Authentic networking for resilience

Building great relationships at work is a key factor of becoming a resilient leader. When networking it's important for an individual to feel comfortable and authentic in their approach. It is very easy to see how people see networking as a difficult activity that will result in the creation of artificial relationships that feel shallow and unproductive.

So how do you network if it doesn’t come naturally to you?

Here are three ideas that could help.

Be clear about what you want to achieve

It can be useful to firstly consider how developing a business relationship will create a win:win:win situation around:

- how I can benefit from developing this relationship
- how the other party could benefit
- how the organisation /s could benefit from the relationship

ie. creating a true win: win: win scenario   This also helps break down those limiting beliefs around the value you can provide the other person. Think of your limiting belief like a coffee table. By challenging the 'evidence' that underpins the limiting belief you start to dismantle it in your mind. This is effectively like removing each of the legs of your coffee table one by one.

Develop an ‘elevator' sentence that helps people understand what you do.

It's funny how we sometimes struggle to succinctly say what we do for a living when initially asked. Some job titles are self explanatory many of us can get a bit tongue tied when asked.

Many people have heard of the 'elevator pitch' and perhaps see it as a bit of a gimick or tool to be used exclusively by hard hitting marketing directors.

However, having a sentence that initially follows up your job title can really help build both confidence and rapport. Firstly think of who you help in the job you do, whether that be an individual, department or organsation. Then think about how you help them and combine it into a sentence.

So for example

‘I help telecommunication companies to react quickly to new developments in the marketplace.’

‘I help companies who are concerned about losing valuable data assess the risks to their business.’

Incidentally unless you are talking to a fellow expert avoid technical jargon and explain what you do in everyday language.   

      Build trust by being genuinely interested in the other person

Think of people you know and trust. What do those trusted individuals do to build that trust? Remember trust is absolute; there is no such thing as partial trust, it either exists or it doesn't.

Understanding your own personal motivation and behaviour helps deliver the core requirements of trust. So think through the answers to the following

'What motivates me?'

' Why do I behave the way I do?'

' What affects my behaviour?'

Trust centres around the virtous circle of giving and getting. We get satisfaction and pleasure from being trusted and as we are trusted more, our own trustworthiness grows

In his ‘principle centred leadership’ model Stephen Covey identifies four levels of practice, starting with trustworthiness at the personal level, which then leads to trust at the interpersonal level. He goes onto breakdown trustworthiness into two key components;

- Character ie. what you are as a person

- Competence ie. what you can do

For example you make like your doctor as a person but if you feel they lack competence to do their job you wouldn’t necessarily trust them. Alternatively the GP maybe extremely competent but you have heard that they carry out unnecessary work to secure additional income. In this case the character of the doctor is in question and trustworthiness is diminished.

For a free copy of my guide to the seven steps that can improve your companies advantage please click on the link below

 http://www.martincrisp.com/freebook/