Image Courtesy of Jean Wimmerlin via Unsplash - https://unsplash.com/@jwimmerli
Once when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him.
"Pardon, O King," cried the little Mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these days?"
The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the Mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Sometime after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on.
Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" said the little Mouse.
Little friends may prove great friends.
When we think of growing our vibrant professional networks, we believe we need to connect with important people. CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CHROs, or anyone with a C in their title.
We want to connect with people we think are powerful because we assume they know a lot of people and can introduce us to the people they know. We believe people of influence are the only ones who can help us, but the fable teaches us something different.
You never know who could help you out. Focusing on people who are important is hard. They get lots of requests from lots of people. If you don't know them or have a relationship with them, they may not give you an opportunity to talk to them.
Not because they aren't good people, but because they get a lot of requests, and if they start responding to all of them, they will never get anything else done.
As you build your professional network, be different than all the people who are vying for the attention of people in high places: start with people you already know.
You never know who might be able to help you.
When I give this advice, I hear people say, "I don't know anyone."
What they really mean is they don't know anyone they think is important enough to connect with.
Everyone knows someone. You know your family. You know your friends. You know your classmates. If you have had a job, you know your co-workers. If you have had multiple jobs, you know many more people.
In Give and Take, by Adam Grant, he explains a concept called “dormant ties.” Dormant ties are people you have worked with in the past but have lost touch with. This concept is based on a study by the MIT Sloan School of Management where a group of executives was asked to make a list of people they had worked with before but had lost contact with over the years.
The executives were asked to send an email to these past colleagues and ask for their opinions on problems the executives were facing in their organizations. The executives believed some of their dormant ties would respond, but they were surprised to find the response rate was higher than they expected.
The advice they received was also much more innovative and diverse than they received from people they interacted with every day.
The conclusion was the dormant ties already knew and trusted the executives from their past work experience and due to these professional relationships, they were willing to help them. Also, because these dormant ties had moved on to other endeavors, they had a different set of experiences to draw on when giving the executives advice. This led to different perspectives that helped the executives think differently about the problems they were solving.
We all have dormant ties.
Even if you are not an executive who is solving your organization’s problems, there are people you have worked with in the past who you have lost touch with. Reconnecting with them will jump-start your professional network for a few reasons:
You have a place to start. You can build a list of people to start contacting. You don't need to do a ton of research on people you should connect with. Simply think about all the people you have worked with in the past and write them down on a list.
You have their contact info. There's a good chance you either have email addresses for your dormant ties or you know how to find them. Again, this removes the barrier of searching for information on these people. If you don't have their contact info, you may already be connected with them through LinkedIn or other social media.
These people recognize your name. When you contact them, they are going to see your name and respond to your message. Your message isn't going to go into the trash with all the other unsolicited emails they receive.
All of these form the basis of trust with your dormant ties. If you have worked with someone, you most likely already trust them and they trust you. Of course, there are people you have worked with you never want to interact with again, but these are probably exceptions and not the rule. For dormant ties where there is a level of trust when you reconnect with them, they are going to recognize your name, read your message to them, and respond.
Starting with dormant ties reduces the barriers I commonly hear:
I don't know anyone
I don't know where to start
I don't want to cold call or cold email anyone
I don't know what to say to people I am contacting.
In my experience, people who are starting to build their vibrant professional networks don't believe this dormant ties approach will work. That's ok, the executives in the study didn't think it would work either. I commonly hear my students say things like, "Reconnecting with people I already know doesn't seem like networking. These people are already in my network. I am trying to meet new people."
I can understand this perspective. At the same time, remember we are building a vibrant professional network to create mutually beneficial opportunities for ourselves and for the people in our network. Also, remember, "vibrant" means active and alive." When we reconnect with our "dormant" ties, we activate them and make them vibrant again. If we find opportunities through people we already know, what's the difference between dormant ties who become vibrant and new people we add to our network?
For students who are convinced they need to meet new people, I ask them, "How did you meet most of the people you know today?" It's usually through proximity, in other words, people who are close to them in their lives. We know the people who are in our neighborhood, or in our school, or in our workplace, or in our community groups.
The other way we meet people is through introductions from other people. We very rarely meet new people who were random people on the street that we walked up and started talking to.
Our dormant ties are the people who we know through proximity and over time, when you connect with them, the opportunity will arise for them to introduce you to someone new. Just like being introduced to any new person, the person who introduces you makes the link and because he or she knows you and the new person you are meeting, you have a level of trust between yourself and this new person based on your common acquaintance's endorsement of you and your new friend.
Still skeptical that dormant ties are the key to building your vibrant professional network?
Here's the story I share with people who don't think this approach will work:
I got a thank you note from one of my group coaching participants.
It went like this:
"I wanted to extend a huge thank you for your expertise, time, and commitment to organizing these virtual events. I'm writing you this note, right after signing the job offer letter, and all of this was possible by listening to your advice and executing the steps discussed in our calls."
It was from a student of mine named Mary*. She had relocated and had no network in a new city. Besides not know anyone, she was worried about her job because changes were happening in her company.
She saw a post about my group coaching program to help people grow their professional networks. She gave it a try. It led her to a brand new job.
What sort of networking magic did I teach her that led to a job offer? No magic. Just the power of dormant ties. Dormant ties are a goldmine in your professional network.
In my group coaching program, I ask everyone to make a list of 5 people they already know and get in touch with them. That's how Mary’s journey from "no network in a new city" to "a brand new job" started.
She got in touch with a manager she used to work with, and he asked her if she was interested in an open position at his company.
"He was one of the 5 initial contacts I sent emails to, as you advised. I hadn't spoken to him for over the year...The entire job searching process took me exactly one month from the initial conversation about the opportunity to the offer letter. I am shocked, to say the least, as one simple note could lead to the life-changing event."
One simple note to a person she had worked with in the past was all it took to create this opportunity.
Your dormant ties are the mice in the fable.
Most of them aren't going to be powerful lions who lead companies. They are going to be people just like you. But, they can make a difference. They can help you find opportunities. They can help you meet new people.
All you have to do is reconnect with them.
In the Ant and the Grasshopper, I told you to write down one person's name who you had lost touch with and to connect with them. If you haven't already done that, do it now.
But don't stop there. Instead:
Look at your resume or LinkedIn profile and start with the last job you had.
Think of the people you worked with at the job. Write down the names of everyone you can remember. If you need help remembering who worked there, visualize what the office looked like and take a mental walk around the office. Who are the people you see? Add their names to the list.
Another way to find dormant ties is to look at the name of the companies you worked for on LinkedIn. In LinkedIn, you can find the names of all the people who have the company listed on their profile. Scroll through this list. Who are you already a 1st-degree connection with but haven't talked to in a long time? Add these people to your list if they aren't already on it.
Who are the people who are 2nd-degree connections that you know well enough to send a connection request to? Add these people to the list of people you are going to connect with.
Do this for every company you have worked for.
At the end of this, you will have a list of people to connect with. It may be five people long or it may be five hundred people long. The number is not important. In fact, right now, I would encourage you to focus on the first five names on the list. Send them an email or a LinkedIn message saying, "I thought of you today and realized we haven't spoken in a while. How have you been?"
That's all it takes to reconnect with your dormant ties and begin the process of converting them from dormant to vibrant members of your professional network.
It's a simple note. Please don't overthink it. You already know most of the people who will create your vibrant professional network. As in the fable, no one is too small or unimportant to be in your network, and as you saw from Mary’s story, you are only one connection away from a life-changing opportunity.
"Anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you."
- Misty Copeland
*Names changed to preserve anonymity