Boost your career through effective networking by learning key tactics like proximity to decision-makers, understanding company structures, and creating your own opportunities. Enhance visibility within your organization and leverage LinkedIn to build connections and increase career growth potential.

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Career Boost Through Networking: Key Strategies for Success

In today’s fast-paced professional world, building a career isn’t just about technical skills and knowledge—it’s about who you know and how effectively you network. The session “Career Boost - Networking” delves into essential networking strategies that can significantly impact your career trajectory. Below are the key takeaways to help you boost your career through smarter networking.

1. Understanding Career Perspectives

A career can mean different things to different people. For some, it’s about climbing the corporate ladder, gaining authority, and making decisions. Others define a successful career as leading and developing others. While for some, it’s about financial gain. In this context, success is defined by leadership, influence, and growth, where helping others flourish is as important as personal achievements.

2. Proximity to Decision-Makers Matters

One of the most impactful strategies for career growth is positioning yourself close to decision-makers in your organization. If you’re in an office where the company’s executives or decision-makers work, you’re naturally more visible. Casual encounters in hallways, lunchrooms, or even coffee breaks allow you to build rapport. This visibility can often lead to opportunities for promotion. If your company is large, try to get as close as possible to the headquarters, where most executives work. The more you’re seen, the better your chances of getting promoted.

3. Know the Key Players

Understanding who holds power in your organization is crucial. Learn who the decision-makers are and how they are connected. This knowledge helps you navigate internal structures and align yourself with influential individuals, making it easier to get your ideas noticed. Networking isn’t just about connecting with peers but also forming strategic relationships with those in leadership.

4. Master the Value Chain

To grow within any organization, especially large, complex ones, it’s important to understand the value chain of your company. Knowing how various departments and legal entities interact helps you position yourself as a well-informed employee who can connect the dots, solving problems across different units. Understanding the full picture of how your company operates sets you apart from others.

5. Create Your Own Opportunities

You don’t always have to wait for a promotion or a new position to become available. If you see a gap in your organization, propose a solution and offer to lead it. This initiative showcases your leadership skills and ability to innovate. By suggesting new positions or projects, you demonstrate that you’re thinking ahead and actively contributing to the company’s growth.

6. Leverage LinkedIn for Networking

LinkedIn remains a powerful tool for professional networking. Posting regular updates and sharing your insights increases your visibility. Moreover, including a professional-looking photo in your profile can make a huge difference in the performance of your posts. In today’s digital age, your online presence can be as influential as in-person interactions, so stay active and engaged on platforms like LinkedIn to expand your professional network.

Conclusion

Networking is more than just exchanging business cards or adding connections on LinkedIn. It’s about building real, meaningful relationships, especially with the key players in your organization. Position yourself near decision-makers, understand your company’s inner workings, and take the initiative to create your own opportunities. These strategies will help you navigate your career more effectively and boost your chances for long-term success.

Highlights:

00:00 Introduction to Career Networking

00:29 Defining Career Success

01:17 Proximity to Decision Makers

05:03 Navigating Organizational Structures

07:42 Leveraging Know-How and Connections

09:16 Effective LinkedIn Tactics

10:59 The Importance of Visibility

16:00 Playing the Politics Game

21:11 Scaling and Profitability in Startups

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Today I wanted to talk a little bit about how you can boost your career through networking. Mm hmm. And we will go. Through like, what is a career and looking a little bit at the different perspectives of careers. And then we go into a couple of topics. One is proximity, the ArcMap, the know how, and then a LinkedIn tactic that I have used in the past quite a lot.

Career. What is a career? A lot of people defining career differently. For some, it's career. only about the power you get when you increase, like stepping up the ladder in an organization. Um, for some is being a leader, which is helping other people to grow. And for some it's money in the end for us in the context of this group, of course, it's the middle, like focusing more on leadership and people growing.

But in, in the end it doesn't matter. So if you want [00:01:00] to earn more money, if you want to increase your power in an organization, it still works.

So that as a starting point, then one thing I have learned, and that's now interesting because, um, the world is changing. As closer you are to the deciders inside of the company, which is like the top management, As more visible you are and as easier it is to make a career. So let's, let's take the left side as an example.

You are in an organization, you're in the same office like the CEO of the company, the CEO of the company can meet you at the coffee bar, at the lunch table, uh, in the hallway. on the toilet, wherever, like you have possibilities to bump into the CEO quite often. And just through that, this person sees you and same with the other deciders of the organization.

