Building Personal Networks

Program Highlights

• The connections that are most likely to advance your career.
• Strategy versus sincerity: how care and concern build credibility.
• Networks that obsolesce quickly, and those that appreciate over time.

It goes without saying that networks can be powerful career tools, helping to drive performance and build influence. But they benefit organizations as well, enhancing productivity and improving communication between disparate business units and functions. Networks also provide cultural benefits, including our identity, well-being and sense of purpose.

The best networks allow access to unexpected, non-redundant information by creating ties to a wide spectrum of otherwise unconnected individuals. Therefore, networking requires that you change the way you think about people—even in settings where it doesn't appear that anything of value can happen. In this insightful talk, Professor Baron offers concrete suggestions for building an effective and efficient personal network.

James Baron is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He received a BA (Phi Beta Kappa) from Reed College, an MS from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Professor Baron has been on the faculty at Stanford since 1982.