Equity Brings about Equity

I thought the book would be a long and boring business cookbook. But I was wrong. I started the book and simply could not stop. It does teach me a lot about cultivating personal network.

The best lesson I learnt from this book is "Equity brings about equity in building relationship". Normally, people treat their personal connections as personal equity and they use the equity only when necessary. This attitude is completely refuted by Keith. In Keith's viewpoint, connections mean to be interactive. It's always good to find excuses to interact with the person we think valuable to us, even it means to introduce the valuable person to others. Also, Keith argues that connections lead to new connections. To be helpful to others opens up one's own door to the other person's network. It's a very constructive way to build personal network.

The importance of building network can't be too emphasized. Keith lists a lot of methods and guiding principles in building relationships effectively. It's inspiring to read the Keith's arguments and then reflect on my own attitudes.

The reason I give the book four stars rather than five is that Keith does lack one part of building up personal network. In this book, building relationship is always done aggressively. I don't think being aggressive is wrong, but there are people who build their networks in the other way. These people may be effective leaders who try to be charismatic and thus attract people to them. Arguably, not many people are charismatic. But as a reader, I'd be happy to see how charisma works and why it works.