It’s the received wisdom in business these days, and especially those businesses involved in personal relationships such as consulting, that networking is absolutely critical. Well here is a little story that really demonstrated to me the value of the networks.

I happen to be a trustee/director of a small community organisation involved in using the creative arts to engage more disaffected and disadvantaged members of the community. Now this is a sector that is under considerable pressure at the moment-firstly from reduced grants and other income opportunities and secondly (and this is almost certainly related to the first point) to the need to become ever more effective in managing the limited resources we have available. Now this latter point is of considerable interest to me it’s one reason why I was recruited in the first place so that the company could draw on my expertise.

We have been running the charity for the last four months without a chief executive and as board members shortly need a discussion of whether or not we can continue to operate without a single head honcho. Now the received wisdom is that any organisation needs a single individual heading up that organisation who can be held accountable for everything that it does and also take the lead on behalf of the organisation when necessary. But does this model necessarily apply to a small third sector organisation (we have 8 staff) in these changing times? We want our charity to both successful and a role model for others. And so we will be exploring the possibilities around how to lead and manage whilst leaving the trustee/directors to provide the proper governance role.

Now the networking story. As you might imagine I have an extensive network of colleagues that I could call on for advice. So I wrote to about 30 of them seeking their views on the situation. Within 24 hours I have 13 responses, including a couple from people I do not know who had been passed my original e-mail by my primary contact. The majority, serve up the conventional wisdom that we need someone at the top, however the four of them have offered different perspectives on how we might run the organisation and some have even offered their personal help in sorting it out. Remember, that this is after only 24 hours!

I have been genuinely astonished by the speed of the calibre of the responses I have received from my network, and from second order links. Evidence, if it were, of the value of a clearly worded request to clearly selected individuals from the network. I would not have dreamt of sending an e-mail to the hundreds of people in my address list, perhaps the few receive things so infrequently that they recognise its significance and act on it. This does go slightly against the grain of some networkers-I am in the network worth one or two people who sent me e-mails almost daily. They are shortly to be deleted from my network on the basis that I get so much from that I can pay little or no attention to any of it.

So, what’s the message? Well, nurture your networks, treat them with respect, feed them appropriately so that when you need something from then they will respond as brilliantly as mine on this occasion.

Thank you to everyone who has helped so far. What practical stories can you tell about your networks?