My good friend and fellow ExecTec member Steve Zuback, an Executive Coach, periodically sends out an email with suggested articles and his latest batch of articles highlighted the Harvard Business Review article titled Power Play by Jeffrey Pfeffer. This article points out that If you want to get anything done in a large corporation, you need power. And it won't just fall into your lap: You have to go after it and learn how to use it. Many highly competent people get stuck because they're uncomfortable with this reality.

This got me thinking about the nature of power, influence and networking. Strategies and the best laid plans do not implement themselves. No matter how good you are, alone you are infinitely less likely to achieve your goals. In today’s flat management structures, often more influence is required then in traditional management hierarchies.

Networking is a subtle but often overlooked key to influence and power.

Obviously knowing the right person to connect you with a company or resources is networking 101, however many executives tell me they don’t need to network since they know all the key players in their field and therefore neglect their broader networking efforts.

Certainly the well connected executive might know everyone they need to deal with but sometimes, as we have often discussed, power comes from what you can do for others more then what they can do for you. There is no question that in doing for others you not only gain a solid contact but you are more likely gain influence with that contact. As the article points out, “helping people out evokes reciprocity - the almost universal principal that favors must be repaid”

Today while I enjoyed lunch while browsing the flow of information from twitter on my iPad, I saw someone in my network tweet that she had forgotten her wallet and was now going without lunch. The first thought that struck my mind was this person had a vast network all of whom would have gladly had lunch with her or even spotted her funds for lunch. As I tweeted back, someone with as solid network a network as hers should never go thirsty or hungry for that matter.

Power and influence is about having the ability to make things happen. These attributes are not granted by convention and or even seniority. Influence is granted by those you come into contact with and power is earned or claimed.

One of the articles exercises of power is to advance on multiple fronts. Often one faces obstacles when trying to execute and while many will try to overcome these obstacles with brute force often those with solid networks can make multiple approaches or take an indirect path to their end. As a fan of rules based role playing games, I learned at a very young age that when presented with an creature I could not best that often the indirect approach of caving in the roof over it’s head brought to bear enough physical destruction to do that which I could not directly. You never know when that lunch bought for someone who forgot their wallet so long ago might encourage that person to take out or on your obstacle for you.

The bottom line is no matter if you are looking to, make the first move, co-opt your antagonist, remove rivals (nicely, if possible), avoid drawing unnecessary fire, use your personal touch, persisting or making your vision compelling to others, having a broad diversified and well tended network is critical.

To be honest one of the reasons I started ExecTec was to create such a network for myself as well as provide an opportunity for anyone else who desired to to do so to.

So come join us in Westwood and either expand on the healthy network you have or take the first step to gaining power and influence by re-starting your networking efforts. If nothing else you will never go thirsty and will never lack someone to have lunch with even if you forgot your wallet.

As always, there is no better way to meet and connect with other executives then over dinner and conversation. $21 in advance via PayPal or $25 at the event gets you a full dinner, drink and the best networking around.