Interpersonal skills are considered soft skills essential to building and maintaining positive relationships. Networking uses fundamental soft skills such as good communication, interpersonal skills, positive thinking, and empathy.
Most people understand that motivation is an interpersonal skill needed to build and work with a network. However, the motive behind motivation needs to be clarified because the motive is the stimulus to action. In order to be effective, motivation has to come from something deeper than a feeling: it has to come from a motive. A motive is what is inside a person that leads them to pursue a specific outcome. It is important to consider that everyone has different expectations that fuel motives.
If those in your network have agreed to be a network contact with you, either verbally or just implied through your association, they will eventually feel that you’re motivated. If you only intend to seek answers and get advice in your network and have no interest in another person as an individual, that becomes a conflicting motive. Networking is a two-way street, and you need to care about those people in your network. People seeking answers through networking find many things that they may not be interested in but would interest those inside their network.
Greedy people trigger feelings of there not being enough for everyone. Generosity is triggered by focusing outward and requires seeing what others need and freely giving without expecting anything in return.
Being generous is contagious and makes us feel good and better at making those around us feel good.
