If this isn’t a Networking 101 story, nothing is. It’s about mobilizing your network by using quality to get you in front of decision makers.
There’sthis guy – let’s call him A – who needs the help of another guy – whom we’ll call B – in order to get to the ultimate guy – C. (The reason for my vagueness? The story’s more dramatic this way. Trust me.)
So A wants to get to C, but B is how he’ll best do it. Problem is, A doesn’t know B, so he sets out to figure how to get a quality introduction to B. It’s not that A doesn’t know C; it’s just that B’s endorsement would be a prime influence on C to decide to bring in A.
So here’s where things stand. A needs an introduction to B, whom he doesn’t know, so he thinks about everyone he knows, and realizes that yet another guy – yes, D – knows B. Eureka! Game on.
What, then, does A do? Equally important, how does he do it? He writes to D, asking him a carefully phrased question: “Do you know B well enough to suggest that he [undertake this] and if so, would you be willing to put me in communication with him?” He continued, “The reasons for which I ask are…” He delineates them briefly and clearly and goes on to explain that this “would be positively viewed” by C.
The scenario played out exactly as you would hope, with A not only getting to C, but achieving immeasurable success in, as it turned out, one of the greatest career moves ever. And it can be traced back to that moment when A reached out to D.
So, after enough ambiguity to have tested your patience, let me now unveil the players. A, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, is much better known to us as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – the most successful children’s book in history. In fact, the book, first published in 1865, has never in its 157 years gone out of print, and, save for the Bible, was the most widely translated book ever.
B was John Tenniel, the superb illustrator whose drawings were the added feature that C, Alexander Macmillan (of Macmillan Publishing – yes, that Macmillan), thought the book needed before he would publish it. Tenniel was well-known and highly esteemed, Macmillan was a leading publisher, and Lewis, of course, a great author. But had it not been for Tom Taylor, an acquaintance of Carroll, known here as D (and a guy history seems to have forgotten), Alice may never have come to reality. That one letter from Lewis to Taylor – and the proper and professional manner in which he made it – was the turning point.
Now, lest you think I’m a literary historian and knew this all along, let’s set this straight. I know this only because I recently decided to read Alice again – for the first time since I was about 10 years old. Why? Because I’d just been introduced to Harry Potter, which I now love. It got me thinking about parallel worlds, so I asked myself where I’d seen that before. The answer was, of course, Alice! I quickly ordered a new copy and devoured it, including the introduction by Morton Cohen, indeed a literary scholar and authority on Lewis Carroll. As an aside, reading Alice as a septuagenarian, I came to the conclusion that fantasizing about – and visiting – parallel worlds makes us aware that we should more critically examine our own. But that’s for another conversation over a glass or two of Sherry.
Back to this column’s errand, remember that Lewis Carroll did everything we’re trying to do with LinkedIn (and other platforms), right? Think about it. D was a first-degree connection to A (Carroll). C was also a first, but not strong enough. B was the second-degree connection that D turned into a first for Carroll who was ultimately “hired,” if you will, by C.
Not only that, if Carroll hadn’t networked like that, Gracie Slick and The Jefferson Airplane wouldn’t have had “White Rabbit” to sing about 102 years later.
Then where would we be?
