The business case for Chief Networking Officers | with Kingsley Aikins

Welcome.

It's episode 91. Can you believe it's 91 already? Of the shortlist. I'm Johnny Campbell. I'm your host for today's live broadcast and podcast. It is a podcast and live broadcast. We're broadcasting live on LinkedIn and YouTube. And for those of you listening live, you're very welcome.

Thank you.

Welcome. Your comments, your thoughts, your questions on the chat. We'll try and bring it into today's show. Those of you on the podcast, if we reference any articles, notes, things you should check out, don't worry, they're in the show notes. And if you want to know what the heck I'm talking about previous episodes, there's 90 other episodes. You're on a podcast. You're live. Go to socialtalent.com the shortlist, and you'll find all the details there. Today's show is about the business case for chief networking officers. And our guest today is publishing an article next week. And there's a great quote in there that I want to just kick off with. And in that quote, it says were the happiest times in your past when you're with other people or when you're in front of a screen? Well, last night I went to see the Batman. I was in front of a screen. But it's funny, it got me thinking. I didn't just go see the Batman. I called up five friends and the six of us went and we sat and watched a huge big screen for three hours and ate some popcorn. Because even when you're watching a big screen, the social part of it is so, so important. In many of the things we do, we want to basically experience life with somebody else. We want to discuss it, socialize it, and have those shared experiences. So it's really innate. And networking is something that's often seen by organizations important. It's up on the list, but it's never truly urgent. And we know that being able to network internally in our own organizations, externally has so many benefits. It can help us find customers, attract diverse talent, source suppliers, create more community. But no one really owns networking. There's no function for networking. Leaders can talk a good game, say networking is critical for success, but there's rarely any action behind those words. What's the solution? Well, our guest today is Kingsley Akins. And Kingsley believes we need to appoint what he calls a cno, a chief networking officer. And Kingsley, some of you may know from his previous time as a guest on the show, or maybe you've seen him on the social talent platform with his new content this year. But he's CEO of the Networking Institute and he's going to be talking to us today about why establishing a chief Networking officer can help facilitate strategic business outreach. Create a culture of personal networking that will build trust, develop and develop a welcoming and prosperous workplace. Kingsley, you're very welcome to the show today. I'm hoping perhaps you can do perhaps yourself better justice than I can. Give folks listening an overview of why networking. Why are you the person who's most known for networking? Certainly in my network, you're the man people talk to about gosh, networking. Kingsley Akin's the person that you need to talk to. How did this come to pass that you are the person to talk about networking in the world today?

Thank you Johnny. Great to see you again. As the fellow says, after an introduction like that, I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say. No pressure, but I guess there's a personal reason. Because I lived and worked in six countries around the world. Most of my business professional life was outside of Ireland. And frankly I went to countries where I knew nobody, in some cases didn't speak the language and had to. I realized that to survive and thrive I needed to build a strong and diverse network. So it was a kind of a needs must sort of situation. And now I'm a believer that networking is a bit like an ATM machine. If you keep taking money out of your ATM machine, you know what eventually flashes up on the screen? It says insufficient funds unless you start putting some money in. So I think it's important to see it as a kind of a two way process. I also used to see it as like a bit like, bit like air miles. You know, you build them up, build them up, build them up and then every so often they just come in really, really handy. And the reason I'm doing it now is because I'm now back in Ireland where I came from originally and I'm a big believer in, you know, send the elevator back down. I had a lot of help from people on the way up and I think it's, it's a great opportunity now that I'm in my third act as they say that I can actually pass on some of the stu that I picked up. You know that old line, I think it was Jim Rohner, one of these guys said, you know, you are the average of the people you hang around with. So if you hang around with people who are optimistic, guess what you become. Hang around with people who are pessimistic, guess what you become but hang around with people who are good at networking. Some of this stuff kind of rubs off. And I was lucky to have worked for people like Tony O'Reilly and Dan Rooney, these sorts of guys who are really exceptional in this space. So I do joke. I'm a founder member of an organization called case, which stands for Copy and Steal everything. Go figure. Who does something really well and see can you pick up some bits from it. So I guess in a way, you know, that's a convoluted answer to the question as to why I got involved with it. And now I'm in this position of sort of being lucky enough to pass some of this stuff on.

I started my career in recruiting in staffing agency world. And you know, certainly back then and certainly I imagine now networking was absolutely part and parcel of your job. You had to go network more from a candid perspective. We didn't have LinkedIn and other big databases to go find talent from. So you're encouraged to go network and find the talent yourself through your network. I often wonder has that changed over the last couple of decades? And maybe I just network and I look at what I've achieved in my life and go, oh, networking must have had some part of that. I certainly believe that. But I want to jump into an article that was published recently by INC that referred to science and I'm using air quotes here for those of you who are listening to the podcast. And it said why people who build smaller networks are more successful. So why people who build smaller networks are more successful backed by science. And then a sublime. Oddly enough research shows that the more people you know, the less likely you are to be successful. Now on the surface this seems to contradict everything you believe, but you've read this article. Tell me about what this article is really about and what are your thoughts on the author's position?