So as closer you [00:02:00] are to the deciders, as easier it is to get promoted inside of the organization. So one of the things that I have done and seen myself in the past is if you are in a very large organization, which has different multiple locations around the globe, and you want to make a huge career in this organization, try to get into the headquarter.

As closer you get to the headquarter, as more time you spend in the headquarter, where the big bosses are sitting, as easier it is to get promoted. So that's, that's leading us to the middle point, which is really like, if you understand where the headquarter is of your organization, it's very, very easy.

But now we are living, if we go to the right, in, in a situation where we work from home, where we work in distributed teams across the world, And that requires you to be visible in a different way. [00:03:00] And of course, showing up in meetings and being visible, um, attending, let's say the town halls and, and having a proper picture when let's say you have a big town hall on your profile, all of this things are contributing, but it really requires you to step up, um, differently than just bumping into the, into the manager in the same office, you need to show up.

in different meetings and need to show through your results even more so. And of course, that's, that's when we go outside of the organization using social media and personal branding, where this goes even more important in today's world, because the world is digital. I mean, the CEO can see that you are, let's say, commenting on the CEO's post or on the company's post that you share the company's post and so on.

That was still the same in the other two. But in the end, that's, If you are in a digital environment, you work, let's say, remote only, that's almost the only chance you have [00:04:00] to get in front of the deciders. And it's still the proximity to the deciders, if they know who you are, it's more likely that you get promoted if they don't know you, which is obvious, I guess.

There's always a fun saying, which I most probably do completely wrong right now, but like the person that is washing the clothes of the FC Barcelona football players. has more impact on the FC Barcelona than the head coach of Bayern Munich in Germany. And that's quite interesting to see. So the proximity of the person that's washing the tricots of the players has more impact on FC Barcelona than one of the top Let's say five coaches in the world.

And that's just interesting to see. And that's the same if you are in a large organization, if you want to get promoted, if you want to make impact so that it is at least visible for your career growth, you need to get [00:05:00] close to the big guys and girls. Then another part that helps you to do that from a networking perspective is understanding exactly the setup of the organization.

So one of the things. Um, we have as well in our classroom is the career mapping exercise or the organizational mapping exercise. rather. So one thing is understanding the organizational chart of your unit. So let's say you are part of an organizational unit inside of a larger company or a smaller company.

You need to know who are the deciders in your business and who is connected to whom and so on. As further you know, Um, that who is who and you know the faces and you know the names of the people as easier it is to get connected to these people inside of the hallway again, depending on where you are, but the same in digital.

But on top of that, it is equally important to understand the whole value chain of the company. [00:06:00] Because most, at least the bigger companies are set up in ways where you have different legal entities in different countries, sometimes completely different setups. And I use here. The example of Ikea, like Ikea has the whole value chain.

You have factories that are Ikea and you have Ikea stores and. Of course, these are completely different companies, so if you want to make a career instead of a large organization, it's good to understand what are the different entities and what are the different organizational pieces of the bigger company, so that you understand that inside of, let's say, in this part, the shop, for example, you know who is the store manager, you know who are the others.

And that goes then to the rest of the organization as well. If you know the people that are part of this piece of the organization, as easier it is to connect to them. A lot of people don't even look up the organizational chart in an organization. Look who is who in this organization to, to use that to their [00:07:00] advantage.

So it's an easy thing because most of the organizational charts, at least internally of an organization are visible, but the same on social media. If you'd take LinkedIn, as an example, you can search for the CEO of large companies, you can search for who is the HR manager, you can search for who is the chief sales or whatever.

So I think it's, it's networking opportunities all around. It's just understanding whom to talk to. And when you bump into a stranger on the coffee machine, if you know that this is the, the kind of the big guy that is always good to know, because then you can use it for your advantages.

Then know how, know how is. That's the next level of this is understanding who is connected to whom. And that's, that's one of the, my secret weapons. I don't know how, but I always figure out through networking and through reading the organization and the [00:08:00] people in the organization who is connected to whom.

And if you know that, let's say in this case, the person in the top right is connected to the other person, then you can, instead of getting directly to the CEO, you just talk to the assistant of the CEO or to, uh, like I had the example, which was quite nice. So I was regional manager in Ikea and responsible for 11 Ikea stores.

