One has to wonder.

That was a devastating and frightening near-miss with total disaster that our economy experienced a few years ago. And we don’t seem to have recovered yet.

We are sitting on our wallets, postponing investments, and not hiring.

We need to find ways, though, to take the initiative and create opportunities where none may yet exist.

Easier said than done.

Hence Claudia and my discussion this week suggesting that we need to make the creating of our own opportunities a New Year’s resolution.

We cannot afford to wait around for someone else to jump start the economy.

Can you?

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

Thousands of talented, appropriate and possibly “best fit” candidates are never met, because their resumes were thrown in the trash based on missing “key words”, arbitrary experience requirements, and other impersonal and unhuman criteria.

In this week’s show, Claudia discuss the need to build teams rather than fill job openings.

The annual “All-Star” games in many team sports made up of the best players from all the teams, do not result in the two best teams.

The order is important. We need thriving teams in order to function at the level necessary to create a way out of our economic doldrums.

A job opening is merely the existing set of tasks that the former employee did. It does not consider what might be possible given what the new hire brings to the table.

The question is, will you ever know? You may have just thrown the most promising resume in the trash because it showed six years of experience instead of seven.

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

I suggest this is the case because most of us are waiting until we know it is safe to go back to doing things the way we did before our economy’s near collapse and this extended recession.

I am almost certain that the only viable way forward will not be found in going backwards. In fact, business may never be successfully done again the way it was before 2008.

To move forward aggressively and responsibly, though, we need to get our thinking out of the rigid box that limits us to the values, methods and means of the past.

We need new perspectives, new frames of reference, and new approaches.

In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss making one of our “Bold Resolutions” for the new year to think outside the box.

Not crazy, impulsive, rash thinking. But creative, non-linear, and proactive thinking.

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

The problem with everyone waiting is that leaves no one taking actions that might stimulate the economy.

No one wants to take the first step, which, while understandable, leaves open the possibility (which is currently being realized) that no first steps are being taken.

This week Claudia and I begin a new series entitled Bold Resolutions for the New Year.

Let’s use the tool of setting New Year’s resolutions as a means for taking the initiative, making some decisions, and taking concrete action… even if it seems like we’re the only ones.

How can we be bold without being rash or impulsive?

We certainly don’t want to repeat the mistakes that landed us in the economic mess of the past several years!

Are there ways to be both bold and responsible?

Bold Resolutions for the New Year
Week #1: Too Much Fear, Caution, and Passivity
Week #2: Think Outside the Box
Week #3: Build a Team, Not Fill a Job
Week #4: Create Your Own Opportunities
Week #5: Rethink Failure

Listen in.

You have more years experience being you than you do being anyone else. Your best bet for successful networking is being you.

It sounds obvious. Right?

Unfortunately too many of us fall into the trap of thinking that the process of learning skills and practices (like networking) involves learning to be different than we are.

We confuse learning the principles and skills involved with trying to become a different sort of personality doing those skills.

The result is almost always disastrous.

If you hate networking as much as I do, maybe it’s because you’re trying to be someone you’re not.

That’s a lot of work! A lot of work that seldom works!

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

There next to you is another parent trying to assess your insurance needs.

What’s wrong with this picture?

The context isn’t appropriate for professional networking.

In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at the context of our networking opportunities.

If both of you parents in our example were ignoring the game and searching for a discussion topic, then work could be an interesting and relevant diversion. But in this example, our antagonist seems blind to your engagement with the game.

Natural networking, on the other hand, would recognize that this is a family event and that you are both there to support your kids.

Consequently, any conversation and relationship building would center on soccer, your brilliant kids, blind referees, or how much time is involved in all these practices and games.

Conversation happens. Relationship building happens. Trust builds. Connections form. But the topic is not work.

How sensitive or appropriate is your networking to its context?

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

Do you remember anything more than whether or not they qualified as a sales prospect that should be tracked?

Tracked. Like prey to a hunter.

In this week’s show, Claudia and I offer a different, healthier, and, we believe, more effective way to think about networking.

How would it affect your style if you were tracking conversations instead of prospects?

Networking that views others through the lens of sales potential filters out a hundred other possible connections that could propel a relationship forward.

Tracking how close to closing a sales deal you are with each prospect also limits your options for follow-up prompts, topics, and occasions.

Keeping track of conversations, on the other hand, opens up a thousand contact points, areas of shared interest, personal issues, public opinions, etc. that are the bread and butter of authentic human connection.

Conversations don’t need to end, giving you a vehicle for keeping in contact, following up, and showing continued interest. Conversations give you a means for building trust and relationship over time.

What if networking were a natural process of initiating and fostering conversation?

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

Granted lessons on how to use a table saw or how to weld might save your life or at least a valuable limb.

When it comes to issues of how to be yourself in business, though, the “how-to” techniques are more often obstacles than aids.

In this week’s podcast discussion, Claudia and I look at networking techniques and the pitfalls of applying these formulas in a non-thinking or flat-footed manner.

Yes, it is effective to ask probing questions about what people do when attending a networking event. Having said that, people know instantly when you are not really listening to them.

Some of us want the effect of active listening without really being interested in the content of what we just heard.

There is no way to fake natural networking. Techniques are tools for the craftsperson not rules for the technician.

Do you find yourself depending on networking techniques and formulas to make professional connections?

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

I suppose, more accurately, I should say I hate networking events.

I hate the uber-confident professional masks people wear. I hate the feigned interest in my business, which is really an assessment of whether I have potential as a client. I hate the polite exchange of business cards, as if either of us plans to do anything with them but expand our e-mail lists.

This week Claudia and I begin a new discussion series we’ve entitled, “Natural Networking.”

This series is for my sake as much as yours.

It began with a personal need to rethink networking to better fit my own style and personality.

It became a realization that in the current economic turmoil, the impersonal, manipulative, superficial, technique-based “rules” of successful networking are on the way out.

Demonstrated integrity, credibility, character, generosity, and competence are the building blocks of the trust necessary to network beyond superficial exchange of business cards.

Successful networking is being achieved by the people who can sustain conversation beyond any given professional event. Successful networking is best accomplished by those most comfortable with being themselves.

Join us for the discussion. 

Natural Networking
Week #1: Rethinking Networking for a New Economy
Week #2: The Disconnect of Techniques and Formulas
Week #3: Fostering Conversations and Discovering Connections
Week #4: Keeping Conversations Context Appropriate
Week #5: Being Yourself, Your Greatest Asset

Listen in.

But times change, people change, teams turn over, and new generations bring new values and aspirations to their jobs.

In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at the workplace culture itself.

Yes, most of the time we are talking up the importance of having an a workplace culture period. We preach the value of having an intentionally designed workplace culture instead of simply slipping into one without thinking about it.

When it comes to playing favorites, though, we want to look at the issue from the other end of the spectrum.

Are you aware of how and where your workplace culture is serving you well and where it is not?

 Are you holding onto a culture whose effectiveness in the past is dissuading you from reevaluating it in the present?

Do you have so much at stake personally that you’re having a difficult time thinking critically about what’s best for the future?

Workplace cultures change slowly. Could playing favorites here be sowing the seeds of future problems?

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.