Yeah, so Johnny, I'd be pretty sympathetic with the overall drift of this article in that, you know, I think it's very easy to slip into this situation of building a kind of an, I call it electronic cocktail party list, you know, list of huge volume of people, very often volume of low level contacts, whereas as much smaller list of appropriate sort of connections can be more beneficial. It's really, it's the age old argument, isn't it? It's quality versus quantity. And I actually quite like to introduce another word in there which is diversity. And I think that's one of the challenges of the world that we live in. So I live here in Dublin. When I grew up in this city, it was essentially, we used to call it male, pale and stale. It was not a very cosmopolitan, international kind of city or place. And we all kind of knew everybody, we were all kind of quite alike. And consider today the statistics in this country. So, you know, in the United states, for example, 14% of the U.S. were not born in the U.S. in Ireland today, it's 17%. In Dublin, it's 25%. But of the working age population of Dublin, it's 30%. So here's the challenge for all of us. Does your network reflect the diversity of the economy you work in, society you live in? And all the research sets, all the Bain and the McKinsey and all these people who write these fancy research reports says that if that's the case, you as an individual, you as a company underperform. So there is this concept out there called homophily. And homophily is kind of a fancy Greek word which means the tendency we all have to hang around with people just like us. And look, I do it, and there's nothing wrong with it at one level. I mean, you're born into a family of people like us. You go to school and college, you play sport with people like us, you know, you work with them, you go on holidays with them, you marry them and you produce more of them. But that's not the world that we're in. So I think it's a very interesting challenge now is to actually to have interventions in your life where you build diversity when you seek out, I call them unlike minded people, when you employ people, work with people who are different from you and you listen to them. So I think that's an interesting challenge that we all have to ask ourselves that question, do we have diversity? So I'm more interested in the diversity rather than the quantity. Does that make sense?

It does. And it reminds me, I know when LinkedIn kicked off, there was this race to build the most amount of connections. And if you recall, Kingsley, you know, LinkedIn would show your number of connections up to 500 and then after that would show 500 plus and that was it. So it was a race to get to 500 plus because no one knew how many you had after that. There was a bit of a quantity game there. But when I dig into the detail of this article, two things really jumped out at me that I thought were just interesting and things I don't necessarily think about every day. One point was the author talks about how great networks develop what he calls open networks. And he defines that as you Know your build ties outside their specialty or field. I imagine that's actually uncommon. A lot of folks who are accountants will network with accountants, engineers with engineers, recruiters with recruiters perhaps, and that the research shows people who build open networks kind of outside their specialty or domain, earn higher salaries, get promoted rapidly. And the second piece, which is maybe related, the author calls, you know, they manage balanced ties, talking about they know a few CEOs and they know a few shipping clerks. And it kind of reminded me of, you know, this kind of detective character you see on these shows on tv, Kingsley, or certainly didn't in the past where, you know, this person was able to, to talk to the admin person or the lower person in the factory and get the skinny on what's really going on and reminded me it has this image of that, that that kind of, you know, you'll get one view of the world from the senior people and then you ask the person who's the lowest down in the, in the organization, they probably actually give you the truth and the importance of being able to balance.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's kind of two types of information out there when you think about it. There's kind of formal information and that's reports and, you know, you can Google it, but formal information is available to everybody. You can't compete on what everybody has access to. And then there's informal information, nudges, tips, winks, advice, gossip, all that stuff that you get on the shop floor talking to the barista. You know, you get it out of the way. You know, always having a chat with a taxi driver. And I think they're really important partners, very easy to kind of, to sort of starch that out of your life. So it's important that I think you make that effort to, you know, look for views from diverse, as I said, unlike minded people, because the world is very diverse and it's getting more so. So we need to do that. I mean, that idea of open networks, I mean, I think one of the great examples there people often used to write about was Steve Jobs and the fact that he had, you know, he had such a fascination with calligraphy and that's why Apple were so precise about, you know, their, their look and feel of everything they use, their letters. He, he was, he was into all sorts of nature things, which is where the whole Apple concept came from. He had lots of diverse interests which all kind of congregated together and sort of fused into one kind of look and feel and attitude. And if you like a Kind of a house style for the organization. And I think, I think all of that stuff's really important.

I totally agree. And you mentioned at the start the diversity of your network. And, you know, I'm interested to hear if anyone listening live is any top tips on networking they want to share. I know a friend of mine many years ago said to me, you know, look at your Facebook feed and look at your Facebook contacts, and they're all like you. He said, you need to actively make them not like you. Like Facebook would. Would only, you know, amplify what you already know. And that's not a good thing. That echo chamber that we hear so much about, I've kind of kept that in mind. When I get. I have random requests, I'm sure you do, on LinkedIn and other channels, random requests from somebody going, like, how would this. Why would this person want to connect me? I have no idea who they are. When I've gone in with the. Because I heard you talk 15 years ago on this topic. And I said, like, I got to think about the benchmark. I got to think about, I don't know when I might be able to help this person, they might be able to help me. I'm going to go into this with a positive mind that there could be a benefit for both of us here. Let's see what happens, as opposed to being too critical and scrutinizing it. But at a company level, I want to get back to the first point we started with, which I think is really, really important. I know you're going to publish an article next week. That's next Monday from the live time of broadcast here. And if you're listening to this after a few days, you'll find it on Kingsley's LinkedIn profile and you'll find it on the Networking Institute's website. But you talk about this idea that no one owns networking, and you have a. You have a proposition of how to fix that. Tell me about the problem and tell me about your proposed solution, Kingsley.

