How do you navigate gender in your workplace?

HBR's fan favorite podcast Women at Work is back with personal stories, the newest research,

and practical advice on navigating disability, career failures, and joining a board.

Listen for free to H.B.

Women at Work, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR IDEAcast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green-Kermichael.

So, networking. I do a lot of it for my job and to tell you the truth I don't

always enjoy it. I love talking with people one-on-one, but when it comes to trading business cards and a crowd of strangers, it's just not my favorite.

It turns out lots of us are in this situation.

One of my favorite studies, a study by Francesco Gino, asked one group of people to think about a time

where they had to reach out for a professional connection and asked a second group of people

when they had to reach out for a personal connection, an actual friendship.

And what they find is that the people that had the mentality of finding a professional

connection, they were much more likely to have subconscious thoughts of wanting to get clean,

which is a suggestion that networking makes us feel literally dirty.

That's our guest today David Burcas. He says the most valuable kind of networking isn't the kind that makes us feel gross because your most valuable contacts

aren't the new people that you bump into at networking events.

They're the people you already know and some of the most useful networking

you can do involve strengthening your ties with

old friends and current colleagues. David is an associate professor at oral Roberts University and

author of the new book, Friend of a Friend.

Deep, thanks for joining us.

I'll thank you so much for having me.

...