Building Visibility and Networking

I attended a lunch and learn session earlier today on the topic of Building Visibility and Networking (what a coincidence), and would like to share some of the tips given by the presenter, which was the country chairman. The tips given are for working context, but some can be applied to personal context as well.

- High performance is a base/must. If you are a high performer, you will be noticed.
- Persuade your supervisor to allow you to give presentations.
- Be active (other than work) for example volunteer to organize events, or join a club and volunteer to be the committees etc, participate in events
- Find/create social opportunities eg lunches/games
- Break the ice (when approaching someone you don’t know) by commenting on situational topic (eg about the food during lunch/dinner), or current issues (try not to talk about work)
- Be knowledgeable, read up, keep to-date with topics of interest (including current affairs) so that you can contribute to conversations
- Try to guess what topics the other person might be interested in. If the topic doesn’t work, change to another topic.
- Take turn listening, don’t just talk all the time
- Don’t try to show off / be ‘too clever’ / offer ‘too much’
- Get rid of the mindset that being friendly with colleagues (esp bosses) equals to ‘buttering up’
- Build relationship

Don’t think of visibility and networking just as a mean to advance one’s career, good networking can also help to create a condusive environment which can help us perform better, which I’m sure everyone appreciates, regardless of one’s ambitions and aspirations.