I approach, nervously smiling, and offer my hand. “Hi, I’m Jonathan.”
“I’m Lamar.” He shakes my hand.
Awkward pause.
“So, Lamar, what do you do?”
“I’m a property developer. You?”
“I’m a student – international affairs, development especially.”
“That’s nice.” I sense an utter lack of interest. Or maybe I am the uninterested one.
“Yeah.”
Another awkward pause.
“Well it was nice meeting you Lamar.” He nods; we part ways.
This meeting never actually occurred, which is too bad, because I’ve always wanted to meet someone named Lamar. But the scene is a familiar one for me. I can be a distinctly crazy person – those of you who knew me in high school or outside of class in college can testify – but when I am presented with a room full of people I don’t know, I generally recede into myself or, preferably, man the table with the crackers and fruit punch, intermittently making trips to the bathroom to make it look like I’m actually doing something.
It doesn’t help that I’m not terribly into sports (beyond UGA football); among men at least, sports commonly prepare the discussion for more serious topics. And many of my other significant interests are also becoming decreasingly common – classical music, literature, cooking – worsening the situation.
But these practical issues are not the biggest reason I have tended to dislike networking. More than anything else, I don’t like networking because it makes me feel like I’m using other people, and that I am being used in turn. Building a friendship is about enjoying another person, about sharing some sort of common ground that binds you together, genuinely caring about the other person. But networking is generally about self-benefit, getting in touch with people who can offer you something, in terms of connections or opportunities.
This perception of networking especially bothered me when I was in the business world. Networking in that context is, obviously, always tied to money. You needed to meet the right people to expand your client list or to improve your career options – both of which will lead to more money for yourself. So networking was tied in my mind to greed. Of course I wanted to make more money – who doesn’t want to? – but specifically using other people to pursue that goal didn’t seem right to me.
Through the years I have had discussions about this with many people, and generally I am told that, when networking, everyone is in the same boat. Everyone knows that the other people are looking for opportunities, just like you, so it isn’t bad – you are all creating a space for mutual benefit. I understand this argument, and I don’t have a particular response to it, but it never changed the way I felt.
Some of the new members of my local network!
But this summer it all changed.
I am new to the world of social enterprise, but I am very excited about its potential. And along with all of its potential, it has also solved my networking dilemma. I arrived in Nairobi just as the recruiting of entrepreneurs for our program was reaching a fever pitch. (For a description of the program, see my last post.) Recruiting involved a lot of cold-calling people I didn’t know and reaching out to people in alumni networks, random contacts I had through friends, and the like. And in all of these cases, I was asking people to do me a favor – namely, to let me know of any entrepreneurs who might be interested in our program. Even though this was in some ways even more blatant “using” of other people compared to networking at an event, I had no guilt.
Why?
Because this time I was networking for a cause.
I was no longer networking just to improve my own career, although that might be a pleasant side benefit, or even to help the business I was working for, although that would be a direct result. I was networking to improve the lives of the poor, a cause I think is well worth fighting for. Our program aims to kick-start social enterprises that address issues of poverty, health, education, environmental sustainability, and other important causes. But to find such enterprises, we have to take advantage of our networks and build onto them. Networking is tied up with the job and its goals.
My experience with networking is actually very similar to my experience with careers in general. I left my previous career, despite its potential for provision and comfort, because I was passionate about improving the world more directly, especially the lives of the poor. Once I became involved in something I was more passionate about, networking wasn’t an issue, because it contributed to my larger aspiration of helping the poor.
This discussion is clearly not a philosophically rigorous view of the morality of networking, but it makes sense to me. In many careers, networking is simply part of the job, so finding a job that you are passionate about may be the most important catalyst to making networking more comfortable.
Filed under: International Affairs, Life and Culture Tagged: careers, networking, social enterprise 