And one of the store managers grew up together with the CEO of IKEA. And because they grew up together, they know each other differently than the CEO of IKEA knows a normal store. So they know each other pretty well. And through that, of course, I can use this to, Oh, I was able to use that to connect to the CEO in a different way.

So just understanding of what are the different networks inside of an organization will help you to navigate and utilize [00:09:00] that for yourself. And I know that's a little bit politics, but it helps extremely because then you can play the balls and the ping pong inside of an organization and through that make a career and network obviously.

And then a tactic that I have used that is still working a hundred percent today. I don't do that as much anymore, but it's still working is I'm reading quite a lot of articles. Like I'm reading books. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm reading articles. in different magazines. What I did all the time, I was sending these articles to individuals through LinkedIn.

So I was taking the link of the article and then wrote to the person which was an internal colleague. So it was not like external, it was an internal colleague and say, Hey, this article is quite interesting. It covers this, this, this, [00:10:00] you might like it too. So I was sending an article, a link to an article to a colleague internally.

And I did this even with the CEO. And they always appreciated it because they're, they most of the time don't have time to read all of it. But that requires, of course, to understand what they're into, what are the topics they're interested in. And then. delivering something towards them. And I, I was doing that in a way, um, that I was taking notes when they do keynotes, that I was taking notes of the things they're mentioning.

And then I was just using that as a trigger to say, read, because I was reading anyhow this article and there was, if something popped up that was similar, And I was just sending it to them and they always said, thank you. And there was a connection and through that, again, you're more visible, you're more credible to them.

And if, if you are more visible and they can remember who you are, not just the face as well, the name, it's more likely in an organization that you're getting promoted, especially in the larger ones. Yes. [00:11:00] CEOs still know everyone. I'd say if you are. Maybe if you are below 100 people, it's still possible that the CEO knows everyone, but if you're going beyond, let's say 500 or a thousand people, it's very, very hard.

For the CEO or even the whole c switch to, to know everyone, questions and or other ideas, a comment. So even if you are below 100 people, the CEO is contracting you. The guy is singing, signing with you the contract. So even this is second opportunity to, to know better the people. And if you learn the CEO or the founder or the general director.

It's easy to get connected to the other people in the organic ground. That's really interesting. And it can be a good tactic to be inside the company. We have, um, [00:12:00] perturbing the presence of the other people. That is the other, I would say sacred weapon. Not being over there in a low profile, but being over there.

Exactly. That that's, that's what it always is. And you see that. Um, man, if you, if you look in, in, even in the newer organizations, if they have a big office, the C suite is always hanging out together most of the time. So you see exactly where they are and how they move and, and just by, I mean, I do this even with clients.

I'm sitting on the same floor, I'm sitting close to the C suite so that they see me. And that's something you can do. Everyone can do. Like, I did this all the time in Ikea. All the time. I was sitting so that I was sitting next to the big dogs. Or close by. That's a good thing. I mean, now in the startup world, you meet the [00:13:00] founder or the CEO, but when you are in a middle company, sometimes it's really complex to get contact with the CEO.

Yeah. I have to say before, if you are over 500, but if you are ever even over 100, sometimes this kind of company, they have a human resources, um, director or something like that. And you don't have access to this ego sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes they don't want to, it also depends on the company culture.

Yes. They want to be not. like visible or accessible. It really depends on the company culture and, um, how they behave themselves.

But still, if you're close by, it doesn't matter really how they behave. If you were there every day, it's, you're still there. It's like watching, [00:14:00] watching the trick goes from the, from the players of FC Barcelona, you're there. I would see that as well. If you see the guy, the big boss, the big dog walking around, Hey, something like that, a small gestures.

Hey, Hey, okay. I keep you in my eyes. Yeah, true. And it's, it's, it's very simple, these things, but it's super powerful, it's like just human behaviors. There was this study where as more often you see a, a familiar face, as more, um, do you like, you like that face? It's super, super basic. And it's just human behavior from like ancestors, like as more, you know, each like see each other, as more you like each other, if, if it's not connected to something bad, but in the end, it's.

It's as simple as that. That's why the whole social media works. Like, you see on social [00:15:00] media, if you have a photo of yourself, it's performing better than if you don't. And that's because of that. It's quicker. It is when you are a good worker and other people can recommend what you did. That is another big milestone as well.

