Why Don't We Teach Networking in Universities?

By Edgar Valdmanis

Why don't we teach networking in universities?

The following is a short excerpt from Fortune magazine:

When Jack Welch gave a guest lecture at MIT's Sloan School of Management in 2005, someone in the crowd asked, "What should we be learning in business school?" Welch's reply: "Just concentrate on networking. Everything else you need to know, you can learn on the job."

When the chairman of Business Network International (BNI), Dr. Ivan Misner was recently visiting Europe he asked repeatedly why we do not teach networking in universities? Most will say that Misner is tooting his own horn, since he is running a business-referral organisation for a living. Now we have Jack Welch essentially saying the same—so why don’t we?

Having worked my way to an MBA myself, I of course believe that the time was well spent, and that I have acquired knowledge that I could not have learned “on the job." On the other hand, I see that I confer with my network much more often than I go back to my books to seek out a certain theory. And I help others in my network when they turn to me for help with this or that. I also experience that if I “Google” a certain subject I get thousands of links, but often few of them seem to hit the nail on its head. If I ask my network for help, I get fewer responses, but more of them are what I was looking for. I also see that I solve problems quicker by getting assistance from my network, than I would if I just worked my way through it alone. Even if the first person I ask doesn’t have the exact solution, he’s seen an article, a website or knows someone else that knows someone who..

If this is a key skill, why don’t we teach it in colleges and universities alongside accounting, marketing, strategic planning, finance and the other subjects? It would undoubtedly be valuable for students to learn the ground rules of networking as early as possible.

I frequently meet people that think networking is about going to events and handing out as many business cards as possible. Some think that “spamming” everyone in their e-mail address-book with marketing messages every now and again is networking. I also meet people that lost a big client last week and now consider networking to land a new client within the next few weeks. Most readers will hopefully agree that all of these are mistaken.

But wouldn’t it be great if we could teach students that networking takes time and is really a life-long activity? And that when you meet new people at an event you should concentrate on getting to know them to see how you can help them? And that’s why your own business card is of less importance than getting theirs.

The reason I get help, is as I said earlier—I help others as well. Seasoned networkers call this “Givers Gain." You will see variations of it in books by Ivan Misner, Andrea Nierenberg, Thomas Power and Keith Ferrazzi. All of these are highly successful in business and attribute much of their success to networking. If they attribute their success to networking, that’s definitely something to teach university students.

The article quoted above was titled “The Trouble with MBAs." To me that’s a narrow headline. If we agree that the subject should be taught, it could be included already at the bachelor level. And at the same time we should include students outside the narrow business niche. Networking is as valuable to engineers, lawyers, mathematicians or anyone as it is to businesspeople. After all networking is about reaching out across trades and industries. What do you think?

Edgar Valdmanis is the marketing director of the Norwegian Computer Society, and president of Meeting Professionals Norway Chapter.

Comments

[Adam Kovitz]

Sooner or later Networking will be taught at our universities and even secondary schools. We're already seeing schools in the U.S. planning courses for the Fall, 2007 Semester, such as the Rochester Institute of Technology. Their Social Computing Lab just received a $124,000 from the National Science Foundation and are planning a course for 90 students. Of course, there is also Ron Burt's Networking & Social Structures course at the University of Chicago.

And while other schools are getting into the Networking scene, the biggest challenge is the lack of a neutral third party, centralized body of knowledge and/or standards.

Networking, as an academic subject, touches upon so many other traditional ones: communications, collaboration, marketing, sales, customer service, leadership, management, political science, sociology, computer networking, internet-based application development, etc.

The question is: is it time to consider Networking as its own body of knowledge or should each traditional discipline cover it in some fashion during the course of one's studies?

[Mike Segall]

Last year I DID teach a course of 10 x 2 hour networking lessons to students at City University, University of London.

[Networking Coach]

I only can agree with you Edgar ;-)

But there is hope. I was hired by the UAMS (University of Antwerp Management School) last year to teach them how to network. It was only half a day, just enough to raise awareness, but for many of them this was all they needed to take action themselves.

It was very nice to share my knowledge with them. Like Ron wrote my life would have looked very differently if I had learned to network in college or university.

The workshop for UAMS was in their carreer track. Now all the other colleges and universities need to give courses so students can help each other out and tap into the network of alumni (and vice versa).

We have a long way to go, but I'm hopeful !

Have a great networking day !

Jan

[David Sandusky]

It hit me young in my career when many executives I worked with told me they wished they started networking [correctly] when they were my age (at the time). I also hear that they wish they started a career strategy and mentor relationships earlier too...

A few times recently I have been at networking events by groups like IEEE where there was a mix of students through 'retired'. I find it is only the entrepreneurial students going to these events - and they are networking in other ways too!

[RennyBA]

Well said Edgar! It becomes a givers gain when you walk your talk; not to eager to spread your own business card but to get how you can help others.
The reason why they don't teach this in universities might be that networking isn't about skills but knowledge and even tacit knowledge.

[Ron Hayes]

I know that if I had learned networking in college, it would have made a world of difference for me. And, when I first heard about networking, it was giving out business cards to sell yourself/your business and I didn't like that approach so I shied away from it. Now, I know better and wish I had those years back.

[TJ McCue]

Bravo Edgar!! Networking is indeed a skill and an area many students don't understand for years after finishing undergraduate or graduate school. My wife attended Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business and one of the things she found valuable was the networking opportunities and i believe they had a short course on networking at the time. It would be interesting to find out if any universities teach such a course.