Episode 257 Transcript:

0:00:00 Ramona Shaw: This episode is to all my fellow introverts or anyone who feels like “UGH!” just not enough time to network. We’re going to talk about relationship building techniques for leaders. Here are the two questions this podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And 2 how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted? Although the competition and the expectations get bigger, this show The Manager Track podcast will provide the answers.

0:00:30 Ramona Shaw: I’m your host, Ramon. My name is Ramona Shaw. I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead so everyone wins and grows. In the show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader. You can be welcome to this episode of The Manager Track podcast.

0:00:56 Ramona Shaw: As I said in the introduction, I’m personally an introvert. I love small groups, one on one conversations or kind of being by myself. This is really my happy place. And when I think about being at a big event and I do miss conferences, I do like big events and I like off sites with teams and team building events. But in those scenarios I also know that I have to really step into almost a different Persona than what I usually am and that can feel like an extra, extra exertion of energy.

0:01:30 Ramona Shaw: And when I have it and when I prepare for it, I’m all in and I enjoy it, which is really kind of interesting, recognizing my introverted tendencies and feeling really good about them too. Throughout my life I also always sought out moments to lead a group to present. That went from early on when I was on stage doing I don’t know what, dances and things like that, to then teaching group fitness classes and Taebo for those who remember what that is, to then moving into leadership situations where I had to facilitate sessions and really enjoying that part.

0:02:13 Ramona Shaw: And all the way up to the work that I do now with teams, with groups online and in person and getting a lot of choice and satisfaction out of doing it. And at the same time there’s still something in me that when I think about the large masses and the big groups or the room full of strangers where I feel like, okay, I’m gonna have to go in and put in extra energy to show up. And at times, sometimes this is week months, just where things seem harder with my personal life or in work and I feel like I don’t have that extra capacity to go out and especially if it’s later in the evening after already a full day of work or family commitments to then also show up for such conversations.

0:02:57 Ramona Shaw: And for quite a long time, I felt like it was either I am doing my work and servicing my clients in the different formats that we do at arcova, but then the conferences, the networking events, you know, that was a nice to have, but if I was honest with myself, it wasn’t just a nice to have. It was also more comfortable to just push that aside and delay it for later down the road when I have more time.

0:03:23 Ramona Shaw: It was more so because these events can feel awkward. And so instead of saying a, how do I make these events less awkward? And two, just because I’m not attending such events doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still focus on expanding my relationships and my network in the field and in my communities. And especially in the last few weeks, it’s become clear to me how much I am still navigating this and also how often that actually comes up in coaching conversations with clients where we talk about how do you expand your network and your visibility in an industry or in a professional network.

0:04:03 Ramona Shaw: So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And I’m working right alongside with you in growing through the way that I change my perspective on these things, but also developing the discipline and the consistency to take actions. In essence, for some people, networking is energizing, even fun. For others, it feels like a chore, something that eats up time, drains energy and takes them away from real work in quotation marks.

0:04:30 Ramona Shaw: So if you’ve ever thought, I know I should network more, but I don’t have the time. I am not great at all this small talk stuff, or I don’t even enjoy that, or it feels inauthentic to schmooze people just to get ahead, then this episode is for you. And again, I’m right there with you. Because here’s the truth. Networking isn’t about collecting business cards or connecting with people over LinkedIn after we made some small talk at events.

0:05:04 Ramona Shaw: No, it’s about building meaningful relationships that make your work easier, your leadership more effective, and your career more successful. But also what that includes and specifically encompass in your leadership more effective is that you elevate people around you. You make life better for them. That’s what leadership is. You add value to their lives. It’s literally at the core of leadership. Because why else would people want to follow you if not because they think that there is a value exchange of following you? They get security, they get clarity of where to go direction, they benefit, they grow, they learn and so much more.

0:05:51 Ramona Shaw: So really while building these relationships can seem to be somewhat of a selfish effort, it is in the essence of leadership, to expand and to impact people in a positive way, to make the community better and stronger, to lift up others around us, to mentor, to pass on knowledge or experience, to guide, to help them grow and to elevate them and make them even more successful than you are. And I think that’s a beautiful part and all part of the relationship building.

0:06:25 Ramona Shaw: To me personally, that part is actually the easiest. When I can support other business owners by promoting the book that they wrote, I know they put a lot of work into it. When I can share a product that I love, that someone built and someone created and sells on Etsy, I love that if I can make introductions and say like, hey, I think you should meet this other person, you too would have a really fruitful connection. You have a lot in common.