If you perform your work really well, And the people see that, and someone is asking for you as a person or as a worker, and the people can say, Hey, he's really good. He can do that. We can trust him. That's, that's a big game changer. Of course. I, I always take that for a given, like if you don't perform, you will always have problems.

You need to be open and you need to be flexible to perform. so well as you can. Yeah. So go into the excellence. If not, don't do that. Yeah, no, [00:16:00] agree. It always helps if, if you perform, if you don't just like show up, you just, but, but though I have to say in large companies, sometimes it's just, you just need to be close.

You don't need to perform. Sometimes it's the case. Yeah. Big companies is like that. So I got some experiences with this kind of behavior out there. They were the middle, they were not big bosses. They were intermediates, something like that. But they got a lot of power inside the organization in front of the CEO.

Oh, they were really, really, really silly people. Yeah, it is. Sometimes that's always the funny thing. And sometimes they're like real stupid as well, but they're in power. You have to have the favor of the CEO and then you can do nothing [00:17:00] against that. But I've seen as well things changing. So the CEO is changing and all the rotten apples are getting kicked out as well.

That's happening quickly too. Like you're only protectors as long as the big guys are there. They're gone. If someone takes them away, then you're gone too. That's true as well. So they have the experience. Uh, gave a, a bus from China and he took all the management, the chain, this fire, all the people was fired and he took new people from China and all, it was the team around 25, 28, all new people.

Yeah. They put their team into place to protect themselves as well because they don't trust. Yeah. It really [00:18:00] depends on the company, of course.

Yeah, fun world.

What else? Any other questions?

Good performing, knowing the people, good behavior, showing the faces, let the world speak for you, and being everyday over there. So, you are right. If the people see you everyday, okay, okay, okay. He belongs to our group. It is. That's why I'm always laughing when I mean, in bigger organizations, again, you have like the, um, like internally, you can see people on teams and so on.

And some people don't put their photo and it sounds super silly, but the [00:19:00] photo makes the difference in a big organization, because then people know who you are, but they don't know who you are. Don't wonder that nobody promotes you.

The promotion is the magic word here. If you are working in a, in a organization, it can be a small, medium or large.

Don't wait for the promotion. You can't, you can't invent your own position as well. So for example, for example, here you are in a company and you say, so we are missing that, that, that, and that maybe we can resolve this position and I'm going to take the leading of this team to do that, that, that, and that.

Exactly. Proposing is another magical here. You, you need to have, there's a cool book. I need to share that with you because it's in German one day. It's like, it's something about killer [00:20:00] career. Career, how to make a killer career. There are a lot, I mean, I use, I have used all of the tricks in my career.

It's not, it's not nice, but it works. Expect, yeah, it's, it's all politics. Unfortunately, and you need to be willing to play the game. If you don't want to play the game, then it doesn't work. That's just another big step to be open and be flexible to try new things. No. Yeah. That's why I don't want to work so much with large organizations internally.

It's just energy. That distract

and that sucks. It's politics. Any, any stuff, right? It's politics in the family, in the, well, in their [00:21:00] organization, in their circle of friends, uh, on approvals. Yeah. Okay. Anthropological stuff.

Yeah, that's, I'm happy to have a company below 20 people. Then that's like way less, maybe even below 12. That's better. Then it's family still. Right, but that second thing, if you, if you want to plan the, the, the price of the company, you can decide how many people do you want to have inside and how many, how many people do you want to have from external sources.

That second exercise, I'm going to, I'm going to make my notes here. I'm going to think about it because, because until now, I'm thinking in the startup world, two, three, max five. But if you [00:22:00] scale, you need more support. The tricky thing is that doesn't mean always more money. I mean, the volume gets bigger, but the cost gets higher as well.

Sometimes the most profitable companies are like below 12 people. If you look at turnover or profit per person, that's quite interesting. I'm fine to have a lot of profit.

Less turnover, but a lot of profit.

Good. Anything else? Any question?

00:00:00] Today I wanted to talk a little bit about how you can boost your career through networking. Mm hmm. And we will go. Through like, what is a career and looking a little bit at the different perspectives of careers. And then we go into a couple of topics. One is proximity, the ArcMap, the know how, and then a LinkedIn tactic that I have used in the past quite a lot.

Career. What is a career? A lot of people defining career differently. For some, it's career. only about the power you get when you increase, like stepping up the ladder in an organization. Um, for some is being a leader, which is helping other people to grow. And for some it's money in the end for us in the context of this group, of course, it's the middle, like focusing more on leadership and people growing.

