Networking Doesn’t Have to Be a Drag

NICOLE TORRES: I just stopped calling it networking, like I, the term “networking” to me still feels so like icky, and it just feels transactional, and it’s all about like what you’re trying to get out of talking to people. Whereas I think I just naturally like, like I’m very curious about other people. I like meeting people. Like, I like those events where you’re forced to mingle and be social and talk about whatever you’re working on, or whatever you feel like. But I cannot call that networking, and if something is like billed a networking event, like I can’t go. I feel like there’s so much pressure to say the right things when it’s described as networking, versus when it’s just, go meet someone and have an interesting conversation.

AMY BERNSTEIN: To walk out with X number of business cards.

AMY GALLO: Yes. That I leave in a pile on my desk that’s never been dealt with. Right?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, it’s kind of the kind of cognitive dissonance of LinkedIn for me. Is the bigger my network gets, the less linked in I feel to it. [LAUGHTER]

You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein.

NICOLE TORRES: I’m Nicole Torres.

AMY GALLO: And I’m Amy Gallo. This episode we’re talking about how to build relationships that benefit our careers, in a way that doesn’t feel icky or transactional.

NICOLE TORRES: And yes, we will be calling it networking.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Our guest is Inga Carboni. She’s a professor at William and Mary’s Mason School of Business. And she’s the author of the book Connect the Dots. She’s an expert on networks, and like us, she’s not really into networking events and the whole business card exchange. But she is into helping women build strong networks in more effective ways. She’s seen what can happen when we don’t do that.

INGA CARBONI: It always seemed to me that the people who were rising through the organizations weren’t necessarily the most skillful, and I would often see that in small subtle ways they were getting advantages over some of the women that I worked with.

AMY GALLO: In other words, she saw less competent men becoming leaders because they had connections. But she also saw women becoming leaders, and she wanted to know what these female leaders were doing differently, from men and from other women. So, Inga and her researcher partner, Rob Cross, analyzed networks within 30 organizations, about 16,000 people in total, to map who was connected to whom and how. And then they interviewed hundreds of female executives about their networks.

NICOLE TORRES: Inga’s here to talk about the important gender difference they found, and what the women who were successful at networking had in common.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, and it’s just Nicole and I interviewing Inga. Amy G. will be back later in the episode. Inga, thanks for joining us.

INGA CARBONI: Hi. Thanks for having me.

NICOLE TORRES: Tell us a little bit about what you found. You know, I’m curious what a strong network looks like. So how do you define or characterize how you have really strong connections? What did that look like in your research?

INGA CARBONI: Well, in my research, one of the key aspects of that was, did you have a lot of what we call boundary-spanning relationships? And so these are people who don’t necessarily look like you, and they aren’t embedded in the close group of people that you spend time with, maybe in your function or your unit, or even among your friendship set, but other, in different pockets of the organization or industry.

NICOLE TORRES: So, is just having a lot of connections and relationships with people in lots of different areas, is that what a strong network is?

INGA CARBONI: A strong network is more than just boundary spanning, and there were other aspects of that that emerged from the research, but boundary spanning is an important part. If you are connecting to those diverse pockets of the organization or the industry, you’re getting slightly different perspectives on the work that you’re doing and the problem domains that you’re involved with, and those different diverse perspectives make you more able to see a problem holistically, to maybe make a higher-quality decision. You also are in touch with new information. You’re getting new perspectives all the time, so you’re hearing new things. Research goes back, say, decades on the value of this position, and we know that people who have more boundary spanning in their networks, they get more job opportunities. They get promoted faster. They make more money. They’re more likely to be involved in innovation. They’re more likely to be tapped as top talent. It’s a big differentiator when it comes to performance. But I know from other research, including some of the research we did on this project, that women experience that role very differently, that this boundary spanning causes more problems. It poses more challenges, maybe is a better way to put it, for women than it does, than it seems to for men.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Can you just help us understand what some of those challenges are?