Well, I think the problem is that, you know, we're coming out, hopefully out of two years of COVID globally, and there's been a hidden cost of COVID And the cost of COVID is that our networks have shrunk. We have tended to hunker down with friends, family and a few business connections. Networks normally churn, they swap and change, replace old networks with new networks, all that kind of stuff. That's not happened. We just slowed down in that whole area. The reality is that opportunity often lies at the outer concentric ring of your network, not the inner ring, which you know really, really well. So I think there's a real challenge for us all as we, and I don't even like to use the word go back because I don't think we're going back. I think we're going on to a new way of working, learning, you know, traveling, living, all that kind of stuff I think is going to change. But you know, we need, you know, we are creatures of social habit, so we need to get back out. But there's a concern that our networking skills may have gotten a bit rusty, that we may have lost that kind of drive, that we may have kind of got a little bit fat and happy just working remotely all the time. Although I don't like the word remote work because I think it sounds a bit sad and lonely. I think it should be. It should be kind of like physical, it should be sort of distance working, it should be digital working, but not the word remote because I kind of don't like that. So we all know we're in for a period of extraordinary disruption and turbulence, but also a certain amount of kind of opportunity. But in that companies, and you know it from your work, companies are completely reconfiguring their kind of staffing structures, etc. Individuals are going to have to reconsider their jobs and even their fundamental career options. I mean, McKinsey put out a report there some time ago saying that as a result of what's going on, over 100 million people in eight major economies are going to have to switch occupations between now and 2030. That's a big shift. And you know all about the great resignation or the great reshuffle or whatever it is that's happening right now. So I think there is a problem to put forward. What I think is a potential solution is that I think companies should either create a point or designate the CNO a chief networking officer. And their responsibility is to build a kind of a culture, an image, a reputation of networking within the organization, for the organization and for the individuals within it. And that means they've got to do a whole series of things. They kind of have to manage social capital. And we all know financial capital, which is what we own, and human capital is what we know. And they're within us, but social capital is not within us. It's between us and other people. So I think that's a kind of a relationship driven rather than transaction driven kind of dynamic that's out there. I think you have to promote the notion of network Intelligence. That's what Reid Hoffman talks about in LinkedIn, that, you know, there's more smart people outside your organization than inside your organization. So now you got to hire and wire people. You got to hire people and wire into their network. You know, you got to train staff in this area because as you were kind of saying at the top of the program, I mean, everybody says networking is important, but nobody teaches or trains it. When you think about school and college progress in those institutions, all about a metric, a grade or a score, and then you get into the real world and there's a whole series of things like, you know, empathy and resilience and determination and attitude and grit, all that kind of stuff. And they're all issues that count but can't be counted. So they fall into that kind of soft skill category. But if you watch what the World Economic Forum are saying or Deloitte or McKinsey, they're all saying that in this period of work that we're going into, soft skills are going to be fundamentally important. Unfortunately, the word sounds a bit squishy and a bit kind of insignificant. Should be really. Sometimes people call them power skills, but there's a whole series of skills that we're going to need. And networking is fundamental to this that we actually don't get taught. Schools and colleges don't teach it, as I said. So I think there's a gap there. And I think this sort of CNO role, which is all about bringing about a sort of a shift in emphasis, a shift in thinking within the organization and within individuals, I think there's a role for that now.

I totally agree. And we were delighted that you produced a licensed networker program for SocialTown platform. And users or companies listening who have access should check out the licensed networker program that Kingsley's developed. There's two programs, one for the individual, one for. One for the leader. The leader to actually develop in her team a culture of networking and for the individual to be a licensed networker. And the angle that hit me first, because I was talking to some friends of mine in the recruiting industry and we were talking about the challenge of internal mobility in an organization because obviously, you know, we all know being networks to get a new job externally is a big important thing. And, you know, there's been this common belief that, you know, the people who are best networked get the best jobs, but internally hadn't really hit me the challenge that a lot of, again, I did example of a good friend who runs executive recruiting for a very large tech company. And he took on the role just about maybe a year ago, and he shared with me his insight that he believed half of the roles he was hiring for externally, for these senior exec roles should be filled internally. But there just wasn't visibility by the senior leaders of who else worked in the company because there wasn't a culture of networking and, you know, not only the money that could be saved in external fees and to hire somebody and the work and the effort, the people who are lost because they couldn't find an internal opportunity. There's so much evidence that internal talent, you know, is a lower cost, lower risk of retention, of attrition, and performs better, all these benefits. But it all came down to networking. It wasn't the case that we don't have the skills in our organization. It wasn't the case of we. We, you know, we don't have the right software to identify them. It was down to leaders going, I don't know anyone outside my. My team. I don't know anyone outside this business. And I just hadn't really thought of it in the importance of a, let's say, internal mobility and recruiting that it's just such an obstacle that people don't think about. They just buy software to go, well, we'll just post all the ads and that'll work. Then people know there's jobs internally. Just doesn't work, does it?

