I find this article and point of view very interesting. In fact, I think that nowadays, people need to be competent in their work (of course) but they have to be more and more sociable. I agree that networking became one of the contemporary career success tools. Nevertheless, we can’t forget that the most important remains still our competencies for our work.
Naturally, skills asked today have changed from past requirements, for example, employers asked maybe more for self-involvement and today it is more a team working capacity. Communication is one of the most important tools that every companies want now, thus it explains also the relevance of social and professional networking.
In fact, we are already working on those skills in school, for example when we work in groups. Even when we get out and meet new people in a party of other places, we “create” networks.
As I pointed out before, people need to know how to apply their connector skills in their work. When their superior gives them a formal assignment, they have to use their competencies but also their networks (if it is needed – and it is most of the time nowadays) in order to achieve the project and goal they were asked to.
I think that the sentence “She who has the best network wins” might be true; however, we have to keep in mind that real competencies are still major factors of a career success. Indeed, if someone is very good in communication and in creating new networks; if he/she has only this tool, he/she will stop at a certain level of his/her success. Moreover, people are becoming more and more connected with all these blogs and social websites so in some ways, we are already all connectors. That is why companies will began to ask for more than good networkers.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/kanter/2009/11/power-to-the-connectors.html
