Have We Forgotten The Power Of Motivation?

by Stefan Lindegaard

We have all seen a fair share of bad times in the innovation community the last year. People get fired, some fall hard with a depression and many do not feel valued on the work they are doing. In times like this, leaders and managers might forget to tell their people they matter and make a difference.

In a recent BusinessWeek article, Patrick Lencioni, talks about the No-Cost Way To Motivate. He wants us to get back to basic and to the obvious. He quotes 18th century writer Samuel Johnson like this: “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”

Lencioni ask leaders and managers to take an active and genuine interest in the lives of their employees. Why? Because one of the greatest causes of misery for employees is the feeling that the person they work for is not interested in who they are and what goes on in their lives, personally and professionally.

Lencioni is so right. Let’s work together to pull us out of this mess. It could start by caring for others.

One Cannot Think If One Is Sure To Be Right

by Stefan Lindegaard

The Danish communications agency Mensch runs some interesting and thought-provoking text-based ads. The last one was titled One Cannot Think If One Is Sure To Be Right. It was a great read and since most of you do not speak Danish I translated part of the text.

It goes like this:

“Have you ever wondered why some people insist in hairstyles, eyeglasses or clothing that went out of fashion at least 20 years ago? They do so not because they are indifferent. Or cannot see that the world is moving. They do it because they want to stand still. They want to maintain time and their own appearance from a time when they felt on top.

We all experience a certain period in our lives where we ask our self and others big questions on life. It is a period of time where we think so intensely over everything that it shapes our values and characterizes us for the rest of our lives.

Then our thought process gets more focused. Education and work requires restraint and concentration. All the different thinking becomes a distraction. This is where we begin to decide that the world hangs together in a certain way, and that anyone who believes otherwise is less enlightened.

And suddenly you become an old, hidebound fool. You unconsciously repeat your biases and standard arguments in an attempt to retain you world view. Eventually you only socialize with people who share similar views making the conversations go lightly and eliminating the need to think too much.

But the brain is a muscle that requires varied exercise in order not to degenerate. So if we want to keep moving we must let ourselves become influenced by others. We must leave a door open to thoughts we have not thought of ourselves. Talk with someone who has a completely different education, cultural background, sexual orientation or even skin color. That sounds scary, but otherwise the brain ends up in the same jail as clothing from two decades ago.

Think about it. Unless you are sure that we are not right.”

I am reaching an age where it is getting harder not to just rely on what I already know and do. A read like this challenges my thinking and I am highly appreciative for such inspiration. I do not want to become an old hidebound fool. Do you?

More Happiness Tips For Tough Times

by Stefan Lindegaard

I recently posted six happiness tips from Tal Ben-Shahar which generated a lot of comments appreciating the value of the words from Tal Ben-Shahar. The response made me reflect on what actually makes me happy. It goes like this:

• Identify and nurture the 20% that brings true joy. Many people say that we should live in the now and get the best out of the situation we are in. I think this is a cliché. Why else do so many people continue to spend considerable time doing things they just need to get done or even dread?

I believe we can apply the 80/20 rule here as well by saying that 20% of our time brings us 80% of the true joy we have. It is my experience that it pays off to identify those 20% and to structure our daily lives towards this by giving these moments the attention and time needed. Over time, it might even be possible to change the 20% to 30 or perhaps even higher.

• Reduce the noise. We do too many things that do not matter. As Adrian Tache said in a comment, nothing is really urgent after all and deadlines are there for unimportant reasons. So why not simplify and reduce the noise? I gave some input on how I do this in this blog post: Work Approaches: Rude or Effective?

• Reach your goals through small steps. I believe in having long-term goals and a personal vision, but I also believe that we need to break this into smaller steps. The first step for me was to get into the “game” I wanted to be a part of and the next steps are about gradually reaching a level where I get enough influence to create a daily life that leads towards my personal vision.

