University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Your Invisible Network
Book

Your Invisible Network

How to Create, Maintain, and Leverage the Relationships That Will Transform Your Career

Michael Urtuzuástegui Melcher
Matt Holt Books, 2023
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8

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Recommendation

Meritocracy is an ideal, not a reality. In truth, your career advancement hinges on other people. This is why, executive coach Michael Urtuzuástegui Melcher explains, it’s essential to forge connections and nurture mutually beneficial relationships with a wide array of contacts. Learn how leveraging your “invisible network” – which includes both yet-to-be-forged connections and underdeveloped ones – helps you analyze opportunities, deftly navigate office politics, take risks with confidence and find collaborators in your quest for achievement.

Summary

Your professional advancement relies on your ability to initiate and maintain relationships.

Most people see relationship-building as a less critical aspect of their career growth than the day-to-day tasks associated with their jobs. Developing relationships is not something you can afford to ignore, however; doing so is essential to your professional development. Through your relationships, you gain the insights needed to accurately analyze opportunities, get help in navigating office politics, receive the support necessary to take risks and find collaborators for reaching shared goals. Taking an active role in someone else’s path to achievement can also be incredibly fulfilling.

You have an invisible network of people who are in a position to contribute to your growth and advancement. With an investment of just 20 minutes a day, you can grow this network of yet-to-be-tapped and underdeveloped connections into an asset bank that will enrich your career.

Building, maintaining and using your relationships form the core of productive professional networking.

Relationship-building is a...

About the Author

Michael Urtuzuástegui Melcher is an executive coach and leadership expert, former lawyer, podcaster, and author of a self-help book for lawyers, The Creative Lawyer.

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