INGA CARBONI: Sure. One of the big things that came out in our research was this feel of inauthenticity. Women were saying things like, well, being proactive in that way, sort of reaching out and connecting with new people sort of felt wrong. They felt like they were using people, and they were being manipulative. There’s other research that other people have done that says, when we sort of look at the reasons why we network, it’s something very hard for us to think that we’re doing it out of altruistic reasons, especially in the professional realm. We sometimes think, well, we must be doing it to be very selfish, or very manipulative. Right? I just want to connect with somebody to get something from them. The problem is that if we let relationships drift and just emerge organically, we tend to hang out with people who are like us. And for women, that’s a big disadvantage. So probably some of the feelings about it feeling wrong and it feeling like you’re using people I think were heightened for women. And I suspect that has a lot to do with the pressure we put on ourselves to be very relational. I think there was also a feeling of bothering people. I heard that from a lot of women: I don’t want to bother anybody; I don’t want to suggest we get to coffee or have a chat or have a meeting. They would talk about, you know, I just don’t want to bother them.

NICOLE TORRES: I’m just curious, though, did you have any stories where there were women like that with those fears or concerns, and they overcame that and became better networkers?

INGA CARBONI: I did talk to one woman who said that she had a moment in her career where, like a lot of the other women that I saw at lower levels who really liked hanging out in groups, you know, they would socialize with sort of the same people, and they’d go after work and hang out, and really didn’t stretch too far out of their comfort zone when it came to the people that they were connecting with, and she said, when I look back on the earlier part of my career, that is exactly what I did. And she said, she realized at one point, and it was when she saw herself passed over for a promotion, that she needed to change the way she was doing things. And then she got very thoughtful and strategic about it. And she still had good friends, and she still kept a lot of those friends. But in terms of being more thoughtful and more strategic about how she was building her network and how she was facilitating interactions in that network, that was what took her to the next level.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. I’m always curious about those points where something will change your thinking or force you to act differently.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, you’ve also said that women who do a good job of networking are efficient.

INGA CARBONI: Mm hm.

AMY BERNSTEIN: What do you mean by that?

INGA CARBONI: Yeah. So, this is delving into some of the work of my collaborator, Rob Cross, around collaborative efficiency. And it’s based on this idea that we are constantly collaborating at work. And his research has uncovered that we are often on collaborative overload. And learning how to have efficiency in those interactions so that our network supports us and doesn’t drag us down is very important. When you ask people, who do you seek for advice, women were much more likely to be sought for advice, but they were less likely to seek advice. So that puts them at risk for collaborative overload. Right? A lot of people are asking them for favors and for, to help them out with things and to give them information and advice about stuff. Almost every woman I interviewed, when I asked them if there was a downside to saying no to a request for their time, said, I’d feel bad. And no man said that.

NICOLE TORRES: Wow.

INGA CARBONI: Yeah, it was a huge difference.

NICOLE TORRES: So, can you tell us about the women who collaborated well, who were efficient collaborators? What did they do? What made them stand out?

INGA CARBONI: Well, a big thing was how they framed collaboration. So more than one woman, but one woman said it really clearly when she said, you know, I have learned that when I say yes to one thing, it means I’m saying no to something else. And when she started to frame her responses in that framework, she was able to make better decisions. So, she was able to say yes when she really felt that this would be something that would align with her professional objectives and to be able to say no, and to delegate it out. That was a huge differentiator. Successful women also put a lot more structure in their day, so they weren’t constantly in reactive mode. They set aside, for instance, time for reflection. And that’s really important time. That’s the time when you’re strategizing, when you are envisioning new things, when you’re managing your network and reaching out to relationships that you maybe lost contact with, and women were just not as good at that. But the successful women put in that time for reflection. They were better at seeding relationships, so connecting with people long in advance of actually needing a relationship, and that led to when they actually needed help, or they wanted to take requests to them and suggest that somebody else might be a better person to talk to, they had those available to them.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It sounds as if nimbleness, another of the traits that you’ve noticed in successful female networkers, is connected to this idea of efficiency. Talk to us about nimbleness.