To illustrate this, I have spent many years starting companies, facilitating networks and working as a consultant to build a better understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation. However, it has not been until the last few years that this strong and persistent focus have given me the options needed to live the work as well as personal life I had envisioned many years back. Things take time and it helped me to break this long road into smaller steps.

You should check out the concept of Outliers as defined by Malcolm Gladwell. He arugues that it takes 10 years to become really good at what you do.

• Increase the luck factor. Hard work, passion and relevant skills are factors that matters. However, I would argue that the luck factor is just as important as these other factors – combined. It helps if you believe you can create settings that bring luck : – )

• Work for the right reasons. Besides only doing things that I really believe in and have a passion for, I try to have at least one specific reason for the work I do. This goes for projects as well as for my overall career. You should definitely not just work for the reason that becomes the worst one if it stands alone; money.

What makes you happy? Let’s share and help each other out in the challenging times we endure right now.

Work Approaches: Rude Or Effective?

by Stefan Lindegaard

Another week just flew by and once again I had several issues that I did not get to attend. One particularly nagging example is the lack of my responses to the many great comments given on my blog last week.

Unfortunately, trips to Las Vegas and New York took away the time needed for this and suddenly I am facing a dilemma. Should I focus on the past and spend quite some time on the many comments on my blog and on LinkedIn? Or should I focus on the new ideas that springs up and hopefully are capable of inspiring others and starting some discussions in the innovation community?

Of course, the right answer is to strike a proper balance. This is most likely also what you need to find when you find yourself flooded by requests to pursue new interesting opportunities while having to just get things done.

Perhaps we can help each other by sharing our insights on how we try to get the most out of our time and efforts? Let me start out by sharing some of my work approaches:

• Know what really makes a difference. In my previous blog post, URGENT: The Box We Live In And Why This Is So, I argued that that 20 % of our efforts create 80 % of our outcomes. Having this in mind, I try to focus on what really matters in terms of reaching my short, mid and long-term goals. For example, thinking about innovation and sharing my insights helps build my “personal brand” and it helps develop my business as a network facilitator and occasionally as a consultant. Furthermore, I really enjoy this work so it also provides a great personal satisfaction. Thus, I spend most of my time on this. Can you indentify what really matters to you?

• Know when to respond and when to ignore. This might come off a bit cynical to some of you, but I hope I can get you to understand the reason behind this. Many of us live in a world where we get so many different kinds of requests that we could spend a significant part of our work week just replying to those. Not good as we also need to get things done. A great example is the many friend requests from LinkedIn and Facebook.

As mentioned in this earlier post, Why Should I Connect With You On LinkedIn?,  I have decided only to use LinkedIn and not Facebook as I do not have the time to manage two active profiles. LinkedIn is much more business-minded so Facebook had to go. On LinkedIn, I have also decided only to connect with people with whom I already have had a certain level of interaction with. If someone I do not know asks whether to connect, I look at the message. Is it just the standard message or does this person express a reason for us to connect? I always ignore the standard messages just as I really try to get back to the others with a reason why I do not want to connect right now.

• Test whether people are serious, relevant and persistent. I initially ignore business proposals that might look interesting at first hand, but do not have a direct match with my current priorities. Why? Simply to test whether the other person is serious about their proposal and shows enough persistence to follow-up.

I have been on the other end many times and I often had to initiate contact three or four times before I got a reply. I learned that many “influential” people often ignore requests simply because they are too busy; not because it might not be of interest to them. In such cases, the “influentials” take a wait-and-see approach trying the judge the person sending the message. Persistence is seen as a good character trait here and it carries you far if you also have a relevant message.

You should understand that in a networked world we almost always reach upwards to someone who can help out on our issues. Unfortunately for us, the people we try to reach up to have their own agendas making them reach higher as well. As time is limited, we often have to ignore those requests from below unless this really fits into our own agenda.

