Networking Resolutions

This article originally appeared in The National Networker.


New Year has come and gone and all around the World talk inevitably turns to resolutions. Are you looking towards a slimmer you? Giving up smoking? Perhaps you have decided to dedicate more time to others.

It’s also a good time to sit back and review your networking. Is your current activity working for you? Are you in the right networks, getting the referrals you want for your business?

Take the time to check you are on the right track. Even the top networkers do it. I spoke to some of the UK’s leading networking experts and heads of networks to find out what they expect to happen in networking in 2009 and their own plans for the New Year.

As you might expect, the global economic climate featured heavily in their responses. It is commonly agreed on both sides of the Atlantic that many businesses will find the next twelve months very challenging and that networking is going to play a vital role in helping us to get through the trials and tribulations ahead.

Maggie Berry, Director of Women in Technology encapsulated the mood. “I think (or at least I hope) that people will be more open to getting themselves out there and networking face to face, to maintain and build up contacts during what is probably going to be a tough 2009.”

The need to be proactive and forge new relationships seems to be the key. Roy Sheppard, author of ‘Rapid Result Referrals’ and ‘Meet, Greet and Prosper’, said, “As the economy continues to toughen, maintaining and attracting new business will become more of a challenge for most companies.

“The best-connected people and organisations will be those most able to harvest those opportunities that will exist. Their investment in relationship building will bear fruit. I think we will see well-connected people and companies working far more collaboratively than ever before.

A positive and collaborative approach is the key for Sheppard. “Their mindset will be 'We're all in this together, so let's look out for each other'. More and more people will rely on referrals.”

Jackie Groundsell of women’s business network 1230 shares the belief that working with others is the key. “For everyone in business 2009 will certainly be an interesting and challenging time”, said Jackie.

“Many more people will be working remotely which can bring isolation and loneliness. Those who resolve to invest time in building and developing relationships with like-minded individuals will reap the benefits and still find plenty of opportunities to do business.”

With a large number of people facing redundancy in the New Year and unemployment levels set to reach their highest point for many years, expect to see more people set up in business on their own. This, according to Jackie, is going to make networking an even more vital tool. “Business will become more competitive and the rewards will be greater for those who share and work with others.”

Penny Power, co-founder of online network Ecademy, also feels that businesses are going to need to work much more closely together in order to thrive. Penny continued to highlight the importance of networks and referrals. “I feel that networking will be about hunting in packs, not as lone ‘cave men’”, said Penny.

“Collaboration will be the theme of many good networkers, looking for opportunities that feed a group of people not just themselves. If you exist in a good network, this will bring many opportunities your way, providing you do the same for others. Finding people in your network that share the same client base but deliver different solutions will ensure you uncover opportunities when they crop up.”

It’s not just for referrals that businesses need to be looking for opportunities to work together. According to Mike Roe, CEO of Chief Executive Groups Footdown, “At times like this people still need people, whether for critical information on how to tackle key issues, a bit of inspiration from time to time, or some relief from the isolation that being the ‘boss’ can create.

“Being in touch with other like minded people, or being challenged and stretched by people who might think in different ways will be as important this coming year as any year that has gone before.”

So where will people go to network? As I discussed in last month’s column, there are a number of challenges facing physical face-to-face networks, with a number of people looking to the benefits provided in cyberspace.

Brian Chernett, Chairman of the Academy for Chief Executives believes "’on line reputation’ will be key and a much better use of the internet, blogs and social networks such as Facebook will become the norm for all levels."

Author of “I Hate Networking” and networking skills expert Will Kintish sees the trend towards online networks continuing. “I think people in networking clubs who get very little from them (because they don’t understand the guidelines and principles) will give their membership up. The Kintish team will be spending a minimum of two hours every day searching Linkedin.

“When you understand how to use it, it is your greatest online networking friend ever.
In business there are two groups of people:

1 People we know like and trust
2 People who are targets we’d like to meet who know group 1.
“Ask Group 1 to introduce you to Group 2. They will do it readily. Linkedin is the tool to find both groups.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Penny Power also sees a positive future for online networks. “I am being told by many that offline networking is becoming increasingly tough for them to get to, going out the door costs money and we are now seeing huge growth in membership and traffic on Ecademy as a result.

“My resolution for 2009 is to find ways of delivering more knowledge over the internet using webinar and online conferencing tools to bring large groups together across the world online and teach them the power of the online tools and being part of an online community. This reduces the costs for people and increases the opportunity for learning and sharing.”

For others, relationship building forms the core of many top networkers’ new year resolutions. Not content to sit on their laurels and congratulate themselves on the networks they have already developed, they are focusing on how they can do better, both by extending their networks but also, importantly, deepening existing relationships.

