Picture this, you're in a meeting, a question comes up. Not a technical one, not a who can do this kind of question, but a messy one. Something ambiguous, something political, something where the answer actually matters, and getting it wrong has consequences. The room goes quiet for a moment, people are thinking, you can feel the uncertainty in the air, and then, without planning it, without you saying a word, someone says your name.
Before we decide, we should probably run this by Emily. What do you think? Can we get your take on this? Not because you're the busiest person in the room, not because you're the loudest, not because you've been campaigning for visibility or networking your way up, but because when things are unclear, when stakes are high, when people need to make the right call, your insights and decision-making are highly valued.
That moment, that's not networking, that's strategic trust, and most career advice, especially networking advice, is built around being seen, not being trusted when decisions matter. I'm your host, Peggy McKnight, and welcome to the Career Pivot Accelerator Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about why everything you've been told about networking is designed for the wrong career path, and what actually creates influence and career momentum for serious professionals. If you're ready, grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's get started.
Let's start with you probably cringing when you hear someone give networking advice. And I don't mean in a networking events or awkward kind of way, we already covered that in a previous episode. I've put the link in the show notes. I mean something deeper.
Most networking advice just doesn't fit careers. Here's what I've noticed. Most networking advice is built for visibility-based careers. What do I mean by that?
Careers where being seen, being known, being top of mind, is the primary driver for success. Think about it. People like sales professionals, influencers, and content creators, founders who need to pitch constantly, anyone whose job is literally to convince people to choose them. For these people, traditional networking advice works really well.
Go to events, be memorable, stay top of mind, build a massive network. Post constantly show up everywhere. That's the right strategy for them. But for most of us, we don't work in visibility-based careers.
We work in what I call decision environments. You know the environments, finance, operations, systems architecture, engineering leadership, strategic planning, legal, risk management, leadership positions in established organizations, environments where decisions matter more than performance, where being right matters more than being seen, where your track record for judgment determines your trajectory more than your ability to work a room. And in the decision environments, the rules are completely different. Let me break this down.
There are three fatal disconnects. Number one, being seen is not the same thing as being trusted. You can be extremely visible, speaking up in every meeting, volunteering for every project, making sure your name is always in the mix, and still not be trusted when it counts. In fact, sometimes hyper-visibility works against you.
I've seen people who speak up constantly in meetings, but whose opinions don't move the needle. Everyone knows their name, but nobody values their advice or judgment. That's visibility without credibility. Number two, being helpful is not the same as being respected.
This one is huge, especially for people who are naturally helpful, conscientious and reliable. You can be the person everyone comes to, the person who always says yes, the person who unblocks every project, who stays late, who makes everything run smoothly, and you'll be valued for sure. You'll be appreciated without a doubt. People will say nice things about you, more often than not, but you won't be respected in the way that creates career momentum, because respect isn't about being liked or being helpful.
It's not the other extreme of the pendulum. It's not being unhelpful or mean and nasty. That's not what I'm saying. We'll go into it a little deeper in a few minutes.
Respect is about being needed for your thinking, not just for your labor. There's a difference between we can't function without Sarah, and we can't make this decision without Sarah's perspective. One makes you indispensable to operations. The other makes you indispensable to strategy.
Number three, being connected is not the same as being influential. You can know everyone, have coffee with senior leaders, be invited to things, have a thousand LinkedIn connections, and still have zero influence when decisions actually get made, because influence isn't about access. It's about whether your perspective changes outcomes. Now let's discuss the activity trap.
So what does traditional networking advice tell us to do? Attend more events, meet more people, speak up more in meetings, insert yourself into more conversations, make yourself more visible, build more relationships, all activity-based recommendations. But here's the problem. Being busy and visible isn't the same as being trusted, and it's usually a poor use of your time, because it leads to something I see constantly in corporate environments.
You become known without being respected. People know your name. They recognize you. You're involved.
But when the real decisions get made, the promotions, the strategic hires, who should we leave this? Your name doesn't come up, or worse. It comes up and someone says, eh, I don't know. That vague hesitation, that lack of conviction, that's what happens when people see you, but don't trust your thinking.