• Prioritize your ways of communicating with others. My prioritized way of communicating with others is 1) email 2) phone 3) meetings. It has surprised some that I did not want to meet with them as I believed—and as it turned out—the task could be done by email or phone. It is not to be rude. It just saves time for all involved and it works fine. Just think of the many meetings you have attended in the last six months. How many of those were to some extent a waste of time? I think this proves my point.

Well, this became a bit personal, but I hope you see my approaches as a way to be effective rather than being rude. As a sort of defensive argument for my chosen approaches, perhaps I should also mention that I am actually a very introvert person.

This might seem strange and counter-intuitive to my work as a network facilitator and speaker, but hopefully it also serves as an example that you do not have to be an extrovert to connect with others. Even introverts can do well on this once we set our goals, apply the proper techniques and understand how social media tools work. More on this in a later post…

URGENT: The Time Box We Live In And Why This Is So

by Stefan Lindegaard

I am pondering on what to do when I get stretched out and run out of time for the many things I would like to get done both on the business as well as the private side of life. I will get into my thoughts on this in a later post this week, but first I would like to share some insights on time management.

I think we can agree that working with innovation you are bound to have time issues. This career is time-consuming. You are being pulled from all directions, and no matter how many items you cross off your to-do list, the number of tasks just seems to keep increasing.

Time—or more likely the lack of it—is something we often get into during my network meetings as all of the members spent most of their time in a little box labelled URGENT. We have a general tendency to assume there’s nothing we can do about it; issues with time just go with the territory, right?

Well, that answer is only partially correct. And the reality is that unless you get control of your time management issues, you stand little chance of reaching the goals you have set. As mentioned, I will get back to this, but first, let’s take a look at at where our time goes. I find two principles to be of particular interest on this.

• Parkinson’s Law. This is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” First put forth by British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay in The Economist in 1955 and later in a bestselling book called Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress, this principle explains why you—and the people you delegate to—rarely finish a task before its deadline.

Given 30 days to complete a report, we will research, research, and research some more before buckling down to write it in the last few days before the deadline. Yet if given two days to write the same report, we will manage to do all the research and writing within two those days. This also explains why so many people are seen in stores on Christmas Eve doing their shopping at the very last minute. Some of them are there looking for last-minute markdowns, but the majority are probably there because of Parkinson’s Law.

Parkinson’s Law is responsible for many of the mind-numbing meetings we all find ourselves in each week and explains why your time budget almost undoubtedly shows that you’re spending vast amounts of time on non-priority issues.

• The 80/20 Rule (also known as the Pareto principle) also can be applied to time management. Using this rule, we can say that 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of the causes. In other words, 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts, which means we all spend a lot of our time and energy on doing things that don’t move us closer to our work or personal goals.

Being aware of the effects of Parkinson’s Law and the 80/20 Rule can help you take a fresh look at your time budget to identify ways in which you could better manage your time.

Perhaps you also will find it helpful to ponder on these questions:

• If you had to, could you realistically accomplish in four days what it now takes you five days to do? In other words, are there items on your to-do list that could be delegated or even dropped altogether without the world coming to an end?

• Which 20 percent of your effort produces 80 percent of your results?

These principles have helped me gain a better understanding of time management issues. Perhaps you can add more to this?

Six Happiness Tips For Tough Times

by Stefan Lindegaard

1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions — such as fear, sadness, or anxiety — as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

4. Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.

5. Remember the mind-body connection. What we do — or don’t do — with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.

You can find more articles and publications on positive psychology on this link: Tal Ben-Shahar

Only network if you have a reason

by Stefan Lindegaard

I have given many talks and workshops on networking and relationship building and I have learned that the best way to help people become better at networking is to create something close to a coaching sessions. I prefer getting into real issues trying to guide a volunteer with an issue on the spot. The volunteer gets a free coaching session and the other participants learn by listening and helping out.

