Holistic Approach to Industry-Specific Networking Group in Illinois

By Matt Anderson

U.S. Great Lakes Bureau Chief
(Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota)

I love talking to people who see a need and create their own networking group. Debbie Dudek in the Chicagoland area is such a person. In February 2007 she started WIN, the Women’s Insurance Network.

For those of you not in this industry, keep reading because the methods she has applied could easily work with another profession.

95% of my work is with the insurance and financial service industry and it has long perplexed me how few women there are whenever I present at conferences or work in company offices. As a former manager and trainer with American Family, Dudek knew this all too well and decided to take action.

“It’s a male-dominated industry and women cannot do business the same way men can.” She gave me examples of marketing strategies to contractors and the auto industry that had worked well for male insurance agents in her company that flopped when female agents used the same strategy.

Dudek saw the value in starting a local networking group in Illinois that meets the needs of women in financial services and creating a model that can work in Any Town, USA. Interesting features to this group include:

1. It is a sub-group of a national professional association: the National Association of Insurance and Financial Professionals (NAIFA). Professional development is an integral part of the structure from strategic business planning to how to run a business.

Is there a demographic in your professional association that could use extra support? NAIFA also has a Young Advisors Team to support newer advisors in an industry that has a low retention rate.

2. It proactively invites synergistically-related professionals to get involved. CPAs, business bankers, and attorneys are also members. In other words: great referral partnership opportunities! “I get referrals frequently from other people,” Dudek shared. Could your professional association do a better job of inviting industry-related professionals? It beats joining the local chamber and is often overlooked. What organization doesn’t want more members?

3. Its personal development component. The monthly topics have included goal setting, how to say no, how to deal with stress, time management and dressing for success. These are almost unheard of topics for a traditional NAIFA event. “Many women in the industry are single moms who are struggling with many different things.

As someone who coaches advisors in this industry, I have to say that I find the above topics are also challenges for males (with the exception of saying no). Maybe our society has different expectations of men and women; I can see this model for meetings taking a pioneering role in the association and moving it and its male-dominated companies into the 21st (or do I mean 20th!) century.

What I love about this is that it raises an interesting issue: Should your professional organization try to help the whole person? WIN’s mission is: Empowering women professionals to be successful in servicing the financial services industry. Plus, from a referral standpoint, a strong center of influence has to be someone that you like. Personal development topics open those doors much wider.

Is it acknowledging a new trend that most people want a one-stop shop for a professional organization because we don’t have the time or desire to commit to multiple groups?

4. Its vision. Not only is it a resource organization for women in financial services but it has developed a turn-key system so women around the country can do the same thing without feeling like they’re adding an overwhelming commitment to an already crazy-busy life.

5. WIN’s holistic approach. It is designed to deliver all the success tools: “It’s something to help women feel comfortable in the industry” not just personally and professionally but providing the support, motivation and inspiration with a distinct female perspective.

6. All presentations must be interactive, not lectures.

The one thing that is not turn-key is each group does need one or more people on a local level to promote it actively at other networking events and within NAIFA so that other professionals know about it.

But between the personal, professional and referral benefits, WIN meets an infinitely wider variety of needs than its traditional counterpart. Is your professional organization growing and adapting?

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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/.

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Holistic Approach to Industry-Specific Networking Group in Illinois

Obama and the Art Of the Quiet Consensus

By Douglas Castle
Political Editor

President-elect Barack Obama is inheriting some tremendous problems from his predecessor administration, some of which include a ravaged, volatile, but macroscopically slumping economy (built upon a foundation of excessive leverage, fiscal gambling, dis-saving, and systemic and encouraged inefficiencies), and a severely diminished view of the United States in the eyes of the G-8 nations and all of our sovereign counterparts, many of whom we have routinely bullied or ignored during the past eight years.

Mr. Obama appears to be a reasonably intelligent and thoughtful man, who carries the torch of leadership but understands the need for the special quiet brands of networking skill which require pre-emptive salesmanship and reaching quiet consensus prior to coming out with policies or political pronouncements. An integral part of networking requires that we be cognizant of the egos, opinions, vested interests and positions of others -- if we simply choose the traditional one-sided approach of preaching and selling, we will fail to develop vitally-important relationships through our networking efforts. A quiet consensus is a means of 1) obtaining market-research intelligence, and 2) personalizing and strengthening our relationships.

In selecting his cabinet members and executive-level appointees, Mr. Obama is not taking the risk of alienating the many Washington "regulars" whose cooperation and support he will need in order to accomplish positive things during the term of his presidency. He and his representatives are going to many key network contacts (each of whom is a part of the Washington governance machinery, and each of them who is an individual) and doing some psychological networking magic:

• He is asking for their opinions on important issues, and giving them credit and gratitude for their responses;


• He is giving them "ownership" in endorsing any personnel decisions;


• He is giving them the gift of inclusion;


• He is setting a precedent of asking what others think, and in taking their opinions and comments into consideration (very much the opposite of what George W. Bush had done while waving a U.S. flag as he drove a bulldozer over any opposition "noise");


• He is converting contacts into bilateral, functional relationships, by humanizing and humbling himself in front of these largely egocentric characters who line the Washington, D.C. Landscape.

I suspect that he is becoming increasingly popular with a great many people who were his party-bound political opponents or doubters previously. I also suspect that he has a subscription to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER -- if not, he is looking over a constituent's shoulder who happens to have a free subscription. After all, every intelligent political or business aspirant should have a subscription.

Mr. Obama networked his way into the presidency...and now he is converting strangers into friends. He is converting liabilities and inert parties into assets through personal alchemy. Many had underestimated this proponent of change. I was one of them.

Let's watch Mr. Obama and see what we can learn, politics notwithstanding.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle
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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/.