INGA CARBONI: Yeah, it turns out that women are more likely to form and stay in relationships with other women than are men likely to stay with relationships with men. Not only that, but the women’s relationships get stronger and more mutual over time. Compare that to a man, who more typically will move in and out of relationships, build up new relationships, has a lot more of what we call network churn, which is not a turnover of those core, closest people to you, the ones that are really your trusted sort of, you know, personal board of directors kind of thing, but the, you know other hundred people in your life. And we found that women were much more likely to keep the same people in those networks, whereas men were churning those networks. And that’s what leads to nimbleness. And if you’re working on projects that require you to be really nimble and really agile and really responsive, if you’ve got a network that’s very dynamic at the same time, where you’re learning how to move people in and out of your active network, you’re going to be able to respond better. So, the stickiness was preventing women from being nimble.

Now, there’s a positive side to the stickiness, too. The positive side was that women were much better than men at building strong external networks. That’s a real strength, and it helps them, opens them up for job opportunities. I know some organizations are taking advantage of this and are creating interorganizational mentorship opportunities, which has been fabulous for women. And other organizations are also leveraging this by starting up alumni networks where you’re able to get your personal brand out there as an organization. You can use it as a recruitment tool. People boomerang it back and forth.

But you’re absolutely right about the nimbleness. And it has a lot to do with the more agile dynamic form that men tend to have, and the stickier, more, I guess more static version that women tend to have.

AMY BERNSTEIN: How do you, you know, respectfully deemphasize the old connections? [LAUGHTER] What is a not horrible way to cut ties? You don’t want to ghost someone. Right?

INGA CARBONI: No, no. And that’s not at all what I mean. I’m not talking about like, you know, saying, yeah, ghosting someone or not picking up the phone or taking the other pathway down the hallway so you don’t have to bump into somebody. I think it’s more about being open to meeting new people, avoiding that really comfortable tendency of wanting to do things with the people that you’ve been doing stuff with. So, going to the same people for advice, for instance, or going to the same sorts of lunches, or the same after-hours events. I think it’s more reaching out and embracing the new than it is sort of rejecting the old.

NICOLE TORRES: So, as you mentioned, you know, nimble networks, more churn leads to greater energy. Can you just talk a little bit about how energy fits into having a good, strong network, what you saw strong female networkers put out there in terms of their energy?

INGA CARBONI: Yeah. And actually, there’s some really good news about energizing. So, and this is, again, referencing some of Rob’s research, but he’s taken a look at energizers over the last two decades, and he’s found that the extent to which people say that you are a person who leaves me energized and excited after talking with you. Right? So somebody that you want to brainstorm with, somebody that you want to innovate with, someone who really leaves you excited about your work, the more people identified you as that, that was like a four times a higher predictor of any other network aspect. So being that person who pulls people towards you, who energizes other people, has a strong effect on performance. And there it has a strong effect on performance is because you’re pulling talent towards you. You’re pulling ideas towards you.

NICOLE TORRES: But how do you do that? How do you give off that kind of energy to bring people toward you with their ideas and their talent?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Just be magnetic. [LAUGHTER]

INGA CARBONI: Just do it. How tough could it be? Well, one of the easy aspects of it is just to exhibit positivity. Right? We like people who are positive, sort of smile at us and do things like that. But it turns out that men and women need slightly different things. And this might explain a finding that we had that across all these networks that we looked at, that women were more likely to be identified as energizing. They were also more likely to be the people who were deenergizing others.

When we dug into this, and we tried, through the interviews, tried to understand what people meant, what they wanted when they were asking about energizing, we found two very different things. Both people, but more so men, were saying that I want somebody who’s going to be, really knows what they’re talking about, will be able to poke holes in what I’m saying, can pull in their expertise and show me what they’re doing, a person who we refer to as having a lot of competence based trust. Like I trust this person knows what they’re talking about. And that makes me exited that they’re listening to me. So that was important to both men and women, but far more important to men. And what was important to women was having a feeling that somebody cared about what they were saying. One woman, very high-level woman, CEO of a large company, said to me, she turns to her network because they say, it’s OK. You’re doing good. And they need that kind of feedback. And we call that more benevolence-based trust, or this idea of caring.

