Colin Gautrey

Engaging with Powerful People

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When it comes to networking, there is no substitute for networking — you’ve got to get out there and do it. By now, I am sure you have no doubt in your mind that it is necessary; however, actually getting out there and doing it is sometimes a little harder. The bottom line is that you are busy, have far too much to do and frankly, more important things to worry about. However, you know deep down that often these are simply excuses that help you to avoid doing things you’d rather not do. Yet, in complex organisations, you absolutely have to get Read More

Balancing Your Network Building

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The last few articles in this series have been aiming to stretch you understanding of what is going on around you (in your Leadership Arena), and more importantly, who the key people are that could have an impact on what you are trying to achieve. To continue your learning and also to protect your career and work, it is vitally important to invest time in building up good relationships with a broad range of people. However, you are unlikely to have the time or opportunity to build relationships with all of them because of the complexity and quantity. This means you have to Read More

Assessing Your Network: Nine Factor Analysis

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To begin with, it’s a race for the numbers. If you have no network, how can you have any friends? This is true on Social Media and offline. Unless you have people to talk to you are not going to be able to develop quality relationships. Unfortunately, the rise of social networks makes the numbers a little more tempting. Their visibility and apparent social-proof has a noticeable effect on behaviour. For a while at least, it becomes a number chasing exercise. This is great to begin with, but at some stage it is vital to return the focus to building quality relationships, either on or offline. So, what does quality mean in network relationships? In workshops when I ask this question I usually get a rather subjective response. Only with persistence do people start to break it down and find clarity. If you can make an objective assessment of your current relationships you can make decisions about where you need to focus on building more quality. It also gives you some simple ideas on how to develop them too. For example, you might objectify the quality by Read More

Exercise: Aligning Network Building with Purpose

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To build your network as quickly as possible, you need to align your activities with the purpose you have set for your networking. If you do not do this, you will probably go to a few networking meetings, wish you were back at work rather than wasting your time, and in all likelihood, fail to turn up to 90% of those opportunities you schedule. This is like making a bad thing even worse. Once you have got a clear notion of why you need to network, and are bought into it because of the huge benefits you can gain, you will relish Read More

Mapping Your Network

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There are two ways to start analysing your networking. The first is to consider all the different groups of people who could play a part in achieving your purpose. It is important not to name people at this stage so that you can keep an open mind to new connections. Take a step forward in time and imagine you have arrived. What sort of people would have been helpful in your journey? The diagram below is an illustration of how you could draw this out. In this example, becoming recognised within the industry could be helped by media editors. Editors like writing about movers and shakers in their industry. They also like to receive free Read More

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