No. I mean, I think I'm smiling as I think back to my. My parents who, when I was leaving college, I got the classic piece of advice starting my first job. Work hard, keep your head down, and keep out of trouble. Okay? And, you know, the attitude was that if you just work hard and if you do a super job, we really perform out, deliver, perform on your job, and let your work speak for itself. But there's an inherent problem with that, Johnny. Work doesn't speak. People speak. And there is this assumption that just doing a great job will make you sore. I often talk in my networking courses about Harvey Coleman, who has this pie theory that how well you do Your job contributes 10% to career progress, which sounds ridiculous, but he says, look, doing a great job is mandatory. It's the minimum. You get paid on performance. You get promoted on what other people think of your potential. Now he's introducing these pesky two little words, other people. I often think of that quota that says, if Hewlett Packard knew what Hewlett Packard knows, it'd be a fantastic company. In other words, there's such talent internally in Hewlett Packard, but it's kind of lost in there. And this could apply. I'm not picking on Hewlett Packard. Could apply to anybody. And I'm a fan of Carla Harris, who was the. She was 35 years in Wall street with Morgan Stanley. And I always remember the one particular line she said. She said, you gotta always remember something, that every major decision about you, your career, your compensation, the next project you take on would be taken by a group of people sitting in a room, and you won't be in that room. So what she's saying is you need three types of people internally in the organization to help you. One is an advisor who helps you technically with your job. The second is a mentor who gives you the kind of the good, the bad and the ugly about what's going on, et cetera. But the third one is the most important one, and that's a sponsor. She says a mentor talks to you, a sponsor talks about you. So that when your name is mentioned in that room that you're not in and nobody knows you, nobody's ever seen you in action, nobody's ever seen you deliver, nobody's ever seen you speak, nobody's ever seen you in meetings, nobody's going to speak up. Now, again, these are the unwritten rules of career progress and networking, which don't get taught. And people often have to learn the hard way. And the hard way is seeing somebody else get promoted over you, and you don't think they're as good as their, you know, other people might think.

I love that. I love. In the article, you made reference to going back to opportunities. Opportunities, I think you said, are attached to people always. There's no single opportunity that's not attached to a person. So people who are looking for opportunities, you're actually not looking for opportunities, looking for people who then have opportunities. And that is critical. I think that's really, really important. I just love that analogy. Just to make people see the importance in every aspect of networking.

Yeah, opportunities don't float around on clouds. You know, they're attached to people. If you're looking for an opportunity, you're really looking for a person. You're absolutely right. And, you know, you mentioned at the top of the hour that networking is great for doing this, that and the other. And of course it is. And it's very good. And, you know, personal benefits and corporate benefits. But what I find really interesting is that research shows that people who have strong and diverse networks live longer, are stronger mentally and physically earn more money, and are happier. And I also think that the antidote to probably the greatest crisis of our generation, which is loneliness. And you mentioned you and your five mates going out last night. I mean, I think the world is getting lonelier and lonelier and bizarrely, technology which was designed to bring us all together is actually having the opposite effect. It's forcing us all to spend time on our own in front of a screen. And back to the quote you said at the beginning of the program.

Well, let's go back to this Chief Networking Officer. So if, let's say we have this person in our business, right, large enterprise, we've appointed chief networking officer. What is she doing day to day? What are the initiatives she's kicking off? What's she responsible for? How do you measure success? How does a chief network officer go about her job?

Okay, so it is about a culture shift. So they've got to, it's got to come, by the way, it's got to come from the top. The top have to say, look, networking is really important, but it's not an aspirational thing. This is actually we're going to put in place a program that for the corporation, but also for every individual in that company has to have a personal networking plan. So part of that will be the teaching and training dimension of it. But also it should be a KPI. It generally isn't, you know, so it should be part and parcel of how you're rewarded, compensated, assessed for the work that you do. I think that companies should consider, and some of them are doing this and one in particular does it brilliantly. Building an alumni network. The people who used to work in the company and have left. Now, as you probably know, Johnny, the company who's done this incredibly is McKinsey. So 30,000 people in their alumni network, people who used to work for McKinley. As you know, McKinsey, it's up or out and only one in about 25 make partner. If you don't make it, you have to move out. But what they say is we're going to help you get your next job. We're going to keep in touch with you. If you Change your job 20 years from now, we tell everybody in our network, 30,000 people globally in positions of affluence and influence are engaged still with that company and lots of other companies now are beginning to explore that whole area. So again, that would be an interesting sort of job that the, that the CNO could sort of put in place those sorts of structures. So I think it is the teaching and training, I think it is the attitudinal Thing I think it is, it is also another thing which is the whole area of referrals. It's extraordinary how few people are good at getting referrals or how often people just don't ask for referrals. They don't ask their best client for whom they've done a super piece of work. Who do you think we should call? Who could you introduce me to? Because when you get introductions at that level, it's like having a passport on a border. It's. I mean, it gets you at a whole other level. So I think those sorts of things should be part of people's job specs in a way. And you know, I'm doing that. I'm doing a program with a company now where I have these, what's called monthly metrics. So everybody has to connect with just one dormant connection, somebody they used to know really well in the past and they just lost touch with. You know, everybody has to read one book on networking and we have a book club approach to this. So we all connect online and just discuss the book. You know, everybody has to make an introduction for two other people to meet. So making introductions is a powerful thing. And actually we get a great dopamine hit. When you, when you make a good introduction, you see good things happen. We just get a real buzz out of doing that sort of thing. So there are you series of very practical things so that you can put a metric around it because it is a soft and squishy topic. So you can actually put a metric around that and you can assess that at the end of the month and you can multiply that out for the number of months and then a number of people suddenly, you know, what seems like picking up grains of sand actually becomes bucketful, you know, and, and then when you start sharing that within organizations, I think it's fascinating then and people really buy into it.