The bind comes when you’re trying to communicate being energizing to men and women. Right? So, both of them want you to be competent. And the women, also very important that you be caring. But the men are a little less concerned with you being caring, supposedly, for energizing. But I’m sure your listeners are familiar with the tradeoff between being likeable and being competent that women struggle with all the time. So, if they project a little too much warmth and positivity, they may be viewed as less competent. And if they don’t project any warmth and positivity, then they’re often identified as deenergizing. So, it’s a very tricky line.

So, the successful women were very strategic about it. So they would say, I’m going to go into an interaction, and if it’s with a man, I know that I have to lead with my competence, give evidence, tell of times where they had a similar experience, and you know, a very good, nonthreatening way to do that is saying like, well, here’s my experience. I don’t know if it would be relevant to you, but here’s when I dealt with a similar issue. Here’s some findings that I had that might be useful to you. When they’re interacting with women, they need to lead with the warmth. And they have to walk this very tricky line between being sure that they come off as caring, because that would, they don’t want to blow up the gender stereotype and get the backlash of not being nice enough, but they also have to put forward their competence, and they have to adjust that for their audience in a way that men seem not have to do as much.

NICOLE TORRES: So, if you were going to give me advice on how to form relationships that were boundary spanning, what would you tell me to do? How would I start that?

INGA CARBONI: So, when do tell people what to do about that, I start by taking a look at who’s already in their network. And sometimes that alone can be a shock to people when they start to realize, like, wow, everyone in my network is white and in their 20s, and you know, comes from three different colleges or something like that. But I encourage people to take a look at their networks, and then start to look at their similarities among people, and where are there gaps? Where is there underrepresentation? What are you missing in your network? Age, hierarchy. As people get higher in the organization, they often miss having connections with people lower in the organization. And that’s a big gap, when you’re not sure what’s going on for people at different parts of your organization. And when you’re lower, you want to make sure that you have higher as well. So, you want to have vertical spanning. You want to have horizontal spanning.

So now your next step is to figure out, OK, how can I put myself in a position where I’ll be interacting with people who can help fill those gaps? Sometimes you’ll actually know a role, or maybe even a specific person, but often you don’t. I’m very against the whole schmoozing, using kind of impression of networking. I really encourage people to think about building authentic, real relationships. But if you’re waiting for them to occur spontaneously, they’re going to only occur in the places where you tend to be.

One of the most rewarding things that I did as a young faculty member was, I joined a faculty play group, where parents, it was mostly mothers, of tenure track faculty had kids that were all under five. I would never have met people across my university in these different domains if I had not joined that faculty play group. And we were bonding over hanging out with our kids, you know, and then we also got to talking about what it’s like, and since most of us were women, what it’s like to be a woman on tenure track and being a mother. And then I formed some very strong relationships in there. Not with everybody. But with a couple of people who I had some interpersonal chemistry, I guess, with.

NICOLE TORRES: I went to a golf outing once.

INGA CARBONI: Well, do you like golf?

NICOLE TORRES: No. [LAUGHTER] But I met a lot of people outside of my usual day to day.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I did the same one. I went twice. I will not go to a third. [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: It was like a one-time thing.

