Whatever profession you are in, it is highly likely that networking will be a really important part of your working life for your own wellbeing and for corporate wellness. Everywhere you go in business, you will hear that networking is the key to success. The people that you know in the corporate world will help you to climb the career ladder and get ahead in business just as much as your skills and knowledge.
Contrary to the popular belief, networking is not all about meeting, greeting, exchanging a false smile and compliment and handing over a business card. It is far more complex than that, and needs real input in order to reap the rewards. Relationships made through networking may not come in useful for a number of years, so they have to be sustainable, not superficial. For example, people meeting through networking may not be in a position to help each other out at that point in time, but may, in the future, have moved up through the ranks and become more successful in business and be able to
Networking should be seen as relationship building, rather than purely attempting to get ahead by making connections. These relationships need to be built on things that you have in common and thus expanded through shared interests.
That doesn’t mean that you should ignore the powerful people altogether to concentrate on those at the same level, but even these politically astute networking connections must be built in an authentic way. This is most commonly done through social activities. Other areas of life can sometimes suffer as a result (such as time spent with family or time spent on leisure pursuits) but when these relationship-building exercises pay off, it will all be worth it.
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