What Impact Does a Nation's Culture Have on the Growth of Networking?

This blog originally appeared in The Huffington Post

I'm looking forward to visiting Vietnam in a couple of weeks to speak at two events about networking and why it is so important. In preparation for my talks I have been asking Vietnamese business owners and expats based there for their views on Vietnamese networking culture and how it compares to the way we network in the West.

Whenever I speak overseas I am told that the culture in the country I am visiting is different to the UK and, importantly, is less well developed. Swedes tell me they are shy, Romanians told me they are less willing to share ideas, contacts or advice. The Vietnamese now tell me that the really strong relationships lie in communities such as the family, the local neighbourhood or the Party.

Last year I spoke at the 'Antreprenor 2010' Conference in Bucharest, Romania. A number of people came up to me after my talk and asked me whether there were cultural differences between the UK and Romania and, if so, whether those differences would make it harder for networking to take hold.

In my experience, while there are clearly cultural differences between different nationalities that you need to be aware of, there actually seem to be many global consistencies in networking. The real difference in the way different societies network seems to me to be more about where they are in the journey networking has to take as an accepted form of business and personal development.

Vietnam and Romania are both young countries in free market terms. Romania was under communist rule until twenty years ago; Vietnam remains a one party state but opened up towards the free market and foreign investment in 1986. Facebook is still blocked there. Entrepreneurs in both countries may have had less opportunity to develop networking 'skills' and trust may be harder to win, but the importance of the 'group' has a much more central role.

Anh Tho Andries, a professor at the University of Business and International Studies in Geneva and creator of YourVietnamExpert and YourVietBooks, said "In other countries, if you don't have friends but you have money, you can survive. In Vietnam, if you don't have money but you have good friends and good connections, you can still survive. This does not mean that you are living on people's compassion; it is understood by what the West defines by 'Social Contract', which means a (Vietnamese) person can only exist when belonging to a group and give-and-take is part of the game."

Networking is still perceived by many overseas as being about events and business card exchanges. But that is certainly the case for most people I speak to in the UK as well. There is a perception that we are far more advanced in terms of networking than is actually the case. So many corporate audiences I speak to in the UK see networking in very negative terms, regularly using words such as 'manipulative', 'schmoozing' and 'shallow' to describe their perceptions.

Wherever I have travelled, the people I have met have been very warm and friendly and have engaged with each other positively. I haven't see people left alone or struggling to integrate themselves into conversation as I often do in the UK, nor as much blatant hard selling at networking events.

I met young entrepreneurs in Romania who are very active networkers, enthusiastic about forming groups of young professionals such as Junior Chamber of Commerce (JCI) and independent groups. BNI Chapters are growing and other networks meet successfully.

So networking events and groups are growing and, where they do exist I have witnessed positive behaviour. Awareness is still low in some countries.

The measure of successful networking for me, however, should be on the relative strength of people's networks rather than networking groups. The journalist who interviewed me the day before my speech had the completely opposite view. "Why do we need such groups?" she asked me. "We do this naturally anyway."

I may be naïve but I don't believe that an existing culture is a bar to networking becoming an important and accepted part of business life. It may be slower to take off in some areas than others but a generation is coming through worldwide who want to work together and support each other.

Rather than former command economy cultures struggling to adapt to networking, perhaps they are better placed to network naturally, given their strong focus culturally on the importance of the community and the team. Instead of arguing that their cultures are behind the West in terms of networking, the case could be made that they are better placed to network more effectively because of the emphasis on the success of the community over individual achievement.

There are many business people around the World, including in the West, who need a better grasp of the benefits, nuances and skills of networking effectively. Overall I believe that the differences lie more in experience and understanding, not in the roots of a country's culture.