More often than not, people have the same issues on networking. This evolves around career development and getting things done. The career stuff is more long-term and strategic whereas the latter is much more operational driven.

Relationship building

As we move towards open innovation, companies have to be able to identify and establish partnerships that complement their own business capabilities. This requires people who are experts at networking and building relationships.

Rob Cross, an associate professor in University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, has identified three networking types that you should pay attention to within an organization:  central connectors, brokers, and peripheral people.

Central connectors are those people with the highest number of direct connections. They can be formal leaders–or political players trying to be leaders–who everyone seeks out either because they make things happen, or because they have made themselves bottlenecks.

The latter can become a major problem with regards to innovation where you often need a dynamic flow. Some experts are also central connectors and this could lead to an overuse of these people as everyone goes to them with questions. Sometimes you need to protect these experts. 

Brokers connect people across boundaries, such as functions, skills, geography, hierarchy, ethnicity, and gender. They have ground-level credibility and acknowledged expertise in the eyes of their peers, which makes them more likely to be sought out and listened to than a designated expert or leader who might not be influential in the network.

According to Cross, brokers often sit in “tipping point” positions and so diffuse information faster than leaders and central connectors. As such, brokers have the leverage ability to drive change, diffusion or innovation and they can also act in key liaison or cross-process roles.
 
You should also be aware of peripheral people who could be new people, experts, sales people, poor performers or cultural misfits. They sit on the edge of the network, and Cross has learned that typically 30 to 40 percent of peripheral people are trying to get better connected but have run into obstacles. These people reflect untapped expertise and are substantial flight risks.

Once you gain a  better understanding of these networking types, you should ask yourself what type you are and how this impacts your future goals and your ability to work with open innovation projects. Working with innovation, you have to deal with all three networking types and you should also try to understand how to work best with the different types. This is especially important if you are a manager or leader.

Maximize your networking efforts

As you work to build your operational, strategic, and personal networks, here are seven tips on how to maximize the effectiveness of your networking efforts:

•  Only network if you have a purpose. I strongly encourage you not to listen to the people who say you should network with everyone within sight so as to not risk losing any opportunities. You are already busy and time is the most precious thing you have, so do not spend time on activities that do not serve a higher purpose. This also goes for networking groups, which can be very useful.  However, you should only join such a group if you have a purpose. It is also just fine to leave the group once that purpose is fulfilled.

•  Learn to “turn on the switch”—even if you’re an introvert. Some people believe only extroverts can become good networkers. However, psychologists classify introverts as people who gain energy from being alone. It does not matter how outgoing or shy they may or may not be. This is true in my case.  I would categorize myself as an introvert. I like to be by myself. I have no problem at all meeting other people, but I prefer to be by myself or with my family. My trick, and the trick introverts must use, is that I can turn on the switch and go into a networking mode. I have learned networking techniques, and I believe that having to work harder than natural extroverts has made me a better networker.

You can become a better networker by investing in  a better understanding of how networking works and how you can use networks to meet your goals. Let me share a few tips on how to “turn on the switch” before you go to an event or a conference:

— Do your research before you go to an event. Know who you want to meet and be prepared.
—  Everyone seeks upward connections when they’re networking. If people you want to connect with see you as “inferior,” they will think you are wasting their time. And networking time is often very limited. However, most people are polite and will give you one minute. So have your pitch ready and be prepared to make the most of your brief opportunity. If you are prepared things will go much easier even for introverts.
— Do the necessary follow-up work as soon as possible.

•  Leverage the power of “six degrees of separation” to reach anyone in the world. This refers to the idea that if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six “steps” away from each person on Earth. Think of someone who could really influence your career and see how many steps it would take you to connect with that person. You’ll often be surprised that you don’t even need six steps; it can often be done in just three or four connections.

