Networking Comes Home to Roost

Networking is not everyone’s cup of tea. Some people are not very comfortable or interested in maintaining contact with old work colleagues or friends from university. Some people shudder at the thought of deliberately going out of their way to meet people with whom they may be able to work to mutual benefit in the future. It is human nature that this is the case but despite this undoubted truth, I believe strongly that networking is something that everyone should consider within their professional lives.

The activity of networking has been socially labelled as a bad thing. It is associated with a desire to climb through the layers of society with minimum effort for personal gain. This may be true for some but networking has a much broader role and many different characteristics. For the permanent employee in a large organisation, effective networking amongst colleagues may include widening a sphere of influence to allow easier delivery of a project. For an interim manager it may include maintaining contact with previous colleagues or managers from earlier assignments to whom they might return for further work at a later date. Often senior managers stay in contact with previous members of their team to ensure that when they need people for new projects they can tap into their network for trusted resources straightaway.

I would describe this as medium level networking, within most people’s comfort zone, and helpful for making life easier for professionals. More complex levels extend the reach of these networks to include unknown individuals and groups that share a common link with people they know. This is time consuming and requires a confidence and highly tuned sense of purpose that only small numbers of people possess. Recently the advance of LinkedIn as a social tool has reflected the desire that people have to network, but in reality it is too easy to hide behind the technology and although 1.5 million links may be impressive, it does not mean that you are better connected.

At the basic level of networking skills, I include the daily behaviours that we exhibit with people we meet socially, professionally and through everyday life. These behaviours position the views that people have about us. How people perceive us and how happy they are for us to talk, e-mail or write to them will have more influence over our lives than more overt types of networking. This is extremely important for those of us in the service industry. As consultants we must treat people with respect, complete tasks when we are asked and maintain a suitable disposition at all times. If we succeed in this then our customers will be more likely to use our services again. The same principle goes for all of us, independent of our confidence to build consultancy careers.

Networking effectively starts with ourselves and only then can you hope to expand or join other networks.