And that's how people get stuck. They're doing all the right networking things. They're visible, they're helpful, they're connected, but they're not moving up, because they're playing the wrong game. So what's the right game?
That's what we're going to talk about next. Let me give you a different framework entirely. Forget networking. Forget relationships for a second.
Let's talk about strategic trust. Relationships alone do not create career momentum. That's rather counterintuitive, I know. We've all heard, your network is your net worth, and it's all about who you know.
And there is some truth there. Relationships do matter, but relationships are not sufficient. What actually creates career momentum? The kind that leads to promotions, opportunities, influence, leadership roles, it's strategic trust.
Strategic trust means three specific things. One, your thinking is actively sought out, not just tolerated, not just welcomed if you happen to speak up or raise your hand, but sought. People come looking for your perspective. Two, your perspective travels when you're not in the room.
This is critical. You're not in every meeting, you're not on every email thread. You cannot be everywhere, but your way of thinking, your analytical framework, your judgment, your lens of problems, and how you see them or solve them, that travels without you. People say things like, well, if Emily were here, they probably point out that we're not considering X.
That's your thinking having influence, even in your absence. And three, your name comes up during decisions, not just the execution stage. This is the clearest signal when people are figuring out what to do, not how to do it, but what to do. Does your name come up?
And are you in the strategy conversation, not just the execution conversation? This is not about being relied upon. Here's a critical distinction. Strategic trust is not about being relied upon.
Being relied upon means people come to you to get things done, which is perfectly fine. We all need to get things done. We need to be that go-to source. You can handle this.
Can you fix this? Can you make this happen? That is valuable. That's important, but it's not strategic trust.
What I mean by strategic trust, it means being consulted, not just utilized. What's your read on this? How are you thinking about this? What would you do?
Do you see the difference? One's about your capacity, the others about your critical thinking take on something. Or put differently, you are the trusted advisor versus the reliable executor. Let me give you two examples.
Person A. They're incredibly reliable. They deliver on time, they handle complexity. They're the person you go to when something absolutely has to get done.
Everyone likes them, everyone appreciates them. They're great to work with. When performance reviews come around, they get strong ratings. Sometimes even exceeds expectations.
But when a leadership role opens up, when a strategic initiative needs an owner, when someone's building their leadership team, person A doesn't get the call. Not because they're not capable, but because they're known for execution, not for shaping decisions. Now, let's take person B. They're just as capable, just as responsible, just as committed to the team.
But that's not what they're known for. They're known for how they help the group think. They see around the corners. They ask the questions nobody else has asked yet.
They surface assumptions before assumptions turn into problems. And yes, they still help. But they help differently. Instead of automatically taking on work, they pause and ask, what's the real priority here?
If I focus on this, what are we not prioritizing? Before we move forward, can we clarify what problem we're actually solving? That doesn't make things slower. It makes them clearer.
And while that kind of clarity can create a brief bit of tension for some people, it does reduce the work, especially the rework, the misalignment, and the downstream mess that no one saw coming if it wasn't for person B asking those critical questions. When decisions need to be made, when direction matters more than speed, when leadership is deciding who they trust in ambiguous situations, person B is in the room, not because they did less and not because they opted out, but because they consistently helped the team focus on the right work, not just more work. That's the difference between being relied upon and being trusted. And it's the difference between executing and leading.
By now, you might be thinking, so how do I build strategic trust? How do I become person B instead of person A? That's the framework we're going to walk through next. All right, I am excited to share my framework that has worked really well over the years.
I call it the trusted advisor framework. This is a four phase progression. You move through these steps one at a time in order and each one builds on the last to create a solid foundation. Most people skip straight to phase three or four, and that's why it doesn't work that way.
You have to start with phase one. All right, here we go. Phase one. It may seem counterintuitive, especially if you're early in your career or trying to get noticed.
The instinct is, I need to be more visible. I need to speak up more. I need to make sure more people hear me or know I'm here. And I'm telling you, stop trying to be seen, start becoming precise.
And I don't mean perfection is precise. I just mean become known as the expert in your job. Dressed advisors are not the people who talk the most. They're the people who when they talk, everyone listens.