You mentioned a few other, I thought, very interesting things such as, you know, coffee roulette. It's simple application in a virtual world to try and drive internal networking to create more serendipity, which is perhaps missing from our, our virtual working environment as well. And you talked about obviously the importance of, you know, maybe even recruiting for networking as a skill and trying to assess that. And I thought it was really interesting. And you know, this idea that, that you proposed Kingsley, where you know, the CNO would drive recruiting as a skill you hire for that you try and look at someone's network and as a, as a, as a, as a, as a benefit, a plus when you're hiring them in. How do you balance that with obviously the challenge from an organizational point of view of bringing diverse talent, sometimes individuals to be marginalized may not be as, well, networked. And how do you measure if a network is good? Is it a. Back to the first article. Is it a number thing, a quality thing? So love the idea. I just want to tease there to go like, how would that work? How would we bring networking in as a recruiting requirement that we want to try and find people who are networked? Or is that what you were getting at?

Yeah, I often think we mix up networking and sociability. We tend to think that the most sociable person is by definition the best networker. And in fact, here's what often surprises people. Introverts. And about a third of any group is probably introvert. On that side of the spectrum, introverts can be better at networking than extras. And that sounds a bit odd, but what I mean by that is that introverts, you know, they listen, they ask questions, you know, they give you totally focused attention. The extroverts trying to wow you, trying to, you know, look for somebody, look over your shoulder, find somebody more interested to talk to. It's all about me, me, me. It's all about them. So actually I find when I talk that kind of language, you can nearly see people saying, you know what? That's interesting, I'm an introvert. But I never thought that actually I could be pretty good at this stuff because. Because they do it with decency, sincerity, authenticity and integrity. All those things, you know, that the extrovert doesn't really have. So I think that, you know, and you can get away from that numbers game. You know, in other words, for some reason somebody with a lot of contacts is more valuable than somebody who's only got a smaller group of contacts. And that goes back to the point at the very top of the program, which is, you know, it is about quality rather than quantity. That's not about, you know, having, you know, electronic yellow pages. You know, there's a great, there was a great British anthropologist, Scottish anthropologist called, and called Robin Dunbar. You might have heard of Dunbar's number and Dunbar's number. He, he's an Oxford professor. He went back through chimpanzees and apes and, and Indians, tribes and all sorts of things. And he says the Mac, the maximum number of people you can have in your network is 150. It's not like 8,000, you know, it's just 150, including friends and family. Because up here he Says hasn't changed cognitively in a billion years. Technology is changing every few years, but you cannot have thousands of close bosom buddies. You just can't, you know, so you just don't have the bandwidth. So I think that that's kind of reassuring in a way. I. One of the things, you know, there's a process around networking that I get into in the courses, and one of the things is, you know, you have to ask yourself a question about your network. And the question is, is it good enough for where I want to be in the next few years? And, you know, what do I need to do now to get ready for this kind of post Covid phase? And I have a network, but is it the right one? And the only way you'll be able to answer that question is actually to physically audit your network. In other words, to kind of print it off and divide it. Now, I've got this pyramid idea. You divide into four categories. At the bottom is a contact, which is a name on your network. And for the life of you, you can't remember who they are. You must have met them at a cocktail party, on a flight, at a party, at a rugby match, whatever it is, you know, very, very weak. But moving up the pyramid, the next level is a connection. You know them, they know you. You're not doing anything together. But there's an element of familiarity. You know, if you call them, they know who you are. Vice versa. That's better. And then moving up again is. I call it a relationship. So you know each other, you like each other, you're doing business with each other, and you trust each other. And this whole area of trust is fascinating because, you know, the Adelman Annual Trust survey comes out every year globally and says that trust now in four institutions, government, nonprofit, media, and business, is at its lowest level in recorded history. So we're living in a very distrustful world at the moment. But I mean, trusting somebody is really important. And, you know, you don't meet somebody today and trust them tomorrow. Trust takes a lot of time, and it's doing what you say you're going to do over and over again. And then at the very top of the pyramid. And I call it. I call it a friend. People I work with are friends. I have friends who are friends, but I don't have many because my definition at this level of my network is somebody I could call on their cell phone on a Sunday afternoon. I wouldn't do that to many people. The sort of people you would turn to if you had a Bit of a personal crisis going on. So that's the useful exercise that everybody can do. Because when you start, you know, auditing your network, you're going to realize some things. You've got a load of useless people on your network. Get rid of them. Like I'm thinking about, you know, in my case, I had a dry cleaners in Boston or Chinese takeaway in Sydney. I don't need them, I'm not going to be there. So get rid of them. You'll also realize you've got some gaps in your network. So there's a little exercise. I don't know anybody aircraft leasing or tourism or reinsurance. So, you know, I can work to fill those gaps. And then the third one is I had some great connections in the past, but I've completely lost touch with them. Nothing happened. I didn't have a fight or row or dispute, but just, you know, life got in the way. I went this way, they went that way. So what I was doing under Covid, I made over 80 phone calls to people or emails to people that I used to know really well. Lost touch with. Haven't seen them for five, ten, maybe longer years. But I've reconnected with these people and it's been fascinating because not only have I moved on, they've moved on and picked up where I left off. And it was really great. So I think they're the little hidden gems we all have in our network, which is what we call these dormant connections. So it is a little bit of process. You can get people. So the networking officers, he can serve, he or she can serve. Start imbuing this approach to it and this notion that, you know, if you're an introvert even, you know, you can still be good at this stuff.

