The exercise was used as one element in a short workshop on the subject of networking for a group of members on my local business network club.

This exercise was used after the initial ice breaking phase for which the ‘snap’ exercise and the ‘identifying networks’ exercises were used.

Having completed the two earlier exercises, delegates were asked to reflect on their networking ‘habits’ as suggested in the discussion points. Almost as soon as they were mentioned, the delegates looked around at each other having realised what the important message was! In the majority of instances, they favoured the safety of ‘knowns’ and habits rather than the excitement of the potentially challenging ‘unknowns’. The exercise produced some unexpected results but most were relevant to the majority of delegates. The exercise on networking practices – good and bad, produced a very good selection of practices mostly drawn from personal experience and a good debate ensued. At the end of the various discussions, I introduced the aide memoire which was very well received by all delegates.