How to Use Your Network (Or Who to Ask for What and Why)
A while back, Phoebe (whose name is not Phoebe) asked Joey (not Joey) for help. Phoebe had rough operational issues, believed a strong executive hire was the solution, but also had real budget constraints. “Joey, help! Where can we find someone awesome who doesn’t break the bank?”
A couple days later, Joey returned to Phoebe: “I’ve talked to three people who know this space. You are not going to be able to make the hire you want for that comp package.”
Did Joey help Phoebe? Sure, she had gotten feedback, but was Joey helpful? If I’m Phoebe, not really. My problem’s still there, and someone I trust just told me that it’s probably going to be harder to solve.
By sourcing more information and potential leads from other people, likely based on their relevant expertise, Joey aimed to be helpful. But when he got, “Not possible,” he stopped. And thus, Phoebe’s problem persisted.
Given that you can’t solve a recruitment need without access to people, talent offers a prime example of the possibilities and pitfalls of network-based problem solving. Phoebe and Joey’s situation is a classic misunderstanding of who to ask for what and why, or how to use your network. Depending on when and how you employ it, employing your network can be extraordinarily helpful, a complete waste of time, or actually harmful on all kinds of issues.
Who To Ask…
We can all benefit from a little help from our friends. The people in your network can offer camaraderie, experience, pushback, support, and more. Spending time with people in your network when you don’t need help builds trust and understanding. As bonds build, our brains start to earmark things like, “Brent knows how to smoke meat well” for callback in a relevant situation.
We sort people by kindness or by commercial success or by perceived intelligence or by geography or by any number of other traits, characteristics, interests, or skills. And, as individuals, we’re difficult to sort definitively – or permanently – but our brains are hard-wired to try. So, when you have a need, why do you call who you call?
Many of us seem to rely heavily on one of two filters: 1. Trust and familiarity or 2. Perceived expertise. Under the first filter, when confronted by a challenge, we turn to the people who know us best and who we believe have our best interests at heart. Under the latter filter, we seek out someone’s involvement because we believe they have more or better expertise.
These filters can be helpful, but also have unintended consequences. When asking your parents for advice on what to do career-wise, their version of your best interest and your own version may overlap, but rarely are they identical. The same dynamic may be true with even the best boss. And when you don’t understand a subject, it’s challenging to accurately evaluate someone’s expertise.
Who To Ask For What…
Before initiating any conversations, it’s helpful to define what you’re trying to accomplish, and incorporate that into your decision on who to call and in what sequence – as well as how and what to ask.
The trouble is that most of us fall short on distinguishing what we’re seeking, let alone articulating it, and accept everything that is offered. In an effort to be helpful, people often offer up a combo platter seasoned with assumptions and shortcuts that may or may not best serve the situation.
It’s worth it to put some real thought into understanding how someone in your network can help before making the ask. Would you be best served by clarity (more info, additional intros, hard-won lessons, etc.) or creativity (thought-provoking questions, new ideas, etc.)? To use Joey’s example above, here are some of the many ways the conversation could go based on the ask:
If you’re prioritizing clarity:
Information: “Salary ranges for that position are…”
Feedback: “Compared to the competition, your job description is missing…”
Introductions: “You should talk to…”
Advice: “I would start with…”
A Lesson: “Let’s walk through the steps an initiative like that may require and all the roles that may be involved…”
If you’re looking for creativity:
Questions: “Why will the hire solve…”
Ideas: “Maybe consider creating a role that looks like…”
Wisdom: “In my experience, you’ll want to hire someone with at least 10 years experience because…”
It’s rare that one person will be able to offer valuable insight in every category, especially if you’re asking for creativity and clarity simultaneously. Even the most talented and knowledgeable person will have a difficult time sharing rules and facts and then dreaming up innovative solutions in the same conversation.
Who To Ask For What And Why
To frame up a conversation to be optimally helpful, ask yourself two “whys”:
Why this person?
Why are you asking?
These questions help you see how you’re sorting the people in your network and what you’re prioritizing when you’re looking for help. In essence, they help you determine why you are asking for ideas from someone or advice from another. Asking for information from a non-expert is a poor decision, as is requesting new ideas from a rule follower.
So, let’s assume Phoebe chose Joey for a good reason, even if she didn’t get the help she was looking for with her operational issue. What went wrong?
Let’s start with Phoebe. She was experiencing the stress-induced distortion most of us have when we’re in the flames of a fire and defaulted to “HELP ME!” rather than thinking critically about what would actually be helpful.
And, Joey had options on how he might respond. By asking for everything all at once from the people in his network he deemed relevant, the result wasn’t helpful to Phoebe. He talked to people about what Phoebe said she wanted and the budget she said she had. There was no thoughtfulness around what market information to gather, what Phoebe might actually be asking for, or how those factors interact to frame up a solution to the broader operational issue at hand.
If he offered questions, he may have helped Phoebe better sort out what she was after and the resulting interaction between budget, skills, and needs. But she may also have been too stressed to productively engage, in which case Joey may opt to run out the ask.
Running out the ask depends on prioritizing what you are seeking and from whom – whether you’re the primary person seeking help from your network or someone trying to help in a meaningful way. In certain situations, pure introductions may be the best route. In other cases, the right path might be to run through the steps of gathering information, creating a job description, getting feedback on said job description, and then circulating the job description requesting advice on where to post it. Then again, socializing the root problem (the rough operational issues) with someone who may be in a position to offer ideas or wisdom on alternative solutions and sharing the resulting ideas with Phoebe may yield the most productive path forward.
There are no hard and fast rules about which route is best. Sometimes time will govern. Sometimes relevant access will. Sometimes findings. But rarely will seeking everything all at once, whether explicitly or implicitly, solve your problem.
Most people want to be helpful. So help them be helpful. Figure out whether you need to zoom in (clarity) or out (creativity). Source and phrase your requests accordingly. Then keep refocusing until you have what you need to keep going.
This post was also featured in an issue of our newsletter, Permanent Playbook, focused on building strong relationships with our colleagues and our networks. Read that issue here.