But in, in the end it doesn't matter. So if you want [00:01:00] to earn more money, if you want to increase your power in an organization, it still works.

So that as a starting point, then one thing I have learned, and that's now interesting because, um, the world is changing. As closer you are to the deciders inside of the company, which is like the top management, As more visible you are and as easier it is to make a career. So let's, let's take the left side as an example.

You are in an organization, you're in the same office like the CEO of the company, the CEO of the company can meet you at the coffee bar, at the lunch table, uh, in the hallway. on the toilet, wherever, like you have possibilities to bump into the CEO quite often. And just through that, this person sees you and same with the other deciders of the organization.

So as closer you [00:02:00] are to the deciders, as easier it is to get promoted inside of the organization. So one of the things that I have done and seen myself in the past is if you are in a very large organization, which has different multiple locations around the globe, and you want to make a huge career in this organization, try to get into the headquarter.

As closer you get to the headquarter, as more time you spend in the headquarter, where the big bosses are sitting, as easier it is to get promoted. So that's, that's leading us to the middle point, which is really like, if you understand where the headquarter is of your organization, it's very, very easy.

But now we are living, if we go to the right, in, in a situation where we work from home, where we work in distributed teams across the world, And that requires you to be visible in a different way. [00:03:00] And of course, showing up in meetings and being visible, um, attending, let's say the town halls and, and having a proper picture when let's say you have a big town hall on your profile, all of this things are contributing, but it really requires you to step up, um, differently than just bumping into the, into the manager in the same office, you need to show up.

in different meetings and need to show through your results even more so. And of course, that's, that's when we go outside of the organization using social media and personal branding, where this goes even more important in today's world, because the world is digital. I mean, the CEO can see that you are, let's say, commenting on the CEO's post or on the company's post that you share the company's post and so on.

That was still the same in the other two. But in the end, that's, If you are in a digital environment, you work, let's say, remote only, that's almost the only chance you have [00:04:00] to get in front of the deciders. And it's still the proximity to the deciders, if they know who you are, it's more likely that you get promoted if they don't know you, which is obvious, I guess.

There's always a fun saying, which I most probably do completely wrong right now, but like the person that is washing the clothes of the FC Barcelona football players. has more impact on the FC Barcelona than the head coach of Bayern Munich in Germany. And that's quite interesting to see. So the proximity of the person that's washing the tricots of the players has more impact on FC Barcelona than one of the top Let's say five coaches in the world.

And that's just interesting to see. And that's the same if you are in a large organization, if you want to get promoted, if you want to make impact so that it is at least visible for your career growth, you need to get [00:05:00] close to the big guys and girls. Then another part that helps you to do that from a networking perspective is understanding exactly the setup of the organization.

So one of the things. Um, we have as well in our classroom is the career mapping exercise or the organizational mapping exercise. rather. So one thing is understanding the organizational chart of your unit. So let's say you are part of an organizational unit inside of a larger company or a smaller company.

You need to know who are the deciders in your business and who is connected to whom and so on. As further you know, Um, that who is who and you know the faces and you know the names of the people as easier it is to get connected to these people inside of the hallway again, depending on where you are, but the same in digital.

But on top of that, it is equally important to understand the whole value chain of the company. [00:06:00] Because most, at least the bigger companies are set up in ways where you have different legal entities in different countries, sometimes completely different setups. And I use here. The example of Ikea, like Ikea has the whole value chain.

You have factories that are Ikea and you have Ikea stores and. Of course, these are completely different companies, so if you want to make a career instead of a large organization, it's good to understand what are the different entities and what are the different organizational pieces of the bigger company, so that you understand that inside of, let's say, in this part, the shop, for example, you know who is the store manager, you know who are the others.

And that goes then to the rest of the organization as well. If you know the people that are part of this piece of the organization, as easier it is to connect to them. A lot of people don't even look up the organizational chart in an organization. Look who is who in this organization to, to use that to their [00:07:00] advantage.

So it's an easy thing because most of the organizational charts, at least internally of an organization are visible, but the same on social media. If you'd take LinkedIn, as an example, you can search for the CEO of large companies, you can search for who is the HR manager, you can search for who is the chief sales or whatever.

So I think it's, it's networking opportunities all around. It's just understanding whom to talk to. And when you bump into a stranger on the coffee machine, if you know that this is the, the kind of the big guy that is always good to know, because then you can use it for your advantages.