INGA CARBONI: Well, sometimes people will bond over how much they hate golf, right, when they’re at those kinds of things. I mean, so you know, it drives me nuts when people tell me that they’re going to have to go, they have to go this networking event. You know, they know they’ve got to do more networking. They’re going to go to this networking event. And you know, it’s better than nothing. But it’s really not a great use of your time. And especially if you’re an introvert like me, it’s torture thinking about, you know, what’s my elevator speech, and working a room, and stuff like that. You’re much, much better off taking an activity that already kind of fits into your areas of interest, something that has you working with people to do something, you know, volunteering, if this is, if it fits with you to be on a board of a nonprofit that you are passionate about, or helping with your industry serving on a committee, or serving on a panel, something that puts you interacting with people. It’s really not enough just to go to a conference or something like that, because that’s a very receptive kind of state. It’s not a highly interactive state where people get to learn about each other.

NICOLE TORRES: Inga, this is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Thanks so much, Inga.

INGA CARBONI: Yeah. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

AMY GALLO: I think if I had listened to Inga talk about networking when I was in my 20s, I would have felt sick to my stomach. Like the whole idea of networking was so appalling to me. The fact that you would spend time with someone in order to get something from them seemed just wrong. And I think over time, what I’ve realized is that it’s less about it being transactional, like someday I’ll need something from this person, and more about just trying to find people I like who are in different worlds than I’m in. If I focus on being curious about them, and actually networking with people I like, then it’s much more palatable to me.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I am totally, totally on the same page as that. It’s how I trick myself into walking into a room full of people I don’t know.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I had this moment this past week where I went to a networking event in a hotel. I was there for a conference, and I got ready in my room, and I went down in the elevator. It was on floor two, and then the doors opened, and dinged, and it was this room full of people with drinks. And it was loud, and I really, I was like, how do I press the close door button and get out of here immediately? And then I was like, OK, deep breath. And then I sort of caught eyes with someone who was, I must have had a look on my face, because she was laughing at me. And I was like, alright, here I go. I can find one person in here who probably has an interesting story. And I did find one person and talked to her the whole time. [LAUGHTER] That was my way of dealing.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. I used to have to give myself rules, because I just, I had like that social anxiety when things were described as networking, of going in and like having to meet someone and strike up a conversation. I just could not, I would not be able to do what you did, Amy, and like getting out of an elevator, seeing a room full of people already talking to each other, and trying to figure out how I would break into a conversation. So, I would be the person, like who walks in, like goes straight to the bar, like is on their phone the whole time, and is like looking at the most important email I’ve ever gotten in my life. So, I like realized early on when I started going to conferences that that is not how I meet people. Like I meet people in line for coffee.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Sitting next to them.

NICOLE TORRES: Sitting next to someone. That’s so much easier for me to strike up a conversation and just say, like, how are you enjoying things? Or what are you doing here?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Or what did you think of that last talk?

NICOLE TORRES: What did you think of the last talk? And I started giving myself rules, because I would go to conferences and not talk to anyone. Like I would just leave, and I would feel so disappointed in myself for not being able to—

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, you feel like such a failure.

NICOLE TORRES: I felt like such a failure. I’d be afraid to come back and tell people about the conference, because like the first question you’ll get is, who did you meet? And I wouldn’t have met anyone. So one rule I gave myself was, when I go to a conference, and there are panels and talks or whatever, I always have to go up to someone on that panel afterwards and either say, like, I thought that was great, or can you send me your slides? Or I really loved what you said. I work at HBR. Like, we should talk. And like I’ll give them my card, and kind of leave it at that. But that rules helped me actually start meeting people, and feel better about myself and what I was doing at the conference.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s really constructive.

AMY GALLO: And I think that also helps with the boundary spanning that Inga was talking about, because if we stay within our circle and meet people that we work with, or even just meet people at industry events, which I’m doing air quotes, because I hate industry events, but the nice thing about going to conferences and hearing people from different worlds talk, and going up to them, is you get that sort of broader network, which is really smart.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And the way to start a conversation there is to think about what you just heard and start talking about it. That help-me-understand kind of comment. Because, you know, I often walk out of those feeling like there’s more to what I just heard, or I want to know more. Help me learn more. And that is kind of great neutral ground. You know?