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Obama and the Art Of the Quiet Consensus

Colleagues Voice Their Concerns About Teams

Teamwork - Creating Teams that Work with Douglas Castle

Dear Readers:

I posed an open question to the LinkedIn community regarding the notion of the Team being the most powerful operating subunit in the coming economy, and received 18 responses, out of a reader population of in excess of 100,000 Linked In members (without correction for double-counting of certain members of multiple groups). Of those responses, 17 were either positive or of the "well....it depends" variety. The two which follow are interesting in that they articulate specific concerns and questions about the Team Entity, which are worthy of note, and deserve to be addressed if I am to further my team-creation and management mission effectively. Please read the comments by Ena and Gig, each of whom I thank, and then read my response in addressing those comments and assuaging some of their concerns at the end of this article.

Again, Ena and Gig, thank you for your excellent insights, and for your kindness in voicing and sharing your valid concerns.

LinkedIn
Date: 11/22/2008
Subject RE: THE TEAM ENTITY
Group: International Network of Social Entrepreneurs

Ena Jesani wrote:

Douglas - The team is the most effective entity, for 5 years I have run one of my companies as a staff co-operative and now my new consulting company as a collaborative. Two comments from me, firstly, Gig makes a good point, where is the leader? In the model you describe, all the network connections would be peers, with no incentive to lead. Secondly, the benefit of cross-pollination will only work if business practice is of equal standard, equal value and benefit to each and practised with equally shared and agreed ethics. How can this be when the team is made up of so much unknown quantity? The risk is too high for individuals to compromise. Cross-contamination comes to mind.

~~~~~

On 11/13/08 8:47 PM, Douglas Castle asked: THE TEAM ENTITY

Dear Colleagues:

We spend a great deal of time networking and acquiring new contacts. Then, some of us aggressively and positively go to work converting those contacts from mere names into good, two-way relationships. Why must it end there? I believe that the most powerful business operating subunit is the Team. Further, I believe that team-building is going to become a skill of increasing importance as the traditional corporate and institutional paradigms are put to the test. Kindly review: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/using-teams-to-fuel-exponential.html and let me know your thoughts.

Thank you.

Faithfully, Douglas Castle

THE INTERNATIONALIST PAGE http://theinternationalistpage.blogspot.com/
HUMANITAS MAXIMUS http://humanitasmaximus.blogspot.com/

~~~~~

LinkedIn
Date: 11/21/2008
Subject RE: THE TEAM ENTITY
Group: International Network of Social Entrepreneurs

Gig Hitao wrote:

I would guess that it is no coincidence that you have not had more comments here, so far. The irony is that people who join LinkedIn and are part of this social entrepreneur group are generally independently minded, self employed type people, like me. We all know the value of teamwork, but who will join our team? Real work teams, like in corporations or even on construction crews are formed by a leader who then pays followers to follow. Everyone but one person in a team is a follower and if they are really productive, they get paid to follow. We'll see how many people refute my statement here.

~~~~~

On 11/13/08 8:47 PM, Douglas Castle asked: THE TEAM ENTITY

Dear Colleagues:

We spend a great deal of time networking and acquiring new contacts. Then, some of us aggressively and positively go to work converting those contacts from mere names into good, two-way relationships. Why must it end there? I believe that the most powerful business operating subunit is the Team. Further, I believe that team-building is going to become a skill of increasing importance as the traditional corporate and institutional paradigms are put to the test. Kindly review: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/using-teams-to-fuel-exponential.html and let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Faithfully, Douglas Castle

THE INTERNATIONALIST PAGE http://theinternationalistpage.blogspot.com/

HUMANITAS MAXIMUS http://humanitasmaximus.blogspot.com/
~~~~~

Firstly, some information is in order:

• Out of an audience of in excess of 100,000 recipients (without correction for double-counting through multiple group memberships) I have received 18 responses to date:


• Of these responses, 17 were positive, or conditionally positive, i.e., positive with certain caveats, as in the two excellent examples above;


• The caveats and concerns fell into several general categories - and bear in mind that these concerns came from active, practiced networkers:

1. The significance in choosing a good, responsible leader...an individual of intelligence, integrity and a propensity for firmness of focus tempered with some diplomacy;


2. The fear of being dominated by a leader who is selfish and overly controlling;


3. The fear of either an inequitable sharing of responsibilities, or an unequal sharing of rewards;


4. A need for a constitution, or for contractual definitions and protections;


5. A fear of "ganging up" of one group of members (ostensibly the majority) against another group (ostensibly the minority);


6. A need for accounting -- of efforts and monies invested, as well as results produced, divided and distributed;


7. A fear, on the part of the more entrepreneurial networkers, that their individual styles and creativity will be discouraged or squelched.

In reading the list of seven concerns above, you cannot help but notice that they are driven by fear and insecurity. There are sound psychological reasons for this:

• Negative experiences deeply implanted in the subconscious;


• A general hesitancy to trust in strangers and in a leader;


• A temporal deterioration in our faith in our own fellow Human Beings;


• A fear of making a "bad deal" that cannot be amended or fixed;


• When a survey is given, the greatest percentage of respondents tend to be the more skeptical, critical individuals -- this is a statistical flaw with many polls, surveys and discussion questions.

My suggested approaches to addressing these issues will be set forth in my next article on this subject.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle, TEAMWORK - CREATING TEAMS THAT WORK

p.s. Be certain to visit our new page: THE NATIONAL NETWORKER SURVEYS. Your opinion counts, and you participation is encouraged.

p.p.s. Be certain that you have our link, our button and our blidget on your homepage, websites and blogs. To get easy directions, simply go to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER - THE RELATIONSHIP CAPITAL TOOLKIT

________________________________________________________

Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/.

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Colleagues Voice Their Concerns About Teams