Personal, Professional, and Organizational Benefits 

Chuck Presbury is the Senior Director for Leadership Development at The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. What follows is his perspective on the value of network membership in an Executive Networks executive peer network - in his own words: 

The Executive Networks peer network that I belong to means a lot to me.  I get a renewed sense of "why we do this work" from every meeting.  The network also stimulates my thinking - how people are utilizing different applications, applying different thought processes, etc.  I always learn a lot and the learning is so very different than reading about an idea.  

A great way to learn is via stories and the network is all about storytelling.  People describe experiences in such a way that I get a fuller understanding of how the firm's culture, strategy, internal dynamics and behind the scene politics affect an outcome.  These are the 'real life' stories, not something that has been filtered for public consumption. 

I use the email-based capability within the network to help solve immediate problems. I also watch the traffic between members to pick up on trends and emerging issues that I need to be aware of  to perform my job effectively. 

In terms of the benefits my company gets from my membership in the peer network, the list is long and varied.  First of all, my company gets access to best practices and "next practices" from other leading companies.  They also get what I call "on-the-fly" benchmarking.  Once, I put together a benchmarking study via the network in 6 days with 15 companies.  That is really a time to value accelerator. 

In addition, I believe my network membership did a lot to help position my previous company as an innovator and employer of choice.  Through the network, positive word got out describing what the firm was doing in the areas of executive and leadership development and I think this helped our recruitment of talented executives. 

Finally, I believe the elements of a successful peer-to-peer network are: 

•  Focus of the network (i.e., same job function, area of interest, etc.) 
• Matching of members (i.e., job level, organization size, people that are open to sharing and learning) 
• Variety of venues and channels for information exchange 
• Ability to create close, personal relationships with other network members 
• Responsiveness of network members to requests for information or guidance" 

- Chuck Presbury
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.