So what does that look like in practice? First, ask better questions than you answer. Again, like someone said, I don't know who coined this phrase, but I do love it. God gave us two ears and one mouth, more to listen, less to speak.
Got it? So ask better questions than you answer. This is hard for smart people because you usually do have answers. You probably have a lot of answers.
But answering questions makes you useful, asking better questions makes you indispensable. So what's a better question? It's a question that exposes an assumption people didn't realize they were making highlights a trade off that wasn't being discussed reframes the problem in a more useful way. What do I mean by this?
Here's some examples. Instead of I think we should do x. Again, you're immediately giving your advice. Try this instead.
What problem are we actually trying to solve here? Because if it's A, then x makes sense. But if it's B, we might be optimizing for the wrong thing. Instead of here's how I'd approach this.
Try what are we willing to trade off here? Because this solution maximizes speed, but sacrifices flexibility or accuracy. Is that the right trade off? Do you see the difference?
The first approach makes you an executor. You're adding to the pile of options. The second approach makes you a clarifier, almost like you have a crystal ball that you're trying to pull information out of. You're helping people think more clearly about what they're actually trying to do and achieve.
That's how people focus on what really matters. Second, clarify trade offs. Every decision involves trade offs, always. But most people don't name them explicitly.
They talk about solutions as if they're pure upside. Trusted advisors are the people who calmly clearly name the trade off. For example, if we do this, we gain x. But if we lose y, is that the exchange we want to make?
Putting this into context, for example, here's another one for my finance friends. If we remove this step, we gain time and reduce admin burden, but we lose risk, and mitigation, and audit defensibility. Is that the exchange we want to make? This is not being negative.
This is not being challenging or argumentative. And it certainly is not being difficult. It's just being rigorous. And rigor builds credibility.
You're trying to get people to think outside the box and not so linear as to one track. Third, name the risks others avoid. Every project, every decision, every strategy has risks. And in most organizations, there's social pressure to be positive, to be a team player, to not be the person who always sees the problems.
But here's what I've learned. The person who names the risk early is respected. The person who ignores it and gets burned is not. You don't have to be dramatic about it.
You don't have to be the doom and gloom. You just have to be honest. For example, you could say something like, I support this decision because you're signaling to the room, I am supportive. I am positive.
But I also want to flag one thing that could go sideways. And then you name that specific risk. How are we thinking about mitigating that? Again, for my finance peeps, here's another example.
I support this direction. One potential risk is transactions posting in the wrong period due to timing or cutoff issues, especially during month end. How are we planning to mitigate and manage that risk? That's clear thinking.
That's what builds strategic trust. You're not saying it doesn't work. This is crap, pardon my French. But you're highlighting thoughtful, intelligent questions and crafting them in a way to get the room to really think, Oh, yeah, I never thought of that or oh, that's a good point.
Yeah, we need to discuss that. And it opens up then for more healthy conversation rather than always trying to poo poo things, because then you will quickly be known, but for all the wrong reasons. So asking the right ones in a strategic way is how you build your clear thinking. And it also builds that strategic trust.
Notice what's happening here. You're not trying to be visible. You're not volunteering for everything. You're not speaking up just to be heard.
You're being clear and thoughtful when you do engage. Visibility comes after good clarifying questions that contribute to the bigger picture of what it is that is trying to be achieved, not before. When your thinking is trusted, people will seek you out. You won't have to chase visibility.
All right, let's move on to phase two. This is about shifting how you create value. Most people create value through output. They get things done.
They ship projects. They solve problems. They produce results. And that's valuable.
Yeah, without a doubt. Organizations need people who execute, but output makes you useful. Insight makes you influential. So what's the difference?
Output answers the how. Insight answers the why. Let me give you an example. Here's an example of outlet output level contribution.
I analyze the data and here are the three options we should consider. Now that's valuable. You did the work. You provided options, which is good.
But let's look at insight level contribution. Here's a better way of responding. I analyze the data and what's interesting is that all three options assume we're optimizing for speed. But based on what I'm seeing, our actual constraint isn't speed.
It's coordination across teams, which means we might be solving the wrong problem entirely. Oh, what? Oh, see what happened there? The first contribution gives you people options.