I love that. It reminds me just your dumbar number as well, of two good friends of mine, the Mescal's. I'm talking about you. They joke about having a book and they say the book is full. The book is the friends and the people they socialize with. There's only so much capacity. And you know, if they're going to take on new friends they have, someone's gonna have to leave the book, right, and use this joke. But they're unbelievably social people and they meet lots of people. But I go back to your point at the start, which is that ordinarily what we do is we do have a book and we swap names out, but actually in the last two years our books have just shrunk. They haven't we haven't had the opportunity to swap them out. And as we're, I think in most parts of the world, we're going back out there. Like in Ireland, we removed a lot of our restrictions, most of the restrictions a week and a half ago. In France, it happens next week on Monday. I think in Germany around the same time frame, you know, where mass restrictions are gone and basically large public gatherings are. I anticipate going to just become more regular again. I know we talked before we went live today about going out to different events. You said you've done two or four events in the last few weeks. I'm doing an event tomorrow in person. My first time speaking in front of an actual public audience in two years. And this is beginning to happen again. So I think we're, you know, I hope we're going to get back out there and all of us begin doing old fashioned networking again. What are your tips though? If somebody hasn't done it in a while or maybe you've never had this experience. You joined the workplace two years ago and you've just never had this and now you're being asked to go out to do this. What are your tips? I love the kind of introvert versus extrovert idea to give introverts more confidence. But what else have you found in your career? Talking to lots of people about networking. What helps people who are a bit fearful, who have this idea of I'm going to walk into a room, I have to talk to strangers, it's going to be a nightmare. What are some good ideas and tips you could share with our audience around that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a guy called Andy Lapata wrote a book called and Death came third and a big survey he did. People's Greatest Fears in Life. The third greatest fear was death. The second greatest fear was walking into a room where you know nobody. And then as you probably know, people's greatest fear in life is public speaking. So kind of put things in perspective a little bit. So like, you know, I believe life is a game of inches. Small incremental shifts, not massive, big things. Massive. Because small incremental shifts can have enormous difference going 51% of the way rather than 49% of the way. So I think as we sort of gingerly push ourselves out there, I think firstly we're gonna, we're gonna discover that there's thousands and thousands like us. You know, I mentioned before the program that, you know, the hotel I was doing some work in told me that they've now got A whole series of events coming up and the organizers keep ringing saying, no, we don't book. I know we book 20, but we have 40 coming. So there is this hunger, there's this thirst of this desire out there for us to kind of reconnect. I think, you know, it's important that we push ourselves outside our comfort zone a little bit. That we do, I call it seek out unlike minded people. I mean, one of the things I suggest, two little things that people might consider doing. I actually mentor. I mentor a Nigerian lady who's come to live in Ireland and who's incredibly more educated and smarter than I am. And when I pointed that out to her, she said, no, you don't understand. She said, I've got a PhD and all that stuff, but I don't know anybody. And that's what I've been helping her. I've been bringing her to events. The Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Directors, the iibn, the Irish International Business Network. There are these organizations out there that you can join and there's just a huge desire for people to belong them. I also have two reverse mentors, Johnny. I don't know if you've been involved with that at all, which is two people in their 20s and they mentor me because I want to understand what's going on and to see the world from their perspective and to sort of step into their shoes a little bit. So I think there's a whole series of small little things we can do with nothing major. Just get, get out there and you know, I think you'll find that there's such a, such a desire out there that everybody's going to be very responsive to each other because we've been, we've been locked away literally for two years. And you know what's missing in our lives? A sense of adventure. Absolutely. Sense of adventure, sense of fun. The days have all morphed into each other. They all seem the same. You know, we're stuck in our houses and all that kind of stuff. I've got a kid working in the over on the continent, sitting on the end of her bed for a company she's never seen, for people she's never met. I mean, that's not a natural thing. And I do feel for the younger generation because they don't have fancy cabins out in the back garden or any of that kind of stuff. They're just hanging on. And I think there's a price, quite a price to be paid for that.

