Understanding your network and relationship with power is critical in establishing your presence before those influencers and decision makers. This topic is very important especially for those high achieving introverts who want to elevate their performance and advance in their career. While assessing and analyzing your network is time consuming on the front-end, you will be in a stronger position to execute your networking plan immediately when needed.
List your influencers. Start by creating a list of 25 influential people in your personal and professional networks and list them in 5 categories that are relevant to your situation. In some cases, the same people will appear in different categories. Examples of categories can include: Workplace, Collaborators, Promoters, Friends, Mentors, Connectors, Politics, Community Leadership, Special Interests and Business. Take a look at each category and do the following:
- Mark a line through names you listed in more than one category. Leave one copy of each name without a line through it.
- Highlight names of any people you consider strong ties.
- Draw lines between any two people who know one another.
Analyze your network. Once you create your networking chart, ask yourself critical questions that will help you determine if your network is broad, limited, constrained or imbalanced for what you are trying to achieve.
- Are many names repeated across the different categories?
- Are there many connections in the network map, or are most people unconnected?
- Did you highlight many people to indicate your tie with them is strong?
- Is your network diverse with respect to ethnicity, gender and experience?
- Does your network revolve around people in your same industry or work?
Develop an actionable plan. Identify goals and strategies that will strengthen your current network, address any gaps, diversify your connects and cultivate new relationships. Make sure you are clear in what you want and work with someone to help you measure progress and success towards your goals.
Commit to your plan and watch your network grow one person at a time!
If you want to talk in more detail about enhancing your network, contact me to set up a call.