It is a bittersweet time when you decide to close a company that you have built over decades. We have had an amazing partnership and created so many great memories doing this fun and rewarding job. We’ve definitely had our share of adventures—travelling to places big and small, speaking at hundreds of conferences, meeting new […]
We are all more connected than we think. When we wrote “The Frog and Prince: Secrets of Positive Networking” we began with The John Hunter Story because John was just a regular guy, but he was a good networker. It is a classic networking success story. The subsequent reprinting our book as “Work the Pond: […]
Most of us don’t regularly do a ‘health check’ of our professional business network. Perhaps it’s time to ask yourself does my network need a tune up? This handy checklist can help. My Network Health Checkup Ask yourself these questions about your network: Is my network stagnant or has it diminished in size*? *It is estimated that during […]
Schmoozing is not a word with a good vibe. It’s best defined as talking to another person in a business or social situation in a not particularly genuine way and often with a manipulative twist. The sad fact is that this kind of networking and schmoozing have gone hand-in-hand for as long as name tags and […]
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn says in Connections with Integrity, “One way to help nurture good alliances is to provide early and explicit signs of your own commitment, showing people that you actually care about helping them. My name for this practice is the ‘theory of small gifts’, small ways to invest in a relationship […]
Do employees need to be in the office or not? This is not an article discussing the pros and cons of the new workplace reality. The hybrid-work world is still a work in progress. But since most companies still have people working in the office some of the time, it creates an opportunity for those […]
“A person’s weakest ties were the most helpful for career advancement.” We all know that our strong ties, our family, and close friends are valuable members of our network. They are the trusted advisors we rely on for advice and support. But many people don’t know that weak ties—those mere acquaintances we have in our […]
The Power of Reconnection – How Dormant Ties Can Surprise You was the eye-catching title of an article in the MIT Sloan Management Review. Many people assume that a connection which has been ignored for years is a dead connection. The article, based on research by Daniel Z. Levin, Jorge Walter, and J. Keith Murnighan, says […]
Have you ever had these conversational experiences? We all know that it is important to make a great first impression when starting a conversation, whether it is the first time you are meeting, or someone you talk to regularly. It is equally, and some research says it is even more important, how you end a conversation. Yes, how […]