Dave Clarke, CEO of networking lunch group NRG and author of the Business Networking Blog has resolved to focus on following up and developing existing relationships, while Roy Sheppard is promising to get more organized and finally invest in a business card scanner. My resolution is similar, involving using my scanner and finally getting a regular e-zine out to keep in touch with my growing network, along with more frequent calls to people I haven’t spoken to in a while.

Maggie Berry, meanwhile, intends to meet a more diverse group of people. “Because of what I do, I go to lots of women related events. This year I'd like to broaden the type of event that I attend - thereby pushing my own boundaries but hopefully meeting lots of interesting people along the way!”

Whatever you are doing at the moment, there’s no doubt that additional focus will lead to improvements. With tough economic times ahead of us, the consensus is that networks will become increasingly important, whether online or off. The New Year is a time for all of us to review what has worked for us so far, look at new opportunities and change our behaviour accordingly.

After all, if networking is working well for you at the moment, what would life look like if it suddenly got better?

What's your Hedgehog?

I spent yesterday at the Footdown Conference at The Reform Club in London. Footdown is one of the Chief Executive groups that I wrote about in my piece for The National Networker recently.

During the afternoon session, delegates were split into small groups and asked to work together to discover our 'hedgehogs'. Based on the work of Jim Collins in his book 'Good to Great', The Hedgehog Concept helps businesses to find out where they should be focusing their attention. Collins' argument is that the very best companies have a simple, crystalised concept that underpins and guides everything that they do....their hedgehog.

Why a 'hedgehog'? As Jim Collins explains,

In his famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

What does all this talk about hedgehogs and foxes have to do with good to great? Everything.

Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.


To find your hedgehog, Collins asks you to answer three key questions:

1 - What can you be the best in the world at?

2 - What drives your economic engine?

3 - What are you deeply passionate about?

These three questions are represented in three overlapping circles:




Where the three circles intercept, you will find your 'hedgehog'.

As Collins puts it, "If you could drive toward the intersection of these three circles and translate that intersection into a simple, crystalline concept that guided your life choices, then you’d have a Hedgehog Concept for yourself."

When talking about his Hedgehog Concept, Collins is trying to help businesses find out how to drive their business decisions. There is no reason, however, why a similar approach can't be used to work out your message, the clear, core message about what you do that sticks in people's minds.

When we want people to talk about us, to refer us, we need them to have a simple, clear image of what we do that makes absolute sense and is easy for them to communicate. Working through this exercise yesterday helped to clarify our new business model and I will be sitting down with colleagues this week to delve deeper.

Can you clearly state in just a few words what you do in a way that is 'sticky', that people will be likely to remember and repeat accurately? Can this approach help?

What's your hedgehog?

Executive Networking

This article originally appeared in The National Networker

“None of us is as smart as all of us”. The strapline for Footdown sums up the focus of an increasing number of Chief Executive and Leadership networks in the UK.

There is a growing recognition that there is no need for business leaders to plough on alone, learning from their own mistakes and having to hide any vulnerability in order to set a strong lead. While support for CEOs may be hard to come by within their own organisations, many have discovered the benefits of working closely with others in a similar position to themselves.

Footdown is a mentoring and peer group for entrepreneurs, directors and senior executives. It was founded by British entrepreneur, Andrew Mercer, who had sold his software company to the technology giant Oracle in 1998. Rather than basking in his success, Mercer recognised his shortcomings as a businessman and opportunities he had missed. He felt that, with more support at critical stages of the company’s growth, the success of his business could have been so much greater and it could have been publicly listed.

Mercer believed that the creation of a group environment for people in a similar position to share their experiences, discuss challenges and offer solutions would help other people achieve more than he had been able to. His approach wasn’t unique, nor was it new. Such groups have been operating in the UK for a number of years and worldwide for over half a century.

Vistage International was founded as The Executive Committee (TEC) by Wisconsin businessman Robert Nourse in 1957 for similar reasons and they now have a worldwide presence. Richard Alberg was a member of TEC for five years before he sold his psychometric testing company in November 2006. He found the process invaluable.

“When I joined TEC I did not have a strategic direction for my business. My objectives were growing the business whilst avoiding going bust. TEC helped me think about strategy and exit. I sold the business in 2006 and it was guidance from my TEC group and chairman that helped me appreciate what I needed to do to make my business attractive and valuable.”

Richard joined originally because he realised that he was learning on the job and making a lot of mistakes. As the head of the organisation, there was no-one for him to bounce ideas off, or to be inspired by. In his TEC group he found that he had a sounding board for ideas and people who would hold him to account for his actions, a key need for a business leader.

For Jo Wright, a member of Footdown in Bath, the support of her Leadership group is equally as important. When she joined, Jo had moved through her organisation, Feilden Clegg Bradley, to the position of Finance Partner, despite her training as an architect rather than as an accountant.

