Learning to Share and Be Authentic

I'm in a philosophical mood this morning.

Bit of a bad cold, so, while not sleeping I was pondering why, when some people naturally and readily promote the services of other people, the majority of people never reciprocate despite winning work as a result.

I was also asked this week why I don't attend many conferences.

Networking

Despite operating a network, I don't like networking.

Sounds counter intuitive, doesn't it?

What I mean is that I don't like networking as a verb.

I've attended so many conferences and events over the years. At the moment, with the energy transition at the forefront of industry, government and academia's collective minds, the event industry is in hyperdrive. There seems to be an event every day.

I attend very few because I can't bear to see the 'networking' in action. The mad rush to make as many contacts as they can. I don't mind if it is sincere, a genuine attempt to find a mutual benefit, but it would seem to me that the majority of people are in it for themselves. How is their self-interest best served by this new contact?

I know many peers in executive positions don't attend unless they have to, because they are inundated with people, particularly salespeople, trying to get their details and set up meetings. At some events I have been unable to speak to my friends because they are surrounded by crowds of people wanting to speak to them about something they have no idea if they need.

Similarly, I find the same self-interested behaviour in my own business. Despite promoting the services of members of my own network, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of companies that have reciprocated by attempting to put work my way. Never has any company that benefitted from work I generated for them turned around and offered to share any of the profits from the work. Nor have they ever offered to pay for my time when I provide advice or mentoring for their people.

I persist anyway. There is a net benefit by being the person people will ask for help when they face a difficult problem. Sometimes, that problem falls into my remit, but above all, it makes me happy helping other people.

Being Natural

Meeting people in the normal course of life and business seems that much more authentic to me. By all means speak to people at conferences, but don't attend conferences to meet people. Attend conferences if there is something you can learn or share. Get a stand in the exhibition if you are there to market products or services, let people come to you, be authentic.

I wonder how many people will think this is crazy? How else do you sell? Despite this being under a section heading of 'Being Natural'. In our impatience to get ahead, isn't it strange that we can't trust in authenticity to get there? What does that say about us?

But I didn't say sell, did I? Even people who should know better don't know the difference between sales and marketing. Selling is closing. You won't close a sale at a conference from a cold contact, so there is no point in acting in that fashion. Inauthentic behaviour comes across as inauthentic. This is why poor salespeople develop bad reputations, and why it feels so uncomfortable trying to force a conversation to market your services or company to a cold contact.

Rather than forcing conversation, it is much more rewarding to have an interaction where there is a genuine interest in learning about the other person, their hopes and their needs. Let authenticity lead where it will.

People find my own authenticity, my complete lack of guile, and willingness to tell the truth as I see it, people find it confronting and challenging. People say they want diversity of thought but find it confronting when they get it. It would seem many prefer conformity to diversity, but they aren't the clients or collaborators for me.

So, I'd like to think that my own business and network is built on mutual respect, but the first question remains, why don't the majority of people reciprocate?

The upside is that I am always touched when people make the effort to reciprocate and put business my way, or acknowledge a contribution I made, because it is rare.

Greed

I'm sure most of us remember or have heard of Michael Douglas's character in Wall Street, saying 'Greed is good'. It was very much of the moment, the Reagan and Thatcher years. However, the ongoing legacy of free market liberal economics continues to dominate our attitudes towards the need for growth and consumption to drive the economy, yet that economy is clearly headed for a cliff.

Unlimited consumption on a planet with finite resources is not sustainable.

It is almost darkly poetic that government policy and the energy transition conferences and advice that informs policy serve the needs of people who are trying to maintain or generate the business of consumption under the guise of trying to save the planet.

Yes, there are many well intentioned people at the many conferences trying to change the world, but unfortunately, they are in danger of contributing to the noise that substitutes as action and camouflages the growth driven agendas of the entrenched corporations and political parties.

Net Zero, says it all: global greenwashing, business as usual without the emissions. Everybody has got behind it, but business as usual continues to drive a level of growth and consumption that will drive us off a planetary cliff. We continue to promote a culture of consumption, but ostensibly clean consumption.

The Mahatma, Mohandis K. Ghandi, said it best, and I paraphrase for a more equal society today: 'The world provides enough for every person's needs, but not every person's greed'.

Sharing

So, this is my answer for why people don't reciprocate, they are so focused on growing their own business to fund their unconscious need to consume that they simply forget to share.

It is not deliberate, taking but not giving, it is unthinking. We are taught to share as children, but not as adults.

However, I strongly believe that people will find they get far more out of their network, and the world will be a more efficient and effective place, if people authentically begin to think and behave in a way where we share opportunity.

Sharing to the mutual benefit of all, instead of a world where we unconsciously continue to grab opportunity for ourselves.

Learning to share was an important life lesson as children. Perhaps we need to relearn it after being consumed by the pursuit of the dollar and left facing our planetary boundaries.

As Robert Fulghum said: 'Share everything. Play fair...When you go out into the world. Watch out for traffic. Hold hands and stick together.'.