Here’s how this works in terms of networks. Networks clump people together with other people who share the same values or have a common area of expertise. The larger group usually only has a few people connecting outside this group; these people are the brokers or “bridge builders” who connect groups with groups. The role of brokers explains how six degrees of separation works. If you connect with a bridge builder, that person will then connect you with another bridge builder, and so on and so on until you reach the person you want to reach. You can become very valuable by becoming a broker yourself. Also, connecting others creates friction, which creates new ways of thinking and prosperity, so for innovation leaders and intrapreneurs, being a broker can be particularly valuable and exciting.

•  Use virtual tools. A growing number of online tools and services seem to make networking so much easier. Beware, this is tricky. Many people tell me that they do see how they can get value out of virtual tools, but there seems to be a generation gap. The young working generation will use online social networks in all aspects of their work once they are allowed to do so. People aged 28 and above need to consider what kind of impact this will have in the future years.

I use LinkedIn, the largest online business networking site, which is great for managing my network. Features such as Q&A and Groups make it interesting to follow their development.

•  Understand informal versus formal network leadership. You need to know the influencers who are not on the formal organization chart. These are the people who hold disproportionate influence on other people. They are especially important if you are working on corporate change programs or building an innovation culture. Get to know the powers behind the throne in any formal network you join.

•  Reason, ask, and tell. Prepare reasons for getting in touch with other people. This goes both ways. Once an interaction such as a brief encounter or a meeting is over you should always remember to ask people how you can help them and let these people know of any ways they might be able to help you. Nothing happens if you do not ask.

•  Speak-write-meet. Which communication “medium” will you use to build your brand and networks? Some people are great speakers, others write very well, while others are great with people. Find your strength and build on that. Consider teaming up with others to cover all aspects. This is especially relevant if you are working in a team in which you can apply many of the ideas in the previous chapter for what we could call team branding.

Why your personal brand is important for your success

by Stefan Lindegaard

I would argue that your skills are not your most attractive asset on the job market today. In this competitive world they are merely table stakes.  Your career today is no longer just built on what you know and what you can achieve. Today it is very much also about your personal brand and your network of relationships.

“My personal brand? Come on, I am who I am,” you might say. Wrong. You are who other people believe you are, and this will determine how you can build and nurture the relationships that can define your career and determine whether you achieve your vision of success. Whether you know it or not and whether you like it or not, you already have a personal brand. The people you work directly with and peers that you know throughout your industry all have perceptions about your experience and your capabilities.

I know talking about your personal brand is somewhat controversial and seen as manipulative in many countries. This creates even more incentive for us to deal with this subject in a straightforward manner—down to earth and applied in practical ways rather than flashy and fancy strategies. It also makes it even more important that you identify your values as there is nothing phonier than a personal brand or self-identify that is not coherent with one’s values. I think we can agree that authenticity is a great asset today with regards to products and services. The same goes with you.

Once a perception of you—your personal brand—has been created, it is difficult to change it.This works positively as well as negatively, so make sure you are aligned with your values and your future plans when you start actively working your personal brand.

Why Does It Matter?

Why should you care about personal branding? I have learned that an added focus on personal branding—and on building relationships that can help you leverage it—is an investment, not a cost. It creates freedom and new opportunities for you to do what you care about. If you have a strong, positive personal brand, you are more apt to:

• Receive interesting assignments or be given more freedom to choose what you’d like to do.

• Receive more recognition and better pay.

• Be given more opportunities to represent your company externally, which in turn might open up new career options outside your present job.

The purpose of polishing your personal brand is to get others to communicate the right message about you and your competences. It is also about expectations, opportunities, and rewards. You can’t have success if you can’t handle professional expectations. The people in your personal network base their expectations on your personal brand, your personality, and your skills.

When your network is well-developed, your personal brand helps create your opportunities. No opportunities, no rewards. Simply put, your personal brand can define your career, so why not try to make the best of it.