You're right. And you mentioned something there. I know Dan Pink wrote about this when he said selling is human in his book years ago, he talked about finding uncommon commonalities and that that's how we typically find foreign bonds. So, you know, two Irish people in an Irish pub in Dublin meeting, you know, I'm going to talk about being Irish, but two Irish people meeting in a pub in, you know, the back arts of Tanzania would tend to find, you know, friendship because it's an uncommon commonality to be Irish, perhaps there and meeting and, you know, you know, when I think of networking and when I've had to go back and, you know, my early days of networking, I saw people who were what I would call false and fake. They would network how, how they think they should and talk about the things they should talk about. And I've always felt that if you talk about something you're interested in or find something about. Sorry, more importantly, find something that somebody else is interested in and talk about that. You may be there to do business, but that's not the point. Somebody might want to talk about their kids, their favorite sports team, their TV show, they're enjoying, a movie they saw last night. You'll bond over that and try and talk about interesting things that both you find interesting as opposed to trying to force the conversation around. What did you think of the second speaker? Or what are your thoughts on the economics of xyz? Which I didn't know. It just doesn't work. It never works, has it?

No. And I think I've written this publication that people are welcome to called 50 Networking Tips. And it's lots of small little things, as I said, the grains of sand idea. And I'll give you three very quickly. One is always try to remember something small about people, some small bit of trivia about their background, where they're from, or something about their kids or something about their sports or their favorite food or holiday destination. And when you repeat that back to them maybe a year or two later, they think, wow, you listened, which is the number one skill in networking. You cared. And you remember that. That's fantastic. I always try to pick up one small little fact about people. The second thing is, never leave thank you naked. In other words, don't say, thanks, Johnny, but say, thanks for having me on your program, Johnny. Thanks for making that introduction, Johnny. Thank you for something. Because otherwise it's just a generic throwaway line that doesn't mean anything, but make it precise. And the third one is. And I've actually. I've actually what? I actually do this. I do it nearly every Day I write handwritten notes to people. I have a card which has got, you know, details of the. Just a nice looking cardboard card and an envelope with our name on it. That's all my name on it. And I write a note, I just write a note, say, listen, thanks Johnny, it's great to be on your show today and you know, look forward to whatever. And I stick it on and it's really old fashioned Dickensian stuff. I have a, I have a calligraphy pen and ink, you know, and I've learned a little bit how to make nicer letters and I sent, put that in the mail to people and you know what? It's the only one they'll ever get. Nobody writes them. So you know, it's a small, tiny little thing. But actually it makes a difference, you.

Know that kind of, especially in a world where we have been so virtual to get something physical because you don't get those things anymore. It just, that physicality just really breeds connection. And I know you're a man of your word. I remember a phone call we had last year and we hadn't spoken in a while and we came onto the call and the first thing you said to me, Kingsley, was how are your four boys? And it did stand out because we all, we all like to feel like someone is making us feel important because they have remembered something about us they've done. You know, that's such a, it's a small thing but that's going to have huge significance to people. So thank you. I know that on the website you have tons of these tips and can download these 50 tips and more. Just a quick reminder, where can people find out more about your business, the work you do, the tips and resources you have available. The Networking Institute. Is that NetworkingInstitute IE or what's the website?

Yeah, dot com and, and I put lots of little videos up on LinkedIn. There'll be another one next week on, on the CNO concept. So there's yeah, lots of stuff there. Or just ping me an email kingsleynetworkinginstitute.com and you know, always happy to chat to people. I love to get people's, other people's ideas on this.

We got Anita Lahoff who's put in a note from quite some, some time ago as we were live, just reminding me of one of your quotes. You know, it's not who you know, it's who knows you. Which I think that was something that really stuck with me many years ago when I heard you talking about that because.

It'S not, it's not. It's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who they know. In other words, you know, that's a powerful thing. Who do they know? Because that's. Because the three great questions to always know when you meet anybody. The first question is, what can I do for you? Most people think networking is about you, what can you do for me? But when you reverse that, I think that's wonderfully powerful. The second question is, you know, if you were me, what would you do? So what you're doing is paying respect and deference to somebody's wisdom. You're asking for advice, which is people love giving. It's free, and that's great. And you have to listen, which is the number one skill in networking. And then the third question, which is kind of the gold dust question, is who do you know who lives in Brisbane, works in aircraft? So what you're really saying, are you willing to put your name and reputation on the line to make an introduction for me? Because having an introduction is, like I said earlier, having a passport at the border, that's so powerful if somebody's willing to do that. You know, I sometimes cheesily sum up the whole networking thing is what you're trying to do is to replace cold calls with hot coffees, you know, and that's what you're trying to do.