0:06:53 Ramona Shaw: I think you both would benefit. That is beautiful. And that to me is the easiest part. But that’s really then also where I ink of relationship building and what it means to expand relationships to network more broadly. So I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but talking about the perspective that we take on on networking, that either makes it harder or makes it easier, depending on what we think it is, how we define it, or what we think it requires of us in order to be successful at it. And on that perspective, because it is individual and we all can define what it means to us and how we want to go about it, you really don’t have to be an extrovert or spend hours at networking events in order to build professional relationships.

0:07:41 Ramona Shaw: Just like there is not one way to succeed in your career, there is also not one way to build relationships. There isn’t a roadmap, a blueprint, a four step process. No, we all do it in the way that suits us best, works best with the circumstances of our lives and where we’re located, what our family situation might be like, our commitments, our natural strength, our introversion versus extroversion, those all play into it. We want to leverage the strength that we have and work within the opportunities that our lives present.

0:08:15 Ramona Shaw: So in this episode we’ll break down why networking feels exhausting and how to make it easier. How to build meaningful relationships without adding to your workload. A simple mindset shift that makes networking feel more natural and less tactical. So three main topics, let’s dive in. First, why networking feels draining for leaders. I’m going to start with a quick story. A senior leader I coached, let’s call her Sarah, was brilliant at her job.

0:08:47 Ramona Shaw: She had deep expertise in her field, she led a high performing team and had really good performance reviews. But Sarah had zero interest in networking. She saw it as a waste of time. But often the feedback that she got was that she should expand her network in the industry and in the organization. Her mindset though, was, listen, if I do great work, which I do, and this is what I’m paid for, people will notice, people will talk about it and the opportunity will come.

0:09:17 Ramona Shaw: But if I network and then I don’t deliver, I don’t think that’s going to work out. So thanks for the feedback, but no thanks. And for a while that actually worked and she was fine. But then one day she found out that she was passed over for a promotion. Now why did that happen? It happened because while she was head down in execution mode, this colleague who got the promotion wasn’t necessarily better at the job, but had stronger internal relationships.

0:09:49 Ramona Shaw: That person was connected, had trust with others. People knew what they were working on. They almost felt like they had a personal stake in it. They wanted this other person to be successful because of the relationship. And on top of that, Sarah wasn’t seen as a strategic leader because she wasn’t visible outside of her immediate team. So people always thought she’s great at what she does, but she can’t see the big picture.

0:10:14 Ramona Shaw: And this is the first major networking trap believing that great work alone is good enough. Now the reality is opportunities go to people who are known and trusted, not just those who are competent. And on top of that, people don’t know about the work and how great you are if they don’t know about the work in the first place. Second, decisions about promotions, funding and leadership roles often happen in conversations you’re not in.

0:10:45 Ramona Shaw: So someone else actually has to talk on your behalf, represent you, sponsor you. And if no one outside your direct team and your direct line manager knows what you do, your influence is limited. If there are five people in that room talking about it, making suggestions of who should be getting that promotion, and only your manager knows you, and even if your manager is a strong advocate, if the other four people are like, yeah, I don’t know, not sure, but then there’s another person on that list that three out of the five speak really highly about, you can immediately see how that is going to play out.

0:11:22 Ramona Shaw: At the core of really embracing networking and not making it a drag, Something you dread is to understand it’s not about promoting yourself, it’s about making it easy for others to see your value because they’re hearing about your value or you’re directly providing value to them. They see the qualities now that before they didn’t know about. So if you see yourself as someone of high value, high competence, high quality, share that broadly so people know about it.

0:11:54 Ramona Shaw: Another reason networking can feel exhausting is that we’ve been taught the wrong way to think about it. Again, we’ve been thinking about networking the wrong way. We think about attending these events, forcing small talk, handing out business cards or, I don’t know, LinkedIn connections. That can seem like a waste of time. But that is not what networking is. It’s not an event. Networking is in fact a habit.

0:12:21 Ramona Shaw: So in addition to the first shift, to move away from thinking this is about self promotion to thinking about networking as to I want to let people know and see the value that I bring and provide them value directly. And two, to shift away from thinking networking is an event that I do and then I don’t do. No, networking is a habit, something that goes in parallel with your work. For example, think about watering a plant.

