Building connections: The secret sauce to elevate your career

“Our brains are wired to reach out and interact, the reward centres light up when we have connection.”

– Molly Carroll, licensed therapist and professional coach

Some consider networking an art, others see it as a science, but the majority just feel it’s something “that sweet talker” does to “get ahead at work”. While all points of view may be valid to some extent, the truth is that there’s something much deeper at play here – the human need for connection.

When done right, networking helps you unlock opportunities, acquire knowledge, broaden your horizon and fulfil your full potential. Besides, building connections also brings us humans a great deal of joy – as established by the point Molly Carroll makes in her TedTalk about the brain’s reward centres lighting up when we make a meaningful connection.

This is a very powerful thought, and one that organisations around the world are increasingly paying close attention to.

Connections have a directly proportional relationship to happiness. It’s the difference between an employee putting in their all for the organisation and the people who make up the workforce vs an employee giving the bare minimum while desperately waiting to clock-out at 5pm.

As human beings we’re constantly looking to make connections, and our time spent at a workplace is no different. When we find connections at our workplace we’re generally motivated, happy and wired-in to the greater organisational goal.

The opposite is also true, if we aren’t able to connect with anyone at the workplace then we’re usually disillusioned, demotivated and plain unhappy.

This is why companies are increasingly seeing the benefit of working at coworking spaces – or even in their own private offices within a coworking community.

Employee engagement activities can go a long way in helping people make connections at their workplace. While hitting the company targets are great, you’re never going to do them with a disgruntled workforce. It’s imperative to take out the time to create avenues for teams to bond and grow in the right environment.

Coworking Spaces: The perfect breeding ground for networking

“No matter what the coworking space looks like, no matter where it is located, no matter how pretty it is… people join those spaces because they want to be part of a community. They want to join because of the connections they will be able to make while working from there.”

That’s Stephanie Brisson, Head of Workplace at GetYourGuide, speaking at Jacobs University. The point she’s making is that coworking spaces exist so that we can build connections alongside our work.

In terms of office spaces, it’s the perfect set up, because you have people from all walks of life under one roof. Just imagine the types of conversations you could strike up, and the connections you could make. Instead of going around the city in a Pokemon-Go style hunt for your next connection, all you need to do is walk into a coworking space.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re a Product Manager working for a company that makes Digital Wallets. You’re also really interested in the OTT boom that’s happened in the past decade, especially the technology behind streaming content.

There’s no one on your Digital Wallet team that shares your interest or excitement.

Well, guess what: at the break-out zone of your coworking space is the Chief Product Officer for an up and coming OTT platform. You’ve found someone at your workplace who shares your passion, and strike up a connection that lasts longer than just that cup of coffee!

Long-term gain

Andrew Griffiths, Director of Policy and Partnerships at PlanetMark, lays out the massive impact making the right connections can have on your career. “Meaningful networking is the primary reason that I have not had to apply for a single job role in over 5 years, despite changing careers and industries and climbing up the career ladder several times.”

Think about it this way. In the traditional route of assessing a candidate for a job, a 30-minute interview is the only time you have to build trust, and gauge a candidate’s experience and general attitude. Just 30 minutes.

Instead, spend your time building connections and shelve these away for future reference. When you need something done, and you know just the right person to do it – someone you’ve already built a relationship with… a 30-minute interaction would never give you that kind of insight or certainty.

The bottom line is that building connections has an unparalleled impact on your life.

As Griffirths says, “Networking is the most important skill we can teach to people, particularly young people, because it gives them the opportunity to create lasting relationships with people who will remember who they are, what they’re good at, and the fact that they took the time to be curious about things beyond their job title.”

Networking 101
While coworking spaces are great for building connections, it can be difficult for some people to make the most of these opportunities, mostly because they are shy, under-confident or introverted.

Let’s be honest, the toughest thing in building connections is getting past that first massive hurdle: starting a conversation with a stranger.

Here’s some inspiration from Mel Robbins, motivational speaker and author of the ‘5 Second Rule’, a book that uses the science of habits to explore the power of backing your instincts.

And one of the examples she uses perfectly sums up the powers of networking.

An engineer at Cisco, inspired by Robbins’s motivational talk, decided to engage with long-time CEO John Chambers. Though terrified, he approached Chambers with a simple message: he explained how he had always wanted to personally thank him for the incredible career he had enjoyed at Cisco.

According to the engineer, Chambers and he ended up chatting for 15 minutes, about work, life and even an idea the engineer had related to a project he was working on.

Chambers ended up putting the engineer on to a senior employee at Cisco in charge of innovation, which set off an incredible personal growth journey.

The most important rule in building connections is to never be afraid to simply walk up, introduce yourself. And the second is to listen – always ask the other person about themselves. Who knows, you might find out they’re the Chief Marketing Officer of a sneaker brand you happen to wear all the time and before you know it, you’re engaged in a discussion of the revolution of the sneaker industry and how it’s become an integral part of a person’s identity.

If this still seems difficult, and it can be for some people, you don’t need to limit yourself to in-person conversations. Maybe you can introduce yourself to someone at your hub on email, or on LinkedIn, and then set up a meeting over coffee.

Whatever your approach – bravo! You’ve just built a new connection.