When the Senior Partners approached Jo to become Managing Partner, the members of her Footdown group took her through an evaluation process to help her decide whether the position would be right for her and how to make it work, without losing touch with the design side that brought her into the business in the first place.

“It’s given me more of a feel for the business side of the practice”, said Jo. “I now have a much better insight into how businesses operate and are led and therefore it’s moving towards making me more effective as a potential leader for this business.”

Having founded The Academy for Chief Executives (ACE) in 1996, Brian Chernett has seen similar stories in a number of their groups. “In one group alone there have been nine members selling their businesses for more than £3m. They would tell you that this had a lot to do with the support and help of the group.”

ACE was formed as Brian felt that TEC’s approach could be improved. “At the time I was working for our major competitor – TEC (Vistage) - and felt that there was a need to focus more on the softer skills of leadership and this didn’t appear to be a belief cherished by the American operators of TEC. Therefore I left to set up the Academy. Today you will find the processes very similar to those within Vistage but the philosophy is very different.”

Like Footdown and many similar groups, ACE follows a very recognisable format, with an expert speaker working in the group before lunch and a session in the afternoon that Brian calls “the Board you could never afford and the agenda you could never have” where members share their challenges and find the solutions to overcome them. Like other groups, members will meet with the Group Chairman once a month for a 1:2:1 coaching session.

John Cremer, a business speaker who runs an improvisation company, The Maydays, finds that the ‘softer’ approach of ACE works very well for his group.

“I find with ACE there is a feeling of continuity and sharing as equals, more like a family” said John. “I think this is due to the emphasis placed on personal as well as professional development, they are seen as inseparable.

“This seems to make differences in status or income level between members largely irrelevant.”

The personal development opportunities clearly stand out for John. “To see a fellow member rapidly make a huge and difficult shift in his personal life as a direct result of robust feedback from the group is priceless. I doubt he could have made such a transformation elsewhere.”

Roger Harrop, a CEO Expert, who has spoken to over 50 such groups and is a former ACE Speaker of the Year said, “I love working with these groups – the members are generally highly motivated and totally trusting of their fellow group members. This means that objective and meaningful discussion takes place, real actions agreed and, most importantly, each is held to account by the others.”

The trust that Roger speaks of is one of the main keys to success of such groups. It is important for members to feel confident sharing core concerns and to be completely open with their colleagues.

Confidentiality, respect and trust are cornerstones for all of the Leadership groups. Jay Hale, Co-Chairman of The Midlands Leadership Group, recognises that the levels of trust between members are integral not only to encouraging openness and honesty when discussing challenges, but also to the long-term success of the group. Jay’s group actively discourages trading between members.

“Business between members introduces a reason not to be totally open and frank in the issue sessions. There are some things that you might not wish to share with a customer or supplier”, said Jay. “Such activities can weaken the group and cause a rift if things don’t go right. We have heard stories about groups in other organisations breaking up because of commercial disputes between members, although I don’t know if they are true.”

According to David Glassman, a Vistage Group Chairman, the pressures on a modern CEO mean that leadership groups play an important role in encouraging strong decision making, relieve the isolation on business leaders and act as a vital check on hasty actions.

“Groups of peers help in decision making”, said David. “Given the relentlessness of the pressures on CEOs they might not have thought of all the relevant aspects of an issue.

“Equally, CEOs usually have no one to whom they are truly accountable. Often their chairmen, NEDs and functional heads do not challenge at all, let alone constructively, and their (marriage) partners do not inhabit the same planets in terms of being able to understand their business needs.

“CEOs recognise that they are isolated because often they are not fully informed and they feel that they dare not expose their doubts and vulnerabilities even to their key lieutenants. In a group environment, they can discuss proposed changes within a trusted group of colleagues where absolute confidentiality rules. It is cheaper to make mistakes in a presentation to such colleagues who offer (and receive) peer advice from experience and with goodwill than it is to proceed with a project that later has to be aborted.”

‘Networking’ means different things to different people. In the case of groups such as these, it’s not about new business generation, selling to each other or referrals. Instead, the focus is on collaboration, support, feedback, self-development and mentoring.

Pilar Martinez-Vidal, is the MD of Impulse International, a global courier firm located close to Heathrow Airport.

“I wanted to focus more upon the future, but I was too entrenched in the day-to-day running of Impulse. I felt overworked and isolated. When you are in such a position, you can’t share doubts with your staff because they look to you to lead.

“Mentoring makes you accountable to somebody, which pushes you harder to achieve what you’ve set out to do. I have quarterly targets I set with my one-to-one mentor, which I have to report back on. In the group mentoring sessions, my peers act as my non-executive directors.

“It has helped me focus.”