Ask Your Network

Since improvements can rarely be made without the involvement of others, talking to people in our networks is an essential management practice.  Thinking of our network as being formed of layers can be helpful.

1. Our immediate colleagues are the easiest to access.  They can be consulted in that kink in the hallway, or during management meetings, or through specific appointment, or on the phone.  Our approach depends on the seriousness of the issues and the extent of consultation sought.
2. Usually we can consider senior managers and colleagues in other departments as a network that requires more formal approaches.  Preparing an agenda or set of questions in advance ensures that we can take advantage of what may be our single opportunity to engage with them.  Calling in advance to set up either a meeting or a phone interview is required, complete with a brief explanation of the topic and why you are consulting them.
3. Our most extended network is developed through professional meetings, volunteering, conferences, and incidental meetings at events.  These are people who are interesting and whose thinking seem compatible with our own approaches.  These are the people we can take for coffee or lunch for an informal exchange of ideas.  They are amenable to occasional meetings to review concepts or implementation plans, with no commitments on either side.  (While cultivating “opposite thinkers” is often beneficial, they are hard to include in our networks because they may not be particularly interested in helping when we need them the most.) 
4. The most difficult network is the one we can contact through a “cold call” based on our affiliation with our employer, a volunteer organization or another member of our network.  Recently, I was engaged in this type of contact, feeling like a spider that had misjudged the distance to its next anchor.  After failing in several efforts and on the brink of giving up, contact was made and success achieved.  Now my network is even more extensive.