AMY GALLO: Well, I think of starting the conversation, the same skills that help us do our job as editors and journalists are the same skills that help us network. Right? It’s just being curious about another person. So sometimes I’ll even say, is this your first time in San Francisco? Right? It doesn’t even have to necessarily be about the content. You know, sometimes it’s like, where did you get your shirt? You know? It’s very simple openings to regular conversations. The trick for me is, then, how do you get out of it when you realize, oh, this is like an awkward first data.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, I see someone over there I need to say hi to. I’m going to fill my glass.

NICOLE TORRES: OK, how do you get out of those conversations? Because I cannot.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I just gave you two lines. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: I use those lines. I need to go get another, you know, or I will just say, like I need to use the restroom. I’ll see you later. Like, I really just keep it very simple.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, you don’t even have to make an excuse. You can say, you know, it was great to talk to you. I hope we run into each other again.

NICOLE TORRES: OK, my line is, I have to go, and then I actually go. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: You leave? [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: Wow. No gray area for you. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: That’s not a good tactic.

NICOLE TORRES: So, I need some help in this area.

AMY GALLO: You just walk to a different part of the room. Because think about it.

NICOLE TORRES: But they’ll see you, and they’ll know you left them.

AMY GALLO: Of course they’ll see you. But they know, they want to move on, too. Usually—

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s not dating.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, it’s not.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And no one has that expectation. If they do, you’re not responsible for it.

NICOLE TORRES: Well, it’s so great to talk to you. I’m going to go get another drink.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It was great to talk to you. I like that. See you around. I hope our paths cross again.

NICOLE TORRES: Oh my God, that is so good.

AMY GALLO: Yes. I hope our paths cross again. That’s good. I like that. I also like, I’ve been very direct and said, I know we both want to meet people. I’ll see you later. Like, just sort of keep—

AMY BERNSTEIN: Be direct. I mean, the nice thing about transactional conversations is that they’re transactional. And they probably want to move on as, the thing is, you may think that you’re clinging to each other for, you know, social deal life, but chances are, it’s only you in that case.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I mean, I mean the other thing that’s helped me is, in the conversation, not be thinking, how can this person help me? Right? Like, that feels so gross with me. And so, I think it’s more about, who, and you won’t know. Sometimes you’ll meet someone, and they sound interesting, and you know, five years later, you’re like, wait, I met that person at the conference. They might have a connection here. Or they might show up in your LinkedIn feed, or Twitter feed, and then you’re able to sort of continue the interaction in a meaningful way. But at the time, like that’s a thing, when I know when people are sitting there thinking, how can she be useful to me? And it just feels gross.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. So, what did you guys think about what Inga was saying about boundary spanning relationships, especially within the organization?

AMY GALLO: I thought that was really smart advice, but very hard to execute on, because that, we all know we should be connected across departments, silos, functions, and yet, you know, do you look at the org chart and sort of say, oh, I should meet that person, and you know, like how do you actually do it, is the tough thing.

NICOLE TORRES: Introducing myself, actually. I’m trying to get better at being the person to say, like, we haven’t met before. Like, what’s your name? What department do you work in? Usually that comes up kind of organically, because someone is, I don’t know, they’ll say, like I saw you give that talk. I thought that was great. And then I’ll say, oh, like who are you again? But I think, yeah, I’m trying to work on just actually approaching people or be more aware of people who are around me and saying hi in the moment.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I mean, one of the real reasons to do that is, it’s so uncomfortable to keep running into people you haven’t formally met. Right? Then you have those lame, hey, kind of conversations.

NICOLE TORRES: There are still people after like five and a half years of working here, who I have never been formally introduced to, but I see every single day. We know each other, but we’ve just never had like a, hi, I’m so and so. You’re so and so. Let’s talk about—

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, you know what you do? You say, OK, I am so tired of seeing you every single day and not even knowing your name. I’m Nicole. You know?

AMY GALLO: I like that.

NICOLE TORRES: I like that, too. For anyone listening, just know I’m thinking about you. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: You’re going to have a bunch of people saying hi to you tomorrow.