0:12:46 Ramona Shaw: You don’t wait until the plant is completely dried out before you give it water. You nurture it consistently so it stays healthy. Now the plant analogy, that may not work for everyone. Some of you are probably letting your plants die. But let’s assume right. We all know in order to make these plants grow the best that they can, we don’t go in these long cycles. We constantly provide them water. And relationships work the same way.

0:13:11 Ramona Shaw: If you only reach out when you need something, it’s going to feel transactional. It’s like that. And then big spike needs something. But if you regularly check in, share value, stay connected, your network will grow naturally without it feeling like extra work. In fact, even looking at research around relationship building and trust, we learned that regular small interaction, sort of this drip approach help us more than these infrequent longer interactions.

0:13:42 Ramona Shaw: So for example, a phone call to a friend once a month is more meaningful than spending a whole Saturday with them once a year. So the relationship will feel stronger after the regular shorter interactions than one big one. Talking about a real world example, I once worked with a leader who was excellent at this. So instead of setting aside networking time, she totally baked this into her existing routine.

0:14:12 Ramona Shaw: For example, she would send a LinkedIn message to someone while she was waiting for a zoom call to start, she shared an interesting article with a mentor. Every so often she made a point to ask a thoughtful question, whenever meeting someone, I remember those conversations like man That’s a good question and what a great answer. And I could tell that the conversation took on depth and both of them walked away feeling good about it, knowing more about each other and about whatever topic they talked about.

0:14:42 Ramona Shaw: None of this really took a whole lot of extra time, but over the years it built a massive network of trusted relationships of people who knew what she was doing and what she was interested in and where she was trying to get to. And that’s how leaders stay connected and build a network as a habitual process in parallel to everything else that they’re doing. So there’s no and no dreading that’s part of the process.

0:15:11 Ramona Shaw: Now let’s talk about a few additional suggestions on how to make networking easy and sustainable so you can start to build your own habits as well. So the main outcome we’re shooting for is to actually network, but to do it in a way that feels a bit more natural and not energy draining, but something that you can do in parallel to the work, the work that you already carry. Let’s talk about four practical ways to do this.

0:15:35 Ramona Shaw: 1. Going back to the mindset shift. Shift away from networking as to self promotion to really thinking about it as forming connections and adding value. So it’s all about opportunities, not about obligations. So for example, instead of asking how can I network more? Ask yourself, who do I generally want to learn from? Who do I enjoy talking to? Who has insights that could help my team or business? So if it’s not about impressing other people, it’s really about curiosity, value and connection.

0:16:12 Ramona Shaw: 2. Make it a two way street going back to this example of reaching out to someone only when we need something, it doesn’t feel good. Even the question of hey, can I pick your brain? Most people don’t respond to that because I don’t know who you are and where this is coming from. Unless you have established relationships, it just feels transactional and feels like you’re asking for a favor. But we don’t have a relationship yet where that would be a good thing to do.

0:16:43 Ramona Shaw: So the best relationships really grow over time by sharing articles or resources that might be helpful. By congratulating someone on a career milestone. Did they get a promotion? Did they have a successful project launch? Did they close a deal? Pay attention to the people on your list. Yes, I do think the list is helpful. Pay attention to what they’re doing in their career. Did they just have a baby? Did they get married? Are they going on a long trip?

0:17:13 Ramona Shaw: What is happening? Their life and let them know that you’re paying attention and that you wish them all the best. For example, making introductions between people that you know would benefit from knowing each other. I already mentioned that those are all small examples to provide value without asking anything in return. In addition, use your lunch break to link up with someone. If you’re in an office, ask them out for lunch.

0:17:39 Ramona Shaw: If you start a meeting and you’re trying to foster that relationship, unless they’re all go straight to the point kind of people and personalities, pay attention to what they’re saying. Ask them about what’s currently going on. If they talk about their kids, write down the names of the kids, the ages of the kids, so that you can recall it down the road next time. Or let’s say in a few months you could ask, hey, how’s your daughter Lizzie doing?

0:18:03 Ramona Shaw: It shows that you paid attention. And then one more suggestion. LinkedIn can be a sort of micro networking tool also to make sure that you follow people that you care about and you want to build relationships with that you get alerted you so you set that bell when they share articles or update their profile so that you can comment on their post or any status or work updates that they add to their LinkedIn profile.

