I once was at a conference with my (former) boss where I got an inside peek at how a professional networker goes about it.
The conference sessions had ended, flowing into the evening program which pretty much was the bar. Just before heading into it, she shared a paper note with me.
It had a list of persons to talk to, for how long, the ice breaker, the excuse to exit the conversation and move to the next one, the importance of each target.
Not knowing anybody at the conference, I just sat at the end of the bar, had some light "conversation by proximity" but mostly watched her execute the networking plan. To the casual and unknowing observer, a cheerful social butterfly "happens" to bump into random characters but I knew more. The only visual clue was her eyes shooting across the room and her watch any time her current conversation partner looked away for a second. Scanning for prey.
I bet that as she returned home, she updated that massive network diagram in her garage to update the weights and other attributes.
Whilst you might just call this clever professional behavior, I found it chilling. Engineered, not genuine, "working" people to get what you need. I wonder if normalizing that bleeds into personal relationships.
I had an eye opening lesson on optimizing for the human factor from a friend in law school. I missed a class and asked to borrow his notes. His note taking style was very different from mine. I was focused on the details in the textbook.
He had all of that, but also included notes on the professor. For example, if there were multiple prevailing legal theories for an issue, he would put a note next to one and write "Prof. seems to prefer this." He was clocking the professor's take on the issues so that come test time he could craft answers that appealed to their predilections.
Law professors, like many lofty scholars, often think they know best and simply love students that stroke their egos. My friend, finished second in our class. Well ahead of me!
You don't play $boss like that?! I don't care for mgmt roles so the way I got what I wanted done was to walk $boss into thinking they came up with what I wanted to do. All you have to do is pay enough attention to the (often not work related) stated preferences and work some of them into the plan.
I want you to be asking about the strategy I have and incorporating ways to achieve that. I have that out in the open!
I usually want to know if you think my strategy won’t work and why, and how to make it better, but I might disagree with you. If we disagree, I still want you thinking about how to make my strategy successful even if I know you disagree.
I also want you to be telling me where you think we should be going and so I can make sure we both get credit for it. (Me because I did the extra work to make sure it isn’t blocked upstream and because I give it the space to succeed against other ideas, and you for having the idea and working through the hard parts.)
You sound like a Good Boss, or at least a pragmatic one! I don't think I've had any of those, or at least none committed to actually thinking differently. So you do what works: subterfuge and flattery :P
If she's coldly calculating, why did she share this potentially compromising info with you, and risk you accidentally burning her rep? (Did she trust you highly? Was there enough upside in showing off or mentoring? Did she have some liquid courage, so the calculations at that moment weren't as sharp as when she prepared the list?)
Do you think the mechanics of it might've been done out of humility, as a crutch for social anxiety/awkwardness? Or maybe she sees it as a performer, and people would appreciate her contributing to the overall experience of the event this way? It still wouldn't seem very honest to me, but more sympathetic than some cold-blooded person going for every edge of advantage in manipulating people.
It's alright, if they stay in one town long enough, or visit the same conferences and events long enough, everyone eventually learns who they are and figures out what they're after. The "good" ones are smart enough not to do that, they move around. The less good ones end up talking to the same "loves to hear the sound of their own voice" group eventually and sort of gets stuck in neutral. I guess if you've made it far enough in your desired career path by that point, it's fine.
When that less good kind has to go somewhere else for some reason, the results are extremely awkward.
I've been in those conversations before, and it kind of feels like it is what it is. I've learned to bury the lede in those situations so if the convo is not fitting into their speed dating schedule, then it's just not someone I want to be around. I've seen this a lot with Hollywood wanna be types at "mixers" where they have investors, writers, director types all at a bar hoping a pitch lands for further discussion. Same thing with industry parties in the ad world. Constant stories of one-ups that are just gross in that world. The swimming with sharks aspect is very creepy. They will absolutely key into information and either steal an idea or steal a client or both.
I had a sibling who did this, they wouldn't write anything down though. It absolutely bleeds into every relationship because that's what relationships are to them.
It's most likely that every single one of her "targets" understood that they were being targeted and everyone understood the smalltalk for what it was, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Surely they would understand it's an opportunity for networking, but I'd still say Tom would be a little surprised to read this:
"Tom: spend max 10 minutes on him as he's the vehicle to his boss Richard that is my gateway to a promotion. Ice breaker: he's a dweeb that studies fungi. Memorize one fungi name and say it grows in my garden and you're about to eat it, so that Tom can save my life by saying its toxic. Exit: isn't that Richard, your boss? I'm going to tell him how you saved my life lol."
Your original comment didn't say that the notes contained insults and planned lies (beyond the dishonest appearance of spontaneity). Is this sample an exaggeration? It certainly looks a lot worse this way.
It kind of makes sense that their strategy would involve cold, manipulative tactics, given the goal is to successfully trick each person they talk with into thinking they actually are interested in them as a person.
I find it disgusting and terrifying, but not all that surprising.
Something like this is advocated in _How to Win Friends and Influence People_ with the additional emphasis that the important part is that you should have something to offer so that you both win
This feels extremely weird to read as someone naiively approaching networking where I actually want to talk to people, not just their professional side.
On the other hand it might even be suboptimal in the long run because when you hire or partner with someone, you don't just hire their knowledge or expirience, you hire their personality, drive and creativity.
It came across as quite cold-hearted to me. But you don't have to take it that far. In particular the learning can be that you can somewhat engineer a conversation by preparing it well.
This can work, but it can also backfire. Sometimes I've ended a conversation that was going well because I wanted to meet/talk with other people, and then later regretted it. This is partly because the other conversations didn't pan out, and partly because sometimes the value of an extended conversation can be 20x the value of a bunch of brief interactions. I don't need another person to add on LinkedIn and then rarely actually talk to — sometimes I need a strong advocate or someone who is really into the project I'm working on.
Or perhaps I'm just not as good at the hyper-optimized-networking game as your boss.
I guess she knew what companies will attend and did her homework of the possible representatives (usually higher-ups from sales, marketing, CEO obviously, depends on the size of company as well). If the sector is small enough you can even do your homework on the key leaders as they will most likely be there, especially if it's THE event you should be if you're activating in that sector.
The conference sessions had ended, flowing into the evening program which pretty much was the bar. Just before heading into it, she shared a paper note with me.
It had a list of persons to talk to, for how long, the ice breaker, the excuse to exit the conversation and move to the next one, the importance of each target.
Not knowing anybody at the conference, I just sat at the end of the bar, had some light "conversation by proximity" but mostly watched her execute the networking plan. To the casual and unknowing observer, a cheerful social butterfly "happens" to bump into random characters but I knew more. The only visual clue was her eyes shooting across the room and her watch any time her current conversation partner looked away for a second. Scanning for prey.
I bet that as she returned home, she updated that massive network diagram in her garage to update the weights and other attributes.
Whilst you might just call this clever professional behavior, I found it chilling. Engineered, not genuine, "working" people to get what you need. I wonder if normalizing that bleeds into personal relationships.
Does it work though? Hell yes it does.