AMY BERNSTEIN: The thing is, you just, if you recognize that we’re all in the same boat, and that we’re all uncomfortable, it makes it so much easier to take the first step and say hi.
NICOLE TORRES: So true.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, how intentional do you think we should be when we’re trying to span those boundaries? Is it that we should be saying to ourselves, I need to make a friend in finance? Or I need to know people in design?

AMY GALLO: I do think we have to be intentional about it. I think it less as someday there might be an issue with my expense report, and therefore I need someone in finance who has my back. I mean, it’s not that. I think it’s more, who am I interacting with regularly, and how would it help me to understand their perspective? Right? So, if I’m having difficult conversations with someone in design over one particular piece I’m working on, before the next time I have to work with that person, I might ask them out to coffee. That way we have a little bit of shared understanding. It’s less about I need that person to serve a role, and it’s more like, how can I make our interactions easier?

And I think, I do think it’s also helpful to say, which part of the organization have I never interacted with before? And can I have coffee with someone? I do that sometimes with, if there’s an email that goes out, and a bunch of different people are CC’d, and I see someone who’s name I maybe recognize, who I’ve never interacted with, I might email that person and say, hey, we’ve actually never met. Do you want to meet for coffee? I’ve done that like two times. I’m not saying I do it all the time. But I’ve done it like two time. And it’s, I actually ended up, one of the people, we ended up having lunch three times in a row, because she was just, we had a lot to talk about. We had kids the same age. And I don’t think we’ll ever work together, but now I do know that I can call her if there’s something that comes up that I need to understand about her department.

NICOLE TORRES: And something I found to be really helpful, too, on that front, is like ask your manager or ask other people in the organization who should you be talking to? So like my manager’s really good at, when someone starts here, they’re like, you get a list of people you should talk to around the organization, across departments, and because they know like, what areas of expertise all these different people have, and when you’re coming in, you might not necessarily know that. You won’t know who to meet, and you might not know how it would help your job down the road to know someone in marketing, or in finance. But your boss might know that. So, you can just say, who are some people, like in this organization, I should get coffee with, I should meet, and I should know about their jobs? So, I think that is really helpful. Just asking people, like who do you talk to around here? Like, do you talk to anyone in other departments that I should meet? Like, I know I’ve met people across departments that way, just from asking the person who I sit next to, like, who do you talk to in analytics?

AMY GALLO: I think the other thing, the other way I’ve met people in different parts of the organization is through affinity groups. So, we have that Women at Work group that meets across departments. And I have met people in that group, because they’ve made an interesting comment in one of the lunch-and-learns, and I followed up with them. Even the person organizing it is someone who I don’t interact with regularly, and I’ve gotten to know her better. So, I think that’s another way, especially in really large organizations, is find an affinity group or go to a lunch and learn and sit down and talk to the person next to you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, the other thing is, when you, in the course of your job, find yourself talking with someone you don’t know, you know, take an extra couple of minutes to get to know them a little better. Because that kind of context is much easier. It’s easier for me. And it’s much more natural.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, like just be curious about the other person.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, be curious.

AMY GALLO: I think that really helps.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, even, so there’s a lot of gray area between, you know, hating that scene where the elevators open and it’s a loud, crowded room, and you know, meeting people. And I think we all like to meet people. And that chance meeting that could turn into a real friendship is pretty special. But I mean, who in the world wants to walk into the room you’re describing.

AMY GALLO: Someone does, because they were all there.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, no, my head immediately went to, heading back up to my hotel room and ordering room service.

AMY GALLO: That’s right. I sat through the whole dinner.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And planning to feel sick in an hour. Yeah, exactly.

AMY GALLO: But I think the, here’s the thing, I think we do—

NICOLE TORRES: We should hang out more. [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m all for it. Let’s network. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: I do think we want to give people permission to leave after that half an hour at that event. Like—

AMY BERNSTEIN: Half an hour at one of those events is like running eight sprints.