Then know how, know how is. That's the next level of this is understanding who is connected to whom. And that's, that's one of the, my secret weapons. I don't know how, but I always figure out through networking and through reading the organization and the [00:08:00] people in the organization who is connected to whom.

And if you know that, let's say in this case, the person in the top right is connected to the other person, then you can, instead of getting directly to the CEO, you just talk to the assistant of the CEO or to, uh, like I had the example, which was quite nice. So I was regional manager in Ikea and responsible for 11 Ikea stores.

And one of the store managers grew up together with the CEO of IKEA. And because they grew up together, they know each other differently than the CEO of IKEA knows a normal store. So they know each other pretty well. And through that, of course, I can use this to, Oh, I was able to use that to connect to the CEO in a different way.

So just understanding of what are the different networks inside of an organization will help you to navigate and utilize [00:09:00] that for yourself. And I know that's a little bit politics, but it helps extremely because then you can play the balls and the ping pong inside of an organization and through that make a career and network obviously.

And then a tactic that I have used that is still working a hundred percent today. I don't do that as much anymore, but it's still working is I'm reading quite a lot of articles. Like I'm reading books. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm reading articles. in different magazines. What I did all the time, I was sending these articles to individuals through LinkedIn.

So I was taking the link of the article and then wrote to the person which was an internal colleague. So it was not like external, it was an internal colleague and say, Hey, this article is quite interesting. It covers this, this, this, [00:10:00] you might like it too. So I was sending an article, a link to an article to a colleague internally.

And I did this even with the CEO. And they always appreciated it because they're, they most of the time don't have time to read all of it. But that requires, of course, to understand what they're into, what are the topics they're interested in. And then. delivering something towards them. And I, I was doing that in a way, um, that I was taking notes when they do keynotes, that I was taking notes of the things they're mentioning.

And then I was just using that as a trigger to say, read, because I was reading anyhow this article and there was, if something popped up that was similar, And I was just sending it to them and they always said, thank you. And there was a connection and through that, again, you're more visible, you're more credible to them.

And if, if you are more visible and they can remember who you are, not just the face as well, the name, it's more likely in an organization that you're getting promoted, especially in the larger ones. Yes. [00:11:00] CEOs still know everyone. I'd say if you are. Maybe if you are below 100 people, it's still possible that the CEO knows everyone, but if you're going beyond, let's say 500 or a thousand people, it's very, very hard.

For the CEO or even the whole c switch to, to know everyone, questions and or other ideas, a comment. So even if you are below 100 people, the CEO is contracting you. The guy is singing, signing with you the contract. So even this is second opportunity to, to know better the people. And if you learn the CEO or the founder or the general director.

It's easy to get connected to the other people in the organic ground. That's really interesting. And it can be a good tactic to be inside the company. We have, um, [00:12:00] perturbing the presence of the other people. That is the other, I would say sacred weapon. Not being over there in a low profile, but being over there.

Exactly. That that's, that's what it always is. And you see that. Um, man, if you, if you look in, in, even in the newer organizations, if they have a big office, the C suite is always hanging out together most of the time. So you see exactly where they are and how they move and, and just by, I mean, I do this even with clients.

I'm sitting on the same floor, I'm sitting close to the C suite so that they see me. And that's something you can do. Everyone can do. Like, I did this all the time in Ikea. All the time. I was sitting so that I was sitting next to the big dogs. Or close by. That's a good thing. I mean, now in the startup world, you meet the [00:13:00] founder or the CEO, but when you are in a middle company, sometimes it's really complex to get contact with the CEO.

Yeah. I have to say before, if you are over 500, but if you are ever even over 100, sometimes this kind of company, they have a human resources, um, director or something like that. And you don't have access to this ego sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes they don't want to, it also depends on the company culture.

Yes. They want to be not. like visible or accessible. It really depends on the company culture and, um, how they behave themselves.

But still, if you're close by, it doesn't matter really how they behave. If you were there every day, it's, you're still there. It's like watching, [00:14:00] watching the trick goes from the, from the players of FC Barcelona, you're there. I would see that as well. If you see the guy, the big boss, the big dog walking around, Hey, something like that, a small gestures.

