Networking – are you doing it without realising it?

What is networking and are you doing it without even thinking about it?

Do you chat to colleagues when making a coffee or waiting for the lift? You may think that all you’re talking about is last night’s TV or the state of the weather but without realising it you’ll be networking. These interactions with colleagues can be the start of building a network of people who can add to your business success. What might start out as an innocent conversation might provide the answer to a problem you’ve been struggling with for ages.

Don’t assume that networking is all about selling or getting leads – basically it’s about making connections and these connections may come in very useful one day.

To ensure that you network successfully, follow these simple rules:

·         Be interested - in what the person you are talking to is saying to you - you never know what you might get out of the conversation

·         Be interesting - don’t just talk about yourself - give a little though and you may get more back than you anticipated

·         Answer correspondence promptly - don’t just leave that email sitting there, a prompt response might open up a discussion that may prove beneficial

·         Don’t let your eyes wonder - if someone is talking to you, even if they’re not the most interesting person in the world, make them feel like they are - look at them whilst they’re talking and ask questions that may prompt them into expanding on a subject you’re interested in.

Remember that we are social animals and whichever method you’re using to communicate it doesn’t take much to be sociable. Get it right and you could open up a number of doors that will benefit not just you but the organisation you work for too, get it wrong and the doors may start to close.

Learning Styles

Have you ever attended a course and felt like other delegates understood it better than you? This may not have anything to do with your ability to learn but probably has a lot more to do with the way you learn. I struggled for a long time when I first started attending work related courses, I knew it wasn’t because I couldn’t understand the subject but for some reason I always left a course feeling like I could have grasped it better – after a while I began to think that maybe it was my fault after all.

After deciding to have a career change to IT Training I attended my first course to gain my training qualifications and discovered learning styles. Suddenly it all made sense and to my relief I realised it wasn’t me at all.

If you’re looking on the Web you may see different terminology mentioned regarding Learning Styles but they all pretty much cover the same basic methods. In this blog I’m going to talk about the Honey & Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire, this was the very first way of identifying learning styles that I came across when I attended my first Delivery Skills training session. In short Honey & Mumford developed a questionnaire based on a group of learning styles identified by David Kolb. This questionnaire takes around 15 minutes to complete and is used to identify a person’s current learning style. This questionnaire is not exhaustive and it’s a good idea to repeat it regularly as you may find that as you change so does your learning style – I know mine has over the years (a couple of times at least)!!

Activists -                  these are hands on learners who prefer to learn by having a go and learning through trial and error.

Reflectors -              tell me learners who like to be fully briefed before proceeding

Theorists -                convince me learners who want reassurance that a project or system makes sense

Pragmatists -           show me learners who want a demonstration from an acknowledged expert

A good training session should ideally cater for all 4 styles of learning and a good trainer should always bear these methods in mind when delivering training.

If you want to know what your learning style is try the questionnaire out for yourself – you may be surprised at what you find out. You can probably find a copy of the questionnaire online (or some variation of it – there are many!).