Multiverse Women’s Network - Networking, Leadership & Challenges with Sophie Adelman

This blog post shares some key points and highlights from the Inspiring Women Series with Sophie Adelman event on Wednesday 20th May, hosted by the Women’s Network. Sophie spoke about her career, personal challenges, networking and how she developed her leadership skills. 

• ‘Always ask!’ / ‘Rewrite the tapes in your head that asking for things is not appropriate’ - There is no shame in asking someone for something because relationships are always reciprocal. ‘Women do networking differently. They feel embarrassed, that they owe something and must give something in return.‘

• ‘You can fight the system or you can play the game’ - In reference to being a female leader, or a woman in the workplace. Sophie chooses to play the game. She gave some great advice about how to tailor your behaviours for the people who receive them. Example: Be direct, but think about the tone. You could be aggressive or you could be curious with your tone; ‘I wanted to get your thoughts on….’

• ‘Becoming less reactive is a skill to learn’ - Sophie always has a glass of water when she knows she’s going to have a difficult conversation. That allows her to gather her thoughts before responding. 

• ‘Learn from the best’ - Early on in Sophie’s career she worked at Egon Zehnder and Rothschild bank. In both cases she had mentors and line managers who were extremely established at building relationships and networks of people around them to get ahead. She places a lot of emphasis on her time working in these companies and what she learnt. 

• ‘Set up your own network’ - When you can’t find a network to suit you/your needs, why not set up your own? That’s what Sophie did. When she was GM for Hired.com in the UK, she set up a network for UK based GM’s for US companies. She didn’t know any of them, invited them all along to a dinner and continues to be in touch with them to this day. 

• ‘I have had a number of coaches over my career’ - Sophie credits a lot of her success and growth as a leader to the different career coaches she has had along the way. She says of having a coach ‘it helps me understand who I am, what my values are, what my goals are.’ These are exactly the things you need to know to be a good leader. ‘Being a good leader means living in line with your values and about the relationships you build. My responsibility as a leader is to build other people to be their own leader and the way I do that is by being true to myself.’ 

• ‘I hate the word networking’ - For Sophie this word implies drinks events, walking around the room - it’s not enjoyable. She prefers to form relationships with people in small groups or one to one. She chooses these people because they are more senior than her, or have similar experience to her; they’re inspiring, or they could be useful from a business perspective. She reaches out to them with a specific reason, not just for a coffee and builds the relationship from there.  

• ‘Be a super connector’ - She often organises groups of people to come together (6-10 people). At first, she’ll know them all and they will then get to know each other. ‘I have helped them forge these relationships. And the next time I ask them to invite other people (who I don’t know). This helps me to grow my network organically.

• ‘Women need to be more focused and strategic on how they build their networks’ - We are very good at building strong bonds, e.g. with friends and family. For your career, you need to think more strategically about how you build ‘weak ties’. You can read more about this here.

Book recommendations: 

Sophie typically has 5 different books on the go at any one time. Mostly they are non-fiction business or psychology books. She prefers books over blogs because the research is of better quality. Trusted sources. 

• How remarkable women lead - Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston: A book about female leadership, case studies in many sectors. Ways they have developed their own leadership styles. 

• How women rise - Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith: A book about roadblocks women experience and how to identify blind spots. 

• Play bigger - Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney: A book about learning to define a new market category, developing it and how to dominate it over time.