Each One Reach One

Last week I had the opportunity to observe a training program that was being conducted by another trainer. The subject of the class is one with which I am fairly familiar, but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to see someone highly skilled in the course content going through her paces. The instructor was marvelous. She seamlessly conducted the day long session with minimal reference to notes or slides and kept the entire class engaged throughout the day. I sat in the back of the room with a colleague who has observed this particular training session many times. During points when our attention was not required, my colleague and I began to talk about a networking site that he uses as a means of developing business contacts. The site is called LinkedIn. If you would like to check it out, you may do so by following this link.

The idea of business networking is hardly new. Most of us in business for any length of time have participated in networking events, or spent time networking. We attend conferences where our primary purpose at times is to network and make new contacts. We do lunches and dinners to network, and we attend a myriad of other functions for this purpose. There are those that are particularly skilled at networking. Those people are always ready with a business card, are proficient at schmoosing, and can really work a room. They have great contact management systems that they use, and send timely follow-up messages to new contacts. I have tried for most of my career to develop those skills, but I find them difficult to master. At my best I am mediocre at networking.

My work as an independent consultant causes me to spend the majority of my working hours alone in my home office. During the winter months, I am not inclined to spend much time outdoors and as such my contact with people that are not members of my family is limited. Even though my home is located in a city neighborhood, many of my neighbors function similarly. We hibernate in our homes and generally only see each other at neighborhood functions during the winter. As such I don’t get the opportunity to engage many people face to face for about 3 or 4 months out of the year.

Over this past weekend I attended a memorial service for my stepfather. As is often the case these occasions bring together people that have fallen out of touch. I had the opportunity to see relatives and family friends that I have not seen for many years. We shared stories of our youth, showed pictures of our children and families, and caught up on where life has taken us. I will also admit that I spent some time with a critical eye, observing how life has changed the people I knew growing up. Some people really do age well, yet most of us do not.

My stepfather lived in the Philadelphia area. His memorial was held there and so I had plenty of time to think about the weekend as I drove back to Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon. I had many thoughts about the general fragility of life. I reminded my self about how time passes so quickly and I reflected on those days growing up with my stepfather and my stepbrother and sisters. Recognizing that time distorts many of our memories, I try not to place too much meaning on events in the past. However, one thing kept coming back to me. I wondered why we are so conscious about networking in our professional lives, while we seem to generally not focus on networking in our personal lives. Some of our best contacts are the people we have known for most of our lives. I am not talking about keeping in touch with our brothers and sisters, but making sure that you also keep track of old neighbors and childhood friends. We should keep an updated contact list of the telephone numbers and addresses of cousins, and aunts and uncles. Isn’t it strange that we willingly accept the business card of complete strangers and put them in our contact system as people we want to know, but we probably don’t have the current phone number for a friend’s child that is attending college 30 minutes from your home?

I have dedicated about an hour every day for the next few weeks to working on developing my professional and business contacts. I have vowed to become better at business networking as a means of expanding my business opportunities. I think this is a prudent thing to do. However, I am going to amend that commitment to include becoming much more aggressive about developing and maintaining my personal contacts. I think that each of us should devote time to expand our circle of influence in our personal lives. For me that means calling old friends, cousins, aunts and uncles. For those that like to write you can easily send an email message as a means of keeping in touch. For older friends and relatives that don’t use email, then take a minute to send a short note. You don’t need to buy an expensive greeting card just a note on a sheet of paper would be greatly appreciated.

When I thought about all of this I imagined what it would be like if each one of us reached out to one of us every day. We could reduce the loneliness experienced by people that don’t have friends to talk to. We would no longer find ourselves at funerals promising to “stay in touch.” We would likely enrich the lives of the many people that have touched our lives and in doing so, we might just make a connection that is just as beneficial as those business cards that you keep in your desk drawer just in case you need to reach that guy some day.