Cultivating connections
Maureen Dolan
Some of us love networking, and we’re great at it. Others among us, not so much.
No matter how you feel about it, it’s a necessity in today’s business landscape.
The benefits are proven, as evidenced by a whopping amount of research that shows building and nurturing professional relationships leads to more job and business opportunities, greater ability to innovate and advance, and increased job satisfaction.
Wharton psychologist and TED speaker Adam Grant says networking helps professionals get support, knowledge and more because networking creates opportunities to engage with “weaker ties." These are the people we seldom connect with who are in the same industry we are or are potential collaborators in other industries or who are simply doing business in a way that might help us and our companies be more effective.
"Great ideas come from people who have different knowledge and connections having informal interaction time. And if you're not going to bump into those people, you can structure the unstructured time," Grant said, while speaking at a webinar last year. "So one of the ways that you make people feel less alone and more creative is you engineer interactions between weaker ties. You allow people to connect who don't know each other well."
Some of the organizations featured in this month’s North Idaho Business Journal play a pivotal role in helping professionals engineer those interactions: Chambers of Commerce and industry associations, like the North Idaho Building Contractors Association, economic development organizations and other networking groups.
Engaging and being active with these types of groups can provide an abundance of opportunities to interact and reap the benefits of networking.
For those who are still unsure about diving in, or who are looking for more meaningful networking experiences, organizational behavior experts have some suggestions.
Harvard Business Review research writers, in a May 2016 article “Learn to Love Networking,” recommended that networkers: focus on learning, identify common interests, think broadly about what they have to give and find a higher purpose for why they are networking.
“In the law firm we studied, we found that attorneys who focused on the collective benefits of making connections (“support my firm” and “help my clients”) rather than on personal ones (“support or help my career”) felt more authentic and less dirty while networking, were more likely to network, and had more billable hours as a result,” wrote the HBR authors.
Here’s to building bridges, fostering collaborations and unlocking the great potential that lies within North Idaho’s networked business landscape.
