Working on our Relationships
The most valuable career and business skills I have did not come to me naturally. They came slowly, and with practice.
I learned them the way a child learns to walk — starting with a few wobbly steps, then by hurtling myself at the steepest or sharpest obstacles I could find.
The skills did not come naturally, or easily. In fact, some of them might not have come to me at all! I am still practicing, failing, learning, and repeating the motions that I know have helped me win the little victories I have earned.
Like you, I have aversions to certain things I know are good for me. Allergic might be a better word to describe how I initially felt about the business skills my mentors pointed me towards as I left behind my technical career and transitioned into business.
It took me a long time to overcome that avoidance. Today, I do some of these things automatically, without even thinking, and I can measure on a weekly basis the contribution they’ve made to my career development over the years.
There is one skill in particular is that I think are essential to practice for anyone who wants a successful professional career. These skills have two things in common:
Most people feel incompetent at them
Most are much better at it than they think.
Some things that seem hard seem much easier
I’d like to take a crack at sharing a few simple ideas about why these skills are important, and how you can practice them without turning your stomach.
Networking
The word networking is such a risible obscenity. It causes the eyes to roll right back, and a deep sigh to be exhaled by any noble person.
How do you perceive someone who claims to be good at networking? I know this one, because I am perceived this way sometimes. The word that comes to mind is douchebag. Or the more recent synonym, influencer. (If this is you, I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules.)
I am trying to eliminate the words network and networking from my coaching practice because it has such a strong negative connotation for so many of us. Let it go, my friends. Let’s all resolve together to never use the vile word again.
Instead, we will replace it with a friendly and benign word that has absolutely no challenging connotations whatsoever.
Relationships
As any salesperson will tell you, business is about relationships. You can take the work out of networking by focusing on the aspects of your business relationships that feel normal and natural to you. If you can get comfortable with this, you’ll develop a superpower that you can put to work in any career or business situation.
You can start by taking a moment and think about the important relationships that have impacted you and your career. Really, just for a moment, think back on the people at work who made the biggest impression, who hired you, promoted you, and have run interference for you in your business and careers.
Think for a moment about your relationship with your last boss. Ok, that was too long. But it’s significant that your relationship with your manager and your co-workers is likely to defines whether you enjoy or merely tolerate your work.
Think about the person who hired you into your first real job, or who gave you your first promotion. Think about the first time you worked as part of a team that gave you that amazing feeling of effectiveness and productivity. Remember some of the individual people who you’ve worked with that you would love to work with again.
Comfort and Authenticity
Why does networking feel gross?
One of my favorite clients used the word transactional to talk about the discomfort she felt when performatively reaching out to people to talk about her job search. She’s right. Know what else? If you’re subjecting yourself and other people to a conversation that feels like a pretentious, fake, or phony transaciton, it’s unlikely to be successful.
Think back on the relationships you’ve enjoyed with all of those amazing people from the previous paragraph. If you ran into one of them on the street and they asked what you’re up to, would it feel gross to say “Hey, yeah, I’m looking for a new job.” Probably not!
Business relationships are inauthentic, transactional, and gross when the friendliness is fake, when the social aspect is performative or obligatory, and when one person is trying to wrangle some uncompensated advantage from the other.
It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it’s ridiculous to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you’re refusing to engage the people you know in the process of trying to grow your business or find a new job, it’s like you’re refusing to wash your hair because someone tried to sell you Amway shampoo.
The Real Deal
Every interaction you’ve had with someone in a career context represents a relationship. Every relationship has value worth assessing, cultivating, and leveraging.
Does it feel weird to talk about leveraging relationships? Do you feel bad about asking a friend for advice? A colleague for their opinion?
If you call it networking it feels bad as fuck! When I talk to my clients about this topic I am usually asking them to do an exercise like the following. Give it a try and see if it seems like something you can do without feeling disgusting.
Go back one or two years in your email inbox. Read through some messages and note the people you were interacting with at that time. Pick one or two of them who appeared not to hate you and send them an email.
The email can be incredibly straightforward and transparent. You can copy and paste this:
Hey [Name!] It’s been a long time since we’ve been in touch. I am looking for new clients for my design system consulting biz. I really enjoyed working with you at [Company] so I thought I’d ask if you could send any projects you come across my way. Thanks!
Another example:
Hey [Name!] I’ve just been updating my profile here and I remembered the great work we did together on [Project.] I just wanted to let you know I really enjoyed working with you. I’m looking for a new role so if you hear of anything that might suit me I hope you’ll keep me in mind.
Most people react poorly to the idea of doing this kind of relationship work because we are all inundated every day with spammy cringey garbage in our inbox, from people pretending to know us pushing some kind of crap at us we do not want.
Your own efforts to network with your colleagues do not have to be like that. If you practice being straightforward, transparent, and concise, you’ll find it easy to write the kind of messages that you’d be happy to get.