Certainly, if you were launching a new product or service, you would spend considerable time considering how to define and polish its brand. Doing the same thing for your personal brand is really no different. You want to be visible to senior management and you want them to understand your unique set of abilities and your capacity to help them achieve corporate goals. You want to make sure people are aware of your achievements and of any new skills you’ve gained since you were first hired. You want to be known as someone who can uncover and solve problems, and is persistent and willing to take on new opportunities. All of this can be done without coming across as too self-promotional or egotistical.

Of course, it’s important to remember that polishing your personal brand is not enough. You must still continue to further develop your knowledge and other assets. Your career development ends quickly if you only think about milking your assets (your knowledge and your network).

I will talk more about how create and develop your personal brand in a later posts.

Time: Do you get enough out of your most valuable asset?

by Stefan Lindegaard

Working with innovation, you are bound to have time issues. This career is time-consuming. You are being pulled from all directions, and no matter how many items you cross of your to-do list, the number of tasks just seems to keep increasing.

Time – or more likely the lack of it – is something we often get into during my network meetings as all of our members spent most of their time in a little box labeled URGENT. We have a general tendency to assume there’s nothing we can do about it; issues with time just go with the territory, right?

Well, that answer is only partially correct. And the reality is that unless you get control of your time management issues, you stand little change of making the type of change happen as discussed in earlier posts.

So here I’m going to touch on two principles that help us understand why managing time is such a challenge and then suggest that there are some things you can do to get more control over your time. But first, let’s look closely at where your time goes.

Analyze your time budget

Many people run into financial trouble because they have never established a budget that sets spending priorities and allocates their money accordingly. They have trouble making it from paycheck to paycheck and are uncertain exactly where their money went. The same thing happens when you don’t analyze where your time goes and set priorities. You get to the end of the day or the week and realize you haven’t completed important work tasks, have only made it to the gym once, and have spent very little time with your family or friends.

Where did the time go? You were ultra-busy all week long, but what did you accomplish that moved you toward your vision of success? I am no big fan of capturing a lot of data and overanalyzing what is going on, which is what most time management exercises are about. Smart people already have an idea of what is wrong and why. More often, they just need a quick overview. You can get this by simply ask yourself questions such as:

How do I communicate (meetings, phone, e-mail) with others? Do I even have to interact with these people? What would happen if I cut meeting times in half? What if I decided to communicate by e-mail first, then phone and only if necessary have meetings?

Which kind of activities would I like to spend less time on? Why do I spend time on things I do not like to do? What would happen if I did not do them? Could someone else do them for me?

Which kind of activities would I like to spend more time on? Why am I not spending more time on these activities?

Where and when am I wasting time? What can I do to stop wasting my time?

Where and when am I most productive? What can I do to create more slots where I am highly productive?

This is a simple exercise that will not take much of your time. The purpose is to make you consider whether you spend time on the things that are important to you and whether you should start making changes to the way you handle your time management. 

How did things get this way?To understand why time management is such a challenge for most of us, we need to understand two principles:

•  Parkinson’s Law. This is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” First put forth by British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay in The Economist in 1955 and later in a best selling book called Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress, this principle explains why you–and the people you delegate to–rarely finish a task before its deadline.

Given 30 days to complete a report, we will research, research and research some more before buckling down to write it in the last few days before the deadline. Yet if given two days to write the same report, we will manage to do all the research and writing within two those days. This also explains why so many people are seen in stores on Christmas Eve doing their shopping at the very last minute. Some of them are there looking for last minute markdowns, but the majority are probably there because of Parkinson’s Law.

Parkinson’s Law is responsible for many of the mind-numbing meetings we all find ourselves in each week and explains why your time budget almost undoubtedly shows that you’re spending vast amounts of time on non-priority issues.

•  The 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 Rule (also known as the Pareto principle) also can be applied to time management. Using this rule, we can say that 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of the causes. In other words, 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts, which means we all spend a lot of our time and energy on doing things that don’t move us closer to our work or personal goals.