The second contribution gives you people, but a new way of thinking about the problem. Oh, that's insight. Insight means one, explaining why something matters, not just how it works. Don't just tell people what's happening.
Tell them what it means. What are the implications? What should we care about? What does this tell us about the bigger picture?
Two, you're connecting the dots across the systems. Most people are siloed. They work in their own little worlds, quite frankly. They see their function, their team, their project, all as separate.
Trusted advisors see the system, the bigger picture, the holistic approach. They notice patterns across different parts of the organization, or even the team for that matter. They connect what's happening in finance to what's happening in operations to what's happening in customer behavior. That systems level view is rare and it's powerful.
Number three, translating complexity into clarity. The world is complicated enough. So many things are flying at us on a daily basis. It's nuts.
Business is complicated. Problems are complicated. But complication without clarity is just noise. Trusted advisors take complex situations and distill them into clear information, not oversimplified, definitely not dumbed down, but clarified.
For example, here's what's actually going on. Here's what it means. Here's what we should think about. When you do this consistently, something shifts.
People start to associate you with thinking, not just with tasks. You become the person they go to when they need to think through something, not just when they need something done. That's the shift from executor to advisor. All right, phase three, spoiler alert.
This is the hardest one for most people, especially if you're naturally helpful, if you're conscientious, if you've built your career on being reliable. But this is critical. Availability erodes authority. Let me say that again.
Availability erodes authority. The more available you are, the less your contribution is valued. Not because people are malicious, but because scarcity signals value. Think about the people in your organization who have real authority.
Are they the ones who say yes to everything, who are always available, who respond to every request immediately? No, absolutely not. They could very well be selective, but not in a selfish way. They say no, but kindly.
For example, I'm currently working on X. What level of priority is this? When is it due? They protect their time.
And because of that, when they say yes, it really does mean something. Trusted advisors are not the people who help with absolutely everything. They're the people who are selective and realistic about what they take on based on their current work commitments. And that selectivity actually increases their credibility.
So what does that look like? Be selective about what you take on. You can't be the expert on everything. You can't wait in on every decision.
Figure out where your knowledge is actually valuable. Where you have context, expertise, perspective that others don't. And focus there, focus all your energy there. Everything else?
Just let it go. Pushback thoughtfully. This doesn't mean being difficult. It doesn't mean saying no to everything or not being a team player.
It means when something doesn't make sense, you say so. I want to understand the reasoning here because from my perspective, this creates X risk. Help me see what I'm missing. You see how you're not challenging someone in a negative and confrontational way, but you're exploring and trying to pull out of them more information so you're both on the same page.
That's a pushback, but it's thoughtful. It's curious. It's not competitive. And it signals that you have standards that you think critically, that you just don't go along to get along and say no without drama.
This is a skill that most people never develop. They either say yes to everything and burn out or they say no in a way that creates conflict. trusted advisors can say no cleanly. I can't take that on right now, but here's what I can do.
That's not where I can add the most value but have you considered. I'm at capacity, so if this is a priority, we need to deprioritize something else. No guilt, no explanation, no drama, just clear boundaries. And here's what's counterintuitive.
Boundaries don't make you less valuable. They make your contributions scarcer and therefore more respected. When you're always available, your input becomes background noise. When you're selective, people pay attention when you engage.
Phase four is the final stage. This is when you stop trying to get into conversations and start getting invited to them. You don't insert yourself. You earn invitations.
And that happens when three things are true. One, your past input improved outcomes. People remember when your perspective actually mattered. When you saw something they missed, when you asked the question that changed the direction, when your advice proved right.
That's what creates future invitations. Two, others feel safer with you involved. This is about psychological safety, but not in the way most people think. It's not about being nice or agreeable.
It's about being trustworthy. People feel safer with you in the room because you won't blindside them. You'll tell them the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. You'll consider their perspective fairly and you won't use information against them politically.
Three, you elevate the room instead of dominating it. Trusted advisors don't need to be the smartest or the loudest person in the room. They make the whole room smarter. They ask questions that help others think more clearly.
They connect ideas. They create space for quieter voices. They synthesize. When you do this consistently, you don't have to campaign for access.
