HBR Women at Work Series Collection (3 Books)

10

How to Protect Your Time Without Alienating Your Network

by Dorie Clark

It’s a law of nature: The further you rise, the more people will make demands on your time. Some of those requests are self-interested: the informational interview, the job advice, the request for a connection, a recommendation letter, or angel funding. Others may be quite beneficial to you: the offer of a paid speaking engagement or a prestigious media interview opportunity or an invitation to an exclusive conference. The easy answer is to ignore all of these requests, deleting them as they come in—or even more extreme, to declare some form of email bankruptcy. But of course, that risks alienating some of your biggest advocates.

I feel genuine empathy for one top business ...