Welcome back to On the Schmooze. Thank you so much for joining me. Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Schneider, this week you’ll be hearing from me, your host.

Every other week I’ll be offering my take on some aspect of networking and relationship-building. These shorter podcast episodes will include practical networking tips and techniques you can put into practice right away. My hope is those insights from me, and my guests will help you achieve the leadership position you’re seeking, build and sustain your professional network, and find the work/life balance that works best for you.

This week, I’ll be sharing the details of a study that explains why networking makes us feel dirty.

Are you resisting networking because you feel like it’s dirty business? Well, you are not alone. A study published in 2014 found that networking with the goal of career advancement made people feel icky. The study, co-authored by professors from Harvard Business School, University of Toronto, and Northwestern University, used one experiment to conclude that this kind of transactional networking for professional gain made people subconsciously rank cleaning products higher than other household or office products. In another experiment participants who thought about this kind of professional networking answered fill-in the blank words with words associated with bathing, while those thinking about personal networking to build friendships did not.

What leads to this feeling of being dirty? We are our harshest critics, so if we cannot justify our networking behavior and feel we are using others without offering anything in return, we may question our moral purity and that makes us feel dirty.

All networking is not created equally.

Listen, subscribe, and read show notes at www.OntheSchmooze.com – episode 42.