Networking Part 2: Your Work Relationships

In the second part of my networking series, the focus is on work relationships. One of the most valuable things you can do to help yourself and your team is raise your profile via your work relationships. Work relationships are not just key because they are how you raise your profile, but they also form part of your future external network. 

Thinking

To improve or add to your existing work relationships, you should first reflect on them. When reflecting consider:

• who is a key person of influence you should connect with? 

• what departments should you be collaborating with but are not?

• who do you have a good relationship with but you want to reshape the dynamic? 

Once you have made that assessment, write down an action plan for each person identified. An easy way to start is to schedule 15-30 mins with them to introduce yourself and understand their challenges. 

Building

Like any personal relationship, building a work relationship must be one of reciprocity. So you need to identify early on how you can help. My approach is to start small and go from there. I use my design skills as an advantage, and it could range from helping out on a presentation to providing them with some insights to help support a piece of work they are doing. However small it is, try and find a way to help them out. In return, I would use the time spent with them to ask for advice or support that helps to form a mutual bond between you both which can lead to having another ally within your organisation

Maintaining 

Once you have built up a work relationship the next step is to maintain them and connect with them regularly. The easiest way is to schedule a regular 1:1, depending on the relationship, you could do a lunch or a coffee meeting. I would structure these meetings in a similar way and use it to find out challenges, check up on progress, etc. Maintaining is important as it helps to increase your internal network and understand what is happening in the business, which in turn helps you and your team. 

Work relationships have the power to help raise your profile beyond your department and can help advocate for you and your team. Have that in mind as you navigate your career.