I love that I talk to some of our, our team here about this, that one of the best. One of the most significant ways I help our, our customers is not by instilling my advice or knowledge. I connect them to the people who know more than me. And, you know, it's. I, I personally invest a huge amount of time in trying to build that network, that diverse network, because I see the power. It's like I don't have the answers. None of us have the answers to all the problems. But you know what? The broader and more diverse network we have, we're probably connected to somebody who does and the value that brings to somebody else, because I've been the recipient of that, where someone has connected me to somebody who has enormous value. And I find people. I'm sure you do yourself, Kingsley. They're very giving of their time. If they're introduced through somebody who's a contact, even if they're maybe level three or four in your, the hierarchy you mentioned earlier on, it doesn't really matter. You can ask and you will get the help as long as you're going to also probably reciprocate at some point. Not Necessarily to that person, but to somebody in the future.

Absolutely. Totally agree. I mean, and just get out there and do it.

So I'm going to ask, as we wrap up, Kingsley, just get out there and do it Might be the final piece of advice. Perhaps you could leave us with one more. We ask every guest, as you know, at the end of the shortness, to leave us with one piece of advice to our audience to take away from the day. What would that piece of advice for our audience today be from you?

So I'm a great believer in what I call funnels of serendipity. How random chance can change your life, how luck and serendipity can change your life. So I don't see it as like a bolt of lightning from the blue or winning the lottery. I just see luck, chance. Serendipity is like a gentle wind that's always at your back and actually you can grab it and make it happen for you. But here's the thing, Johnny, serendipity, chance, luck don't happen when you're lying in bed or sitting at your desk. They happen when you're out and about, when you put your talents on display. You know, when you talk to strangers, when you get opportunity to speak or to write or to blog. I mean, when you develop a little bit of an online presence, when you do all that kind of stuff, I think luck enters into your life. I see. I think planning gets you to the tip of the iceberg. I think serendipity, luck and chance gets you to the much larger piece which is under the water. And so, you know, I have so many examples in my own life of just serendipitous occasions. When I arrived in Australia, I didn't know a single person. I rang one name my mum had given me from a neighbor's son. I met him. I said, can you introduce me to the local Irish business network? And he said, there isn't one. I said, well, why don't we set one up? So we set it up. We called it the Lansdowne Road Club because we both played rugby. We had 12 people attended dinner. Next week it'll be held. It'll be the largest St. Patrick's Day lunch in the world. Nearly 2,000 people. It just grew and grew and grew. And we dropped the road in the spirit of sporting ecumenism because there was lots of other people from different sports scenarios. Lansdowne Club became just this extraordinary network. And actually, you know, I was trying to find somebody who would be the head of this, but Just a titular head, just a big name. And back then I'm showing my age now. The great Irish name in business around the world is a guy called Tony O'Reilly, head of the H.J. heinz Food Company. I wrote him a letter. Me, a little old nobody like me. I wrote him a letter and asked him to head it up. He wrote back and he said three things. He said, love what you're doing, building networks around the world of Irish people in business. Big fan of that. He said, I'm buying newspapers in Australia. I'm going to be there in six weeks. And then thirdly, I couldn't believe this. He said, would you be free to eat for lunch? I was going to write back and say, nah, I'm busy. But actually I said, I'd love to meet you for lunch. I met him for lunch. I worked for him for 21 years. So let serendipity, luck and chance make them work for you.

I love that. Kingsley, thank you so much for taking your time out on this Wednesday afternoon. Wet, cold Wednesday afternoon here in Dublin. It's been absolute pleasure. We have tons of comments coming in just echoing that sentiment, saying, you know, thanks a lot for sharing your insight, love the session, etc. So really, really appreciate your time, Kingsley. I look forward to having on again soon.

Thanks, Johnny.

Take care and thank you all for listening. We're going to be back next, not next week, because next week is St Patrick's Day, which is what Kingsley was referring to with that huge lunch that's been put on. Big, big week. We've got a couple of public holidays, so we're going to take a break here at the Shortlist and we'll be back on March 23rd with Mo Abdullah, who's the CEO and founder of Culture Energized LLC. I'm really looking forward to having Mo on the show in two weeks and hopefully you will do as well. We'll put out some more notes about the show and what we're going to be discussing a little bit closer to the time. So check out LinkedIn and YouTube for that. And that's going to be Wednesday, 23rd of March, 4pm UK time. And that will be actually a little later in the US because our time zones are a bit off. So it's going to be about 12pm on the East coast and about 9am on the west coast. So an hour later than usual and then we'll go back to normal the following week when the time zones align. If you want to find out more with the podcast, check out our back catalog. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify. Wherever you find your podcasts. Check out our live broadcasts on The Social Talent YouTube channel and my personal profile, Johnny Campbell on LinkedIn. But until then, have a great St. Patrick's Day next week. Wherever you are around the world. Don't forget Kingsley's advice on networking. You should start networking today and no better chance than next week to celebrate the Irish Day around the world. We'll see you in two weeks. Take care.

Sa.