At the recent Eskom African Business Leaders Conference, Helen Nicholson, a leading expert in Networking and one of the presenters said that business people often have the mistaken belief that churning out work from behind their computer is going to take them to the next level in their career.
“I saw this very clearly when I worked at a renowned Business School. I had taken on a job that had a backlog of several months work and decided to prove myself by catching up as quickly as possible. With the result I spent every waking moment behind my PC and decided I didn’t have time to join the academics who met for tea at 10.30am every morning. I soon heard people asking “What does Helen do?” I reported directly into the Director and wasn’t available at the tea time to discuss my various projects with the other staff. This was my first and very valuable lesson in making yourself visible in the workplace.” If you don’t raise your visibility and make yourself known, you run the risk of becoming a no-name brand.
Interestingly enough that’s why smokers often have well developed personal brands and good networks. Outside on the balcony, the smokers find out exactly what’s going on across the organization and the traditional silos. They’re always the first to know the juiciest gossip. Even if you’re not a smoker make sure you have one in your network as they often have access to hot off the press information.
Nigel Risner, the internationally acclaimed expert on networking believes that business people often don’t attend networking events, because of time constraints and a lack of awareness of how important they are. Why is that? Business people often use excuses like lack of time or too much work. Nigel says not arriving is worse than not RSVPing as your name badge that lies there throughout the whole event says more about your brand than you personally ever could have.
Men seemed to have the mistaken idea that networking is actually net-drinking while women seem to think of networking as net-sitting (at the office). Networking implies work: rocking up and spending some energy in developing relationships with people who have the potential to make a significant impact on your future career. |
