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MBA Students: Stop Growing Your Networks

Bet that headline stopped you in your tracks, huh? You’re probably saying to yourself, “Isn’t the alumni network why I fought so hard to get into a good business school?”

Neil Bearden, an associate professor of decision sciences at INSEAD, counsels business school administrators and faculty to do just that: “…stop telling students to grow their networks.” 

Spoken like a tenured professor who doesn’t have to hunt for a job, you say? Perhaps. In reality, Bearden is making a broader point to MBA students: Stop viewing your network contacts “as plants or maybe even as a stack of poker chips.”

What does he mean by that? In Bearden’s experience, students often view their connections as “things” rather than flesh-and-blood human beings. And that, says Bearden, emboldens students to “behave badly and on occasion rudely.”

Let’s go back to the plant-and-poker analogy. This is what Bearden means:

“Using the metaphor of the plant, many seeds have to be sown and an MBA cohort becomes a kind of garden. Promising plants need to be watered regularly and less promising ones–the weeds–should be discarded. On the other hand, when MBA students view people as poker chips they try to gather as many of these chips as possible. The number of Facebook friends and the number of LinkedIn connections determines the value of an MBA’s network. The person with the largest stack wins.”

In other words, students can treat their most valuable assets as means-to-an-end. Rather than nurturing and deepening individual relationships, they cast a wide net, take what they need, and quickly move on. Call them Linkedin lotharios or rolodex rovers. Either way, this love-‘em-and-dump-‘em approach leaves a bad taste with potential allies and mentors. Here’s why according to Bearden:

“I have asked other professors and also working professionals whether they receive any thanks and most say that too often they do not. A typical scenario runs like this: an individual working in a bank receives an email from an MBA student begging for a coffee chat. They meet and the student gets the advice he or she wants. The banker pays for the coffee and then never hears from the student again.”

In other words, students offer no thanks and no reciprocity. And no one likes to feel used. Here’s the result:

“I hear similar stories from social entrepreneurs, consultants and people working in industry. They are tired of ungrateful MBAs and many have decided to stop responding to requests for help. They do not want to be treated like a network node; they want to be respected for who they are: people.”

To return to the plant analogy, students scorch the soil with this approach. They strip away any goodwill and make future entreaties harder for themselves–and everyone else too.

Bottom line: Treat people with respect. Stay in touch. Give something back for what you receive (or pay it forward). And always–always–say thanks.

Source: The Financial Times