben Kingsley, who plays Itzhak Stern, a professional Jewish business manager to actually run the business while Oskar networks aggressively throughout the German hierarchy.
Oskar became a known business person in Krakow, where the Third Reich had expanded quickly and needed trusted contacts to do their local bidding and where the networking that Oskar did was of extremely high value added in the circumstances. But what Oskar understood all too well in an environment where skills were needed in a world increasingly running short of them. A skilled metalworker was a valuable asset, all the more so for someone like Schindler, who had no such skills.
The people with the networking skills and the big Rolodex are particularly well positioned to succeed in times of transition. In somewhat of the same way that Krakow in WWII was in transition, a time of disruption and job change is turbulent and a network of contacts is very valuable. I just saw that in the case of my son-in-law as he needed to transition from his last banking platform onto an altogether new platform on which to operate his skill set in residential mortgage lending. My network of real estate contacts proved very valuable and I activated it to give him some touch points with whom to network and pursue new opportunities. Just last week, I was reminded of the importance of my network, even though I didn’t consider myself particularly a networking, “who you know” kind of person. I have made a point over the years of staying in touch with people who were interested in doing so. Given the wide spread of global activities I was engaged with at one time or another, I know people all over the place who I do not talk to very often, but with whom I keep in loose contact. I actually have 6,000 or so contacts in my Rolodex at this point even though many of them are out of date by now. I also stay engaged with LinkedIn for better or worse and am always surprised when I see how many people reach out to me every once in a while to engage on one issue or another. It so happens that my Australian connection came into play.
A law firm in London is looking for an expert in my field to work on a global litigation case of fairly high profile. My resume caught their attention and they interviewed me. During the course of that interview, they explained that there is a key aspect of the case that involves Australian fund management. They asked if I had contacts in the space in Australia since the chances are that there will be a need for a local expert in addition to someone with broader global experience like I bring to the table. While there were several very senior people that I knew and worked with in Australia those many years ago, there is one person in particular that was not so senior and who worked with me there and then again in the U.S. with whom I have stayed in especially good contact. I always made time for him when he came to the U.S. and I even made a point of dining with him in Sydney when Kim and I were there a few years ago. We were pleasant but loosely connected colleagues, but I thought to mention him to the London law firm as a particularly strong Australian contact.
That law firm has now come back to me and said that they are particularly interested in retaining me for this assignment, one that will be a very good piece of business as the year unfolds. They want me to find a person in Australia, one with a profile exactly like my old colleague, with whom to work in the assignment. They did some preliminary research on him and feel he is well-suited to the task and I suspect my mention of him was a key component in them feeling so positive about my candidacy. I have now reached out to him and am in the process of enlisting his support. The good thing about expert witness business is that so long as you are not conflicted by the circumstances of the case, it is a great additional activity that is both lucrative and adds to your expanded contact and networking base. I suspect my Australian friend will be very interested and I will do my best to help him to conclude that it is worth his time to pursue.
I am constantly amazed and impressed about how it is the little things you do in life and in your career that make a big difference. Treating people with respect is a perfect example. That simple act will pay dividends in years to come as surely as anything you do in your work day. Staying in contact with people may seem like work that has no immediate return, but that is where you will likely be wrong. You never know how the world turns and who will become an important part of the tapestry of life and career in the future. You don’t do those things with a specific return in mind and you don’t even do those things tactically necessarily, but they often prove out to have strategic and tactical value when you least expect it.
I don’t know if I will get this assignment or if my Australian friend will choose to get involved with me on it, but I am more convinced than ever that the value of networking has its own rewards in ways that I cannot fathom in the moment. And that’s an important life lesson for us all.