Your whole working life you’ve been told that to have a fruitful career you will need to know the right people. Yes, but….that’s only partially true. The same goes for doing exceptional work and believing that if you just keep doing rock star quality work, you’ll get that promotion. I’m here to tell you, it usually doesn’t work that way either. What is critical is the marriage of the two ideas.
It’s not what you do *OR* who you know. What matters is who knows what you do.
If you do shoddy work and know the right people, it may help you once. If you do stellar work and the right people don’t know about it….chirp, chirp, chirp [those are crickets].
I had a client (we’ll call him Ryan) who was wicked smart. At work, he was the go to person to taking the projects no one else could successfully stand up. For the 3 years he was in his role, Ryan received awards, exceptional feedback, and top performance ratings. He engaged me for coaching because he was frustrated and confused. With all the extraordinary work he’d done and all of the gushing feedback…why had he not been promoted? Ryan was ready to give up and move on to a new company who would appreciate him. Early on in our coaching I discovered that even though Ryan wanted to move up with his company, he hadn’t told anyone. He didn’t think he needed to and expected his great work would be his ticket up the ladder. I also learned that Ryan was a heads down producer, he often worked alone engaging with others only as projects required collaboration. While he wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of what felt like bragging and saying what should be known, Ryan trusted me and the process. He started by telling his manager that he wanted to grow with the organization. He talked about a few key contributions and told his manager the kind of work he was interested in doing more of and that he eventually wanted to manage people. Ryan’s manager was surprised and delighted to hear this as she had assumed he wasn’t interested in a management track. She helped him find a mentor, a senior person who was well connected in the company. This led to new contacts and his group of sponsors grew. Ryan challenged himself to use his subject matter expertise to teach junior staff and started an internal blog. His efforts paid off, within the year Ryan was promoted to a bigger role and was re-engaged and committed to his company.
Build, optimize, and activate your network
1) Interested in a particular role or company? Reach out to someone in that job or with that company and ask for an informational interview to learn more about them, what they do, and how they got to where they are. After you connect with someone new and thank them for their generous time spent, ALWAYS ask if they can recommend anyone else who would be helpful for you to speak with and learn from.
2) Hear about an exciting new project or initiative? Send an email to the project or program lead and tell them of your interest to contribute. Briefly explain your qualifications and transferable skills. And don’t underestimate having a strong passion for a topic without other qualifications or skills.
3) Does your brand reflect your interests? Use social media to support your professional brand. Do you want to be seen as an expert in XYZ topic? Blog about it. Set up alerts for topics of interest and participate in the conversation. Follow and connect with people who are active in these conversations.
4) Do the right people know your successes? You need people in your corner advocating for you. Make it a habit to share key results not just activities. Share relevant praise from key stakeholders.
This sounds like a lot of work, do I really need to put in so much effort?
Here’s what I know, about 80% of all jobs are filled through connections. Make sure those connections have the sound bites to share when they are going to bat and recommending you for a job. Strategic networking and communication are critical to a successful career and it’s important to think about approaching it purposefully. I can help you create a networking strategy map to get you closer to a job you want and ensure the right people know who you are and what you do. Contact me today for your free consultation.