This guide to networking by Misner, the founder and chairman of BNI (Business Network International), is an invaluable roadmap for businesspeople seeking to develop or fine-tune a necessary and often overlooked skill. Misner and Donovan’s title stems from a study that spawned the six degrees of separation theory, which actually revealed that only 29% of the population is connected to this extent.
The authors say that despite its proven necessity, networking is scarcely taught in business schools, and their self-study course aims to fill the void with a self-assessment test and 52 weeks of assignments to beef up networking skills. Accessible and smartly structured chapters include action items and helpful tidbits like worksheets, assessments and questions to help readers schedule their networking from day to day and over the course of a career, from setting preliminary goals to becoming a Networking Mentor. While readers might not be able to make it into the exclusive ranks of the highly connected 29%, they will assuredly derive new tactics, tools and motivation.
The authors start out with the premise that although networking is proven to be valuable in business, it is still rarely taught in business schools. The book begins with a self-analysis test to help determine one’s networking skills. Topics and assignments are broken down into 52 weeks, with spaces in some of the chapters for you to write in the book as you do that week’s assignment. (Not every week has a writing area, so you may want to keep a separate notebook or keep notes and action steps on a Blackberry/PDA.)
This book charts out one of the simplest game plans for success that seen in quite awhile. It is not all new knowledge, but it is all in one place, so you can check off your progress and see what the next step is for growing your skills and your business. The plan is simple, but not always easy. As the authors say, it’s netWORKing, not netEATing or netSITTing.
Topics included may require major changes or just minor tweaks to a person’s life. Examples are: being accountable to a group, writing thank you notes, being engaging, writing a press release, getting and giving referrals, following up, being a change agent, becoming an expert, and more.
Recommended for complete wallflowers and introverts who may even know but don’t ever DO. It’s also good for extroverts and “self-made” individuals who think they are the best networkers in the world but who need refinement and more focus on others than just their own abilities and personality.
Related Books:
- Head First Networking: Al Anderson
- Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (5th Edition) : James F. Kurose, Keith W. Ross
- Networking Bible : Barrie Sosinsky
- Guide to Networking Essentials : Greg Tomsho
- Kaplan NCLEX-RN Exam 2010 with CD-ROM: Strategies for the Registered Nursing Licensing Exam – By Barbara Irwin
- Outliers: The Story of Success : Malcolm Gladwell
- Business Law: Text and Cases (West’s Business Law) : Kenneth W. Clarkson, Roger LeRoy Miller, Gaylord A. Jentz, Frank B. Cross
- Saunders Student Nurse Planner: A Guide to Success in Nursing School