AMY GALLO: I agree. But you can do it. And you can, and you never know. I mean, the woman I met is really interesting. We’ve already sent each other two different articles. Like I think she’s someone I might actually collaborate with in the future. And that would have never happened.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And also, you know, I love what you said before about, you know, you don’t have anything else to say, I love that bag you’re carrying.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Because that starts a conversation.

AMY GALLO: So, I’m curious, after talking with Inga, do you feel like you have healthy networks? Is there like an aspect you want to do better at?

NICOLE TORRES: I like my network. I think it could be bigger, better. I could definitely be, you know, meeting more new people who are very different from me, and expanding, you know, the people who I talk to every day or ever month. But a harder thing for me that I’m struggling with now is like how to maintain relationships that I’ve built over time, and how to, so you know, we talked about going to conferences, and something that happens to me a lot is I’ll meet someone really cool, like in line for coffee or something, and we’ll exchange cards and want to stay in touch. And maybe we’ll, you know, connect on LinkedIn, but then there will just not be any follow up. And I look back on all of those relationships I formed with people who I think would be awesome to just get to know, you know, might be great to know professionally. I think of all the potential for following up on those meetings, and how I’ve wasted them. So that’s something that I want to work on that I think will really help strengthen my network and the people I know. It’s just being more mindful of who I’m meeting and trying a little harder to maintain the relationships.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So I have a thought about that, which is that, you know, the difference between the friendships you form in, say, college or when you’re first out in the world, and the friendships that are genuine friendships in the sense that there’s a lot of good will between the two people, that you form in a conference, they don’t require the same amount of maintenance. You know? The person you met 18 months ago in a conference is still someone who if you see him or her again, it’s someone you could say, hey, it’s great to see you again. And you rekindle to the same sort of, probably not terribly deep point you were at before, but it was kind of lovely in the moment. Right? You know, you don’t, it doesn’t, it’s not, these are not your college friends. These are people who are really nice to run into, when you run into them, to you know, to email when there’s something you can do for each other. They’re lovely people to help when you can help, and to ask for help when you need some from them. Because the, you know, the understanding is different.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah, I think changing how I think about it maybe would just relieve some of the anxiety around why I’m not doing a good job of maintaining these things. But they’re very different. And you do approach them differently. And you can give yourself some slack in how you’re managing all of that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, don’t invest them with more than they are. You know, they are important, but they’re different. They’re just a different animal. I mean, one thing that I took away from the conversation we had with Inga is, you know, back to the anxiety and that elevator door opening onto the crowded noisy room, you know, I immediately, when that elevator door opens, and we’ve all been there, is, I go right to, you know, the anxious horror of the eighth grade dance. And that’s me doing it to myself. And I think that talking to Inga and talking with you guys today, makes me see that maybe, you know, if I just sort of changed the channel in my head and stopped, you know, no one cares how many guys asked me to dance at the eighth grade dance, and no one cares about how many people I talk to. So find one great person to talk to is, you know, is great.

AMY GALLO: And if you go up to your room and order room service, it’s OK.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Do it after. I mean, I like setting the goal of spending half an hour, making an honest effort to meet someone. But I’d be happy with one. That’s our show. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo.

NICOLE TORRES: And I’m Nicole Torres. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Adam Buchholz, Mary Dooe, Rob Eckhardt, Erika Truxler and JM Olejarz.

AMY GALLO: For any of our listeners who live in Boston, we have a live event coming up, all about conflict and how to navigate it.

NICOLE TORRES: It is on Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 6 p.m. at Harvard Business School. It’s totally free. The talk will be like an hour, and then we’re going to hang out afterwards, and I’m pretty sure there will be snacks.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Snacks! Plus, we’re going to have Linda Hill, who’s a professor at Harvard Business School. We’re also going to take as many questions from the audience as we can possibly squeeze in.

NICOLE TORRES: There will be a link in our show notes so that you can find out more about the event and to register.

AMY GALLO: We’ll see you there.

NICOLE TORRES: See you there.