Saturday, August 8, 2009

Business Networking - The Will to Harvest More

Written by Dr. Katrina Stopper and Matt Hackett

Business networking groups can help your business. However, many local business professionals are finding out the hard way that referrals don't come pouring in just by paying your annual dues.
Last month's edition of the ABRA Newsletter spoke about the importance of character and how it determines our ability to do more. Another part of reaching great accomplishment is determined by our will power. That might seem like a "well, duh" statement to many of you, but stop what you're doing for one moment to take inventory of how your will power and determination leads your daily life. It might become a little more noticeable just how vital it is.
We've all heard the verse "We reap what we sow". Likewise, the size of our harvest, or achievement, is directly equivalent to our efforts to reap a gain from every opportunity that presents itself throughout our day. As business professionals, those opportunities can take shape in numerous ways:
Networking Events: When you are learn of an open networking opportunity, do you make an effort to attend? If you do attend networking events, do you make it a point to make at least 10 new contacts, or do you bee-line to the bar and chat it up all night with the first two people you meet? When you do make new contacts, how quick and dependable are you to be sure to make a sincere follow up with them?
Educational Growth: If you're reading this, chances are you have at least one leg up on that one. Successful business professionals take every opportunity to learn from other business professionals, both successful AND unsuccessful. Reading newsletters, newspapers, self and business development books, and attending or listening to taped lectures are an easy way to soak up valuable and applicable information, and they are often right at our fingertips- literally.
If you think it takes too much time to put in the extra effort, think of it this way: You have to eat sometime, why not do it with a business associate or at a networking event rather than alone? You have to commute to work or home at some point, why not listen to a book or lecture on tape at the same time? There's more time in the day than you think!
It is a rare individual that capitalizes on all that they are presented, but they are also often the most successful. You've put a lot of work into your business. So, what kind of harvest are you willing to reap this year?
If you have decided to become a member of a Networking Group, you've taken a very important step toward reaching a higher level of success. However, just as "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink", Business Networking Groups can provide you with opportunities for growth and development, but it takes will power and a commitment to yourself to make any of it work. Make the decision today to have the will to achieve more in your business.

The Network Economy - Developing Self-Direction and Social Networks For 21st Century Success

By Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, RMT, CGP


In today's economy, we are all awash in a sea of uncertainty, and there is no end game of which we can be sure. Things are changing in our social and work environments: the rules, the process, and the structures. Where the old frameworks emphasized the capacity to sell our product, our service or ourselves for maximum profit or personal gain, the emerging one will reward connections with individuals, organizations or communities in ways that reap enduring associational - as well as financial - capital. Being independent-minded about our vision and goals means going beyond reliance on an existing structure upon which to climb higher, focusing instead on developing sets of mutually-beneficial contacts through which we create ever-evolving opportunities.
Time magazine's May 25, 2009 cover story, "The Way We'll Work" describes the parameters of the new economy as "a more flexible, more freelance, more collaborative and far less secure work world." Among the values and abilities for navigating within it the article cites striking a balance between "doing well and doing good," an more independent-minded approach to career advancement to replace the "corporate ladder" that often rewarded allegiance to the company over integrity, collaborating with co-workers with increasing diversity - including older people working long past conventional retirement age alongside and taking direction from Gen X - and environmental sustainability. Here is another way to see the challenges of this paradigm shift: we can create a future in which making a living is intimately bound up with making a life.
We all have the tendency to want to do things the way we have always done them and a return to routine a great comfort after a destabilizing change. But the shift to a Network Economy has already begun. Things are not going back to what they were, so we are better off using the uncertainty to upgrade our relationship skills and invest in a range of social relationships that draw upon different strengths and expose us to diverse people and situations.
Start with self-knowledge. C. Robert Cloninger, a researcher at the Center for Well-Being at Washington University at St. Louis published studies showing that well-being goes up, and symptoms of depression and other emotional disorders are diminished for individuals who work to develop what he terms "mental self-government," i.e., becoming more internally directed than externally controlled, more cooperative and compassionate than competitive, more intuitive and thoughtful as a balance to rigid, structured thinking. A positive mental state is defined by some social psychology researchers as "a constructive and mature way of thinking that is hopeful and nonviolent." People with greater self-awareness have a higher proportion of positive thoughts on a regular basis and demonstrate increased activity in the cerebral cortex, the most recently evolved portion of the brain. This tells us that positive thoughts and emotions are essential to proper brain functioning as well as well-being, And that a constructive, creative approach to problems can lead to a sustainable and enduring share of good feelings.
Here are some ideas for expanding self-awareness that also expand social networks for personal and professional advancement:
Make a list of your established strengths and accomplishments. Be specific. Write down positive comments others have made about these, in letters, conversations, or performance reviews.
Make a list of undeveloped potential and unused abilities. Next to each of these, list actions to take that will tap those potentials. Research organizations, websites, conferences, or classes that offer opportunities to attend training, observe others already involved in these areas, and talk to people.
Take stock of all the people already in your life and the contributions they make to your well-being as well as what you do for them. Write down their names and list the gifts they have already given you. Write down all the roles you take in relating to them and the special skills you use in that relationship. If there are few relationships of this kind on your list, figure out why and change it.
Feel uncomfortable meeting new people? Get busy doing something important. The discomfort will be there, but with a higher purpose.
Volunteer for a not-for-profit organization.
Join local community organizations and sign up for committees.
Journaling, meditation, and creative experiences are excellent methods for increasing self-awareness and self-discipline, but have the added value of getting past the defenses we all constructed in school when we became fearful of making mistakes of appearing foolish. Creative, intuitive ideas flow when we develop a habit of self-reflection that produces a sense of psychological safety. Those ideas show us our most deeply-held passions and vision, and in the network economy it is people who have the combination of mental clarity, self-awareness, and the capacity to be self-initiating who will benefit most from emerging possibilities.