drawing the line

networking is all the rage these days. it seems like it doesn't really matter what you can do on your own, as long as you have a powerful "network," you' re all set. of course this isn't entirely true, but there is some merit behind the thought.

as the networking movement has become so strong, companies are now looking to leverage the networks of their employees to help the organization as a whole. previously the most valuable feature of a network outside your own company was the ability to find another job, but now it is more of an internal business asset. companies are relying on these networks to generate sales leads and suddenly everyone from r&d to accounting is a part of the sales force.

in a small organization where there is a lot of interaction between co-workers, these networks may be easily exposed, but in large companies, co-workers sometime have no idea about their resources. my favorite comparison was the needle in a haystack. the sales lead was obviously the needle and all the other employees were the haystack.

now technology has been developed to find the needle. the biggest obstacle is whether or not employees are willing to submit to this technology. do they want to share their network of resources? the overriding theme is that, sooner or later, they won't really have much of a choice and corporations will milk them for every ounce of their worth beyond their actual job functions.

as a leader, i think it is necessary to be able to use the resources of your employees. it can obviously make the difference between negotiating a successful deal or coming up just short. as the subordinate, however, i would be more reluctant to share in some cases. these are connections that you made and if you are cut out as the kind of middle man in the whole process, your value to the business has decreased greatly.

i guess the key is to continue making connections and show that your network is large enough that you will always be an asset to the business.