Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you

want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel,

your executive coach and today we're talking about networking conversations, part two.

Povny had plans for her future.

In a year or so, she wanted to leave her leadership role in a global corporation to become a chief officer at a mid-sized company.

She worried that a major roadblock would be her distaste for networking.

We spent an entire coaching conversation exploring her thinking about networking. Explaining her distaste for it, she said,

It's obvious I'm only talking to them because I want something from them,

but we're both pretending that's not what's happening.

Ugh, it makes me want to take a shower. But we're both pretending that's not what's happening.

Ugh, it makes me want to take a shower.

I agreed that putting a target on someone and taking a shot at them

never feels good.

I proposed the purpose of networking wasn't to get

something from someone else but rather to get to know someone else. The goal was

a relationship not a checkbox. She considered that and then said, okay suppose I'm having a networking

conversation and like you said I'm getting to know someone I don't want to put a

target on them but I want them to hear what I'm looking for.

I mean that's why I'm networking in the first place.

What would that sound like?

Can I ask you to answer first? I asked.

...