People want you there. That's influence with integrity. And it's opposite of traditional networking. All right, let me make this concrete.
What does strategic trust actually sound like in real life organizational scenarios? Because it's easy to talk about these concepts abstractly or in theory. It's harder to recognize them when you see them. Strategic trust sounds like this in a planning meeting, for example.
Before we lock this in, let's sanity check this with Peggy. Notice what's not happening here? Nobody's saying, let's get Peggy to do this. They're saying, let's get Peggy's perspective on this.
That's strategic trust. In a hallway conversation, what's your take on this situation? Not, can you help with this? Not, can you do me a favor?
Not, can you handle this? What's your take? That's someone seeking your advice, not your labor. About in a leadership discussion.
Before we decide, we should get Emily's perspective. This is the most powerful signal. You're not in the room. Nobody's asking you to be in the room, but someone says, we shouldn't make this decision without her input.
That's your reputation working for you. That's strategic trust. What's missing in these scenarios? Notice what's missing from all of these.
No urgency. Nobody's saying, we need to get her on this ASAP because we're behind. They're saying, we should consult her because her thinking will improve this. No flattery.
Nobody's schmoozing or building you up or managing you. They're just a matter of factly acknowledging that your perspective has value. No performance, no manipulation, no game playing. You're not performing visibility.
You're not campaigning for inclusion. Your credibility is just assumed. That's what strategic trust looks like. It's quiet.
It's not dramatic. But it's incredibly powerful. So how do you build for that? Let me give you some practical steps.
All right. Let's roll up our sleeves and get tactical. There are five specific practices that build strategic trust. These are not networking tactics.
These are reputation building practices. One, speak less but say more. Hey, what? How do you do that?
Okay. This is about quality over quantity, not the sound of your voice. Most people think career visibility comes from speaking up frequently, being active in meetings, always having something to contribute. But what actually happens is the more you speak, the less people listen.
Have you ever noticed that people just glaze over or don't even really pay attention at all? Trusted advisors are selective. They don't comment on everything. They don't feel the need to feel silence.
But when they do speak, it's because they have something that is genuinely going to add to the conversation. This takes discipline, especially if you're smart and you do have insights on most topics. But here's the discipline. Save your voice for when it matters.
When you do speak, make sure it's something others haven't said. Something that reframes the conversation. Something that names what's unspoken. The goal is not to be heard often.
The goal is for people to lean in when you speak. Number two, follow through on thinking, not just tasks. Most people follow through on tasks. I said, I'd send you that report.
Here it is. That's good. That's professional. That's expected.
But trusted advisors follow through on thinking. What does that mean? If you said you'd think about something, you actually think about it. If you flagged a concern, you'd come back with perspective on it.
If you ask a question that the group couldn't answer, you don't just drop it. You follow up on it. For example, in a meeting, someone asks, why did that initiative fail last quarter? Nobody has a good answer.
The conversation moves on. Two days later, you send a brief note. I kept thinking about that question from two-stage meeting. I looked into what happened with the Q3 initiative.
Here's what I found. Then you'd state your three clear reasons. Might be worth considering for what we're planning now. You didn't have to do that.
Nobody asked you to. But you did it because the question mattered and you wanted to actually understand it. That's the kind of thing that builds strategic trust. Number three, make others look competent, not dependent.
This one is subtle but critical. A lot of people build their value by making themselves indispensable. They become the person everyone relies on, the fixer, the go-to. And that feels good in the short term, but it creates dependency, not respect.
Plus, it will really drain your energy because you will always be relied upon. Trusted advisors do the opposite. They make the other people look competent. They help people solve their own problems instead of solving problems for them.
They share their thinking process, not their conclusions. For example, someone comes to you with a problem. Let's say it's a dependency approach. Don't worry, I'll handle it.
You solve it, they're grateful, they'll come to you again and again and again. Now you're the fixer. Here's the advisor approach. Let's think through this.
What are the core constraints here? Okay, so if we fixed what you are degrees of freedom away from, what happens if we and blink fill in the blinks? You help them think through it. They solve it with your guidance.