0:18:29 Ramona Shaw: So those are all small suggestions like pretty tactical things that don’t take a whole lot of time, but they do require you to be intentional. And one thing that I’m really working on is to develop a bit of a system to really think about who are the key people that I find really interesting that I see as mentors that I want to build relationships with, that I want to learn from, but also be inspired with. I feel like we have something in common and we’re walking a similar path or they’re just interesting people to observe and you know, have in my universe and then have a bit of a system in place to reach out to them on a regular basis to ensure that they know I exist and that I can add value and that there is something mutually beneficial for us there to be connected.

0:19:21 Ramona Shaw: When you do have the opportunity to actually be one to one, maybe do take someone out for lunch or you are at a networking event and you stand there with another person in order to avoid small talk, have some go to questions that pop into your head right away without having to think a lot that you learned verbatim so that they come easy to you, especially when things feel awkward or you might be a little bit nervous.

0:19:49 Ramona Shaw: Such questions may include, hey, what’s an interesting project you’re working on right now? How did you Find yourself in your current role or industry. What got you here? What’s a skill you’re currently trying to develop? What’s a book that influenced your professional life or your leadership? How do you see your industry or our industry evolving in the next few years? What are some of the strategic goals that your department has set for the year?

0:20:17 Ramona Shaw: These are all questions that are designed to spark meaningful conversations and find some common ground and build authentic connections. They go beyond small talk and encourage the sharing of experience, insights, personal interests even, which really can help you bond in those moments. You’re not losing opportunities by suddenly finding yourself in a small talk situation. So take the lead, but don’t assume that you will remember those questions when you find yourself there. No, remember them, verbatim or read them again before you walk into a networking event so they come more natural. And what you likely find, and what I definitely find is that when I do ask those questions, when I have those conversations, the networking events or the individual conversations or the lunches actually turn into really meaningful experiences that will influence the way that I think about future projects or about work or about the industry.

0:21:11 Ramona Shaw: And it helps me then connect the dots better and makes me better become a better strategic thinker, for example. So if you treat networking like a separate, time consuming, energy draining task, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it and then just trying to avoid it, delay it, think I’m going to do that later. But if you weave it into your day becomes a lot more effortless. But it does mean we have to invest some time up front to build out that system.

0:21:42 Ramona Shaw: Now if you’re someone who hesitates to reach out to others because you worry that you might be bothering them, or what if I don’t have anything interesting to say? Or what if they don’t respond? Here’s the thing. Most people appreciate the outreach. If you make an authentic effort to connect, you’re not pretending or trying to sell something. No, you’re actually genuinely trying to connect. You’re not annoying, you’re just being intentional.

0:22:09 Ramona Shaw: And if they don’t respond, that’s okay too. Move on. It’s likely that these people get a whole lot of things or they may not even see it, or they get it, but then they feel bad that they don’t have the time and they don’t want to say no to you. It could be a whole range of reasons, but it’s likely nothing to do with you. So move on. Try again six months later. But if you don’t hear back, yeah, redirect your attention elsewhere.

0:22:33 Ramona Shaw: The point isn’t to be liked by everyone, right? If you worry about that rejection and that holds us back, we’re operating with this mindset that being liked by people is really important. But that’s not it. It’s about building the right relationships over time. Not everyone’s gonna like you or me or any human on this planet. We’re always gonna find people that just don’t connect or they don’t see our value.

0:22:58 Ramona Shaw: And that is totally okay. Let’s wrap this up with a challenge this week. Reach out to one person in your networks just to check in to share an insight or to say hello. No agenda, no request, just a simple genuine connection. I’m gonna commit to it and I hope you’re committing to this as well alongside with me. Because at the end of the day, the strongest leaders and the most well connected leaders, they don’t network out of obligation.

0:23:30 Ramona Shaw: They build relationships out of curiosity, generosity and consistency. Because they truly believe that impact, influence business success, career success is all about relationships, that it happens through relationships. So doing all the great work without the relationships is not useful. It’s like under totally undermines the effort. So when you start to flip that script, it opens up a whole new set of opportunities.

0:23:59 Ramona Shaw: If this episode resonated with you, share it with a colleague or a friend. And if you want to invest more into your leadership growth, check it out our programs @archova.org that’s it for today. I see you next week on another episode of The Manager Track podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader people love to work with.

0:24:26 Ramona Shaw: This includes a free masterclass on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out @archova.org/masterclass. The second resource is my best selling book the confident and competent new how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out @archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. You can find all those links in the show notes down below.