Introverts Network Better

I went to a conference last month. Every conference is a great opportunity to network. "We have met on Twitter," said this person, introducing himself by his Twitter handle. "So you are the one who writes those funny one-liners and those cool links. I love reading your tweets," I said.This was the first time I was meeting him. He was a person of few words but that made no difference. I caught up again with him over lunch. We compared notes about the speakers and ideas that struck us as thought-provoking. He seemed to know every other person there. During the breaks I joined him and his colleagues for coffee. At the end of the conference, when we said we would stay in touch, it did not seem like a false promise. He seemed like an old friend who had stepped out of my computer screen into the real world.

The "Networkers"

I have noticed a strange form of behaviour in conferences. There is a bunch of people who will be running around trying to collect business cards from as many people as possible. This conference was no different. These people collected the cards without even bothering to introduce themselves. Most did not even know the name of the person whose card they were collecting. They were running around like children in a chocolate store. They were trying to "network".Business networking is a socio-economic activity by which groups of like-minded business-people recognise, create, or act upon business opportunities. Showing up for a conference is not proof of like-mindedness. That would come from spending time and discovering each other's world view. For most of the people who go to a conference to network, there was no time for all that. Too many business cards to collect and too little time to have conversations.

The first piece of advice a career coach will give a shy person is that he or she has to network. The prospect of running around collecting business cards at a conference leaves the shy person mortified. Is this what networking means? That sounds quite demeaning. If that is what you have been told, then relax.

Shy and introverted people are actually at an advantage when it comes to networking. They may not go back home from a conference having collected a hundred cards, but having had a few deep conversations. These conversations form the basis of relationships nurtured over time.An authentic relationship is the basis of any network we build. It is an intangible yet accurate measure of your network. It is not about whose mobile phone you can call, it is about who will call you. When I thought about what made me feel that sense of comfort with the person I'd met at the conference, the answer was clear. We shared a passion for social media and the way it was evolving. The relationship seemed to effortlessly span the virtual world and the real.Once the conference was over, the conversation continued - this time on social media. When it comes to effective networking, it is the quiet introverts who instinctively understand that relationships are about depth of conversations - not the number of business cards you collect.Susan Cain talks about networking for introvertshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcvleuvJD0w===This article was first published in Economic Times <Click Here>Ssan Cain's book Quiet was reviewed here <read it>