Next time, they might still consult you, but they're more capable. It's as if you've taught them how to fish rather than giving them the fish. If you're familiar with that analogy, you're now the advisor. Do you see the difference?
You're prompting them to come up with the results or the answers. You're not just giving it to them. One creates dependency, the other creates capability and respect. And number four, document clarity, not effort.
Here's something most people get wrong about visibility. The document effort. Here's everything I did. Look at how hard I worked.
I put in 60 hours this week. You know what? Nobody cares. And quite frankly, your manager will not remember the extra hours you worked.
Trusted advisors document clarity. They write the memo that synthesizes the messy discussion. They create a framework that makes the complex decision simpler. They send the three-bullet summary that captures what actually matters.
Here's an example. After a long meandering meeting, you send a follow-up. Just to make sure we're aligned, here's my understanding of what we decided. One is the core decision.
Two is the key constraint that was being worked on. And three, the next step and what the owner is and the date. Did I capture that correctly? Is everything that you put in the regrouping, recapture, follow-up email?
That's documenting with clarity. You're not showing off. You're not making sure everyone's on the same page. But what you're also doing is demonstrating that you can distill chaos into clarity.
That's a leadership skill. And people notice. Number five, be generous with insight, not labor. Final practice.
Most people think being valuable means doing more work. Taking on more projects, saying yes to more requests, being more helpful, more and more and more. And again, in the short term, that feels good. Again, you have filled your word document or your diary with a lot of stuff.
But that's a trap. Trusted advisors are generous with insight, not labor. They're happy to share how they think about things. They'll explain their framework.
They'll point you to resources. They'll ask you the questions that help you think it through yourself. But they're not taking on your work. I do want to give a bit of a side caveat here.
They are giving you things like resources to point out to you. They're not telling you to go read something and leave you to it. That's not what a trusted advisor does. They will walk you through the steps.
And if you need a demonstration or shown how one example looks, they're happy to do so. The other colleagues who are more about just leaving it to you to figure out, they're not the trusted advisors. They're the ones who just say quite short and sharp. Here you go.
Read it. That's not helpful. But again, just to recap, you're not taking on people's work. This is the boundary we talked about earlier.
You can be generous without being a pushover. You can be helpful without being exploited. For example, someone asks, can you review this whole deck before my presentation? Your response?
Sure, I'll send it over. Now, you're spending two hours reviewing somebody else's work. But the insight response, the trusted advisor response would say something like, I can't review the whole thing, but here's what I'd focus on. Make sure you're clear on X, Y, and Z.
Those are the things that usually trip people up in this kind of presentation. Happy to look at those three slides if you want a quick gut check. You helped. You gave valuable guidance, but you didn't take on their work.
You were generous with insight, not labor. These five practices done consistently over time are how your reputation shifts, not loudly, not overnight, but quietly and more importantly, permanently. All right, my friend, let's pull this all together and bring this home. Career growth doesn't come from relationships alone.
It doesn't come from networking harder, attending more events, or making yourself more visible. It comes from becoming a trusted advisor, known for insight, not availability. That shift from executor to advisor, from relied upon to consulted, that's not networking, that's leadership. And that's what I want you to understand.
You don't need permission to start building strategic trust. You don't need a little title. You don't need to wait until you're senior. You can start tomorrow.
Speak less, but say more. Follow through on thinking, not just tasks. Make others competent, not dependent. Document clarity, not effort.
Be generous with insight, not labor. If you do that consistently, watch what happens. You won't need to network your way up. People will pull you up because they trust your experience and thinking.
That's the path. Not politics, not performance, not networking theater. Just strategic trust. All right, my friend, thanks for listening.
If this resonated, here's your one action step. Pick one conversation this week where you can apply the Speak Less, Say More principle. Don't comment on everything, but when you do speak, make it count. Ask a better question.
Clarify a trade off. Name a risk. Start there and then build from there. Please reach out and let me know how you got on.
I'd love to hear how it went and celebrate with you. As I mentioned before, there is a link to another episode that I have done on networking in general. I have also added a link for an infographic on the trusted advisor framework that I spoke about in today's episode, along with the five practices to build trust. Until next time, my friend.
Bye for now.