Being aware of the effects of Parkinson’s Law and the 80/20 Rule can help you take a fresh look at your time budget to identify ways in which you could better manage your time. Ask yourself these questions:

•  Are there times when you stretch work out, doing more research or holding more meetings than necessary to make a decision, prepare a report, or otherwise more a priority forward?

•  If you had to, could you realistically accomplish in four days what it now takes you five days to do? In other words, are there items on your to-do list that could be delegated or even dropped altogether without the world coming to an end?

•  Are there items on your to-do list that could be outsourced to a virtual assistant? Think beyond your work life to your personal life.  Are there tasks there that could be done by a virtual assistant? Just Google “virtual assistant” and a whole world of possibilities will open up for you.

•  Which 20 percent of your effort produces 80 percent of your results?

•  Are there a lot of non-priority tasks that could be bundled together to be accomplished in one quick burst of energy? For example, do you take time out to do one personal errand each day when you could actually combine five errands and get them all done in approximately the same amount of time that it previously took you to do one?

Time is the most precious thing we have. Do you make enough out of it?

Why should I connect with you on LinkedIn?

by Stefan Lindegaard

What is the reason for being connected to 3,459 people on LinkedIn if I do not know who they are and what they stand for? What if someone asks me to introduce them to someone I am connected with – but do not even know? To me, it just becomes too superficial.

That said, I very seldom get such requests to introduce someone to others and a recent online discussion made me reconsider my approach to LinkedIn. The discussion prompted questions like these: Should I view LinkedIn as more of a “see how many I am connected with” rather than a picture of my real network? Should I just connect with everyone and expand my reach even though I find my reach to be just fine with my current number of contacts and my group memberships?

The discussion reminded me that there are different approaches on networking and that there really are no clear right or wrong answers to this. Many people have second thoughts with regards to their networking approaches so I find this to be an important message.

We should also recognize that even experienced networkers have different approaches and second thoughts. When I get LinkedIn invitations from people I do not know, I politely refuse to connect with them. It is my policy to connect only with people whom I have met in real life or had enough virtual interaction with so that I get an idea of what the person stands for. I believe this creates better value for myself and the people in my network. Some people disagree in this approach, but it has always been respected. That is until recently.

Someone felt offended that I forwarded a proposal for an open innovation event as I had previously declined to connect personally on LinkedIn. I was even accused of having no credibility within open innovation as the person could not understand how I could work with open innovation as I did not accept all invitations to connect on LinkedIn.

I was challenged and puzzled. I reflected on this. In the end, I do not think we are so different in our approaches. We just have a different lever of when to connect. This became clear to me when I asked a question that I often ponder: What is the value others seek or expect when they send me an invitation to connect even though we do not know each other?

One answer is that some people connect with others regardless of their knowledge of each other because they do not want to block serendipity. I choose a different approach. I like being able to look at my connections and being able to connect/remember all of them to the interactions I have had with them. I get invitations to connect on a daily basis and I am simply afraid that if I connect with all these people, it will decrease the value of my true network. I choose to be more selective and targeted in my network-building approach.

With regards to open innovation and whether I have any credibility on this, I believe it is possible to separate your personal relationships with your views and work on open innovation. An example is the many interactions I have with great people through the various LinkedIn groups that I participate in, including the one I run at Leadership + Innovation by Stefan Lindegaard. I can share knowledge and insights with so many people even though we are not personally connected on LinkedIn.

We do not have to be connected personally to create value for each other. For me, the personal connection comes when we have gotten to know more about each other and have begun to develop the trust I think is needed to start building a relationship and share our connections. This is just my approach. Others disagree. That is just fine and one of the strange things with networking – there are no clear right or wrong approach on this.

The end of the story is that my threshold of when to connect with others might have been moved a bit – but I still stick to my initial approach to LinkedIn.

I am sure many others struggle on developing their approach to virtual networks. It would be great to hear your stories, input and suggestions on this.