Hey, Hey, okay. I keep you in my eyes. Yeah, true. And it's, it's, it's very simple, these things, but it's super powerful, it's like just human behaviors. There was this study where as more often you see a, a familiar face, as more, um, do you like, you like that face? It's super, super basic. And it's just human behavior from like ancestors, like as more, you know, each like see each other, as more you like each other, if, if it's not connected to something bad, but in the end, it's.

It's as simple as that. That's why the whole social media works. Like, you see on social [00:15:00] media, if you have a photo of yourself, it's performing better than if you don't. And that's because of that. It's quicker. It is when you are a good worker and other people can recommend what you did. That is another big milestone as well.

If you perform your work really well, And the people see that, and someone is asking for you as a person or as a worker, and the people can say, Hey, he's really good. He can do that. We can trust him. That's, that's a big game changer. Of course. I, I always take that for a given, like if you don't perform, you will always have problems.

You need to be open and you need to be flexible to perform. so well as you can. Yeah. So go into the excellence. If not, don't do that. Yeah, no, [00:16:00] agree. It always helps if, if you perform, if you don't just like show up, you just, but, but though I have to say in large companies, sometimes it's just, you just need to be close.

You don't need to perform. Sometimes it's the case. Yeah. Big companies is like that. So I got some experiences with this kind of behavior out there. They were the middle, they were not big bosses. They were intermediates, something like that. But they got a lot of power inside the organization in front of the CEO.

Oh, they were really, really, really silly people. Yeah, it is. Sometimes that's always the funny thing. And sometimes they're like real stupid as well, but they're in power. You have to have the favor of the CEO and then you can do nothing [00:17:00] against that. But I've seen as well things changing. So the CEO is changing and all the rotten apples are getting kicked out as well.

That's happening quickly too. Like you're only protectors as long as the big guys are there. They're gone. If someone takes them away, then you're gone too. That's true as well. So they have the experience. Uh, gave a, a bus from China and he took all the management, the chain, this fire, all the people was fired and he took new people from China and all, it was the team around 25, 28, all new people.

Yeah. They put their team into place to protect themselves as well because they don't trust. Yeah. It really [00:18:00] depends on the company, of course.

Yeah, fun world.

What else? Any other questions?

Good performing, knowing the people, good behavior, showing the faces, let the world speak for you, and being everyday over there. So, you are right. If the people see you everyday, okay, okay, okay. He belongs to our group. It is. That's why I'm always laughing when I mean, in bigger organizations, again, you have like the, um, like internally, you can see people on teams and so on.

And some people don't put their photo and it sounds super silly, but the [00:19:00] photo makes the difference in a big organization, because then people know who you are, but they don't know who you are. Don't wonder that nobody promotes you.

The promotion is the magic word here. If you are working in a, in a organization, it can be a small, medium or large.

Don't wait for the promotion. You can't, you can't invent your own position as well. So for example, for example, here you are in a company and you say, so we are missing that, that, that, and that maybe we can resolve this position and I'm going to take the leading of this team to do that, that, that, and that.

Exactly. Proposing is another magical here. You, you need to have, there's a cool book. I need to share that with you because it's in German one day. It's like, it's something about killer [00:20:00] career. Career, how to make a killer career. There are a lot, I mean, I use, I have used all of the tricks in my career.

It's not, it's not nice, but it works. Expect, yeah, it's, it's all politics. Unfortunately, and you need to be willing to play the game. If you don't want to play the game, then it doesn't work. That's just another big step to be open and be flexible to try new things. No. Yeah. That's why I don't want to work so much with large organizations internally.

It's just energy. That distract

and that sucks. It's politics. Any, any stuff, right? It's politics in the family, in the, well, in their [00:21:00] organization, in their circle of friends, uh, on approvals. Yeah. Okay. Anthropological stuff.

Yeah, that's, I'm happy to have a company below 20 people. Then that's like way less, maybe even below 12. That's better. Then it's family still. Right, but that second thing, if you, if you want to plan the, the, the price of the company, you can decide how many people do you want to have inside and how many, how many people do you want to have from external sources.

That second exercise, I'm going to, I'm going to make my notes here. I'm going to think about it because, because until now, I'm thinking in the startup world, two, three, max five. But if you [00:22:00] scale, you need more support. The tricky thing is that doesn't mean always more money. I mean, the volume gets bigger, but the cost gets higher as well.

Sometimes the most profitable companies are like below 12 people. If you look at turnover or profit per person, that's quite interesting. I'm fine to have a lot of profit.

Less turnover, but a lot of profit.