Yesterday a friend from school asked me how I can make friends in school or office. She perceived her colleagues as competitors. To her business friendship is exchange of favors and is very different from friendship outside one’s professional space. In life, one chooses his/her friends based on the interests, vision, thoughts. The business acquaintances on the other hand are not chosen out of free will but need of the hour. According to her, to be successful in business networking one has to be selfish. Even when one meets outside the office for drink etc, everyone is updating a mental scorecard and evaluating the value and returns of each second invested. The intensity of the relationship is based on not how much one likes the other person’s company but by what the other person can do for you. No matter how close one gets he/she cannot forget who boss/customer is, who has the upper hand and who does not.
I am a strong believer of friendship and networking in professional life, but all I could reply was to list out a set of reasons why one should network. To that her reply was that the fact that I don’t like it does not mean I am not good at it. What are your views?
Ankur Aggarwal
sree
Sandip Chaudhuri
vbr
Skabeesh
shobhendrasrivastava
