Steps to Prepare, Connect, and Advance Your Career

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

This week, I want to continue on the importance of bringing people together vs. always meeting remotely and why that is so important to your career success.

With many upcoming cross-company meetings planned over the next few months—such as leadership forums, departmental planning offsites, and company retreats—I encourage leaders to take advantage of these important opportunities to promote their team’s work and advance their careers.

I’ve established the case for being more thoughtful and intentional in preparing for these meetings. Now I’d like to share some specific guidance to prepare for these meetings – from who to seek out and why, and what to say.

1. Before you develop your meeting plan, get clear on your team’s value contribution to the company and who should know about and could potentially benefit from what you do.
2. To support these conversations, develop some talking points on recent successes and how they created an impact on the company’s most important goals.
3. Find opportunities to connect with your boss’s peers and share what you/your team are working on. This makes both your boss and you look good and can create more advocates for your work.
4. Find career learning opportunities. Think about a senior leader in the organization that you admire. Is there a recent success this person has achieved that you can acknowledge and ask about how they made it happen? This shows respect and appreciation for their success – and you might learn something new.

Finally, make sure you follow up on any key conversations—to thank, acknowledge, and share information. Your goal is to keep the conversation going and the connection growing.

If this sounds like self-promotion…..yes, it is. Most of your peers will take these opportunities for granted…just “showing up,” hanging out with people they already know and coasting through the meeting.

But if you are serious about managing your career, if you understand the importance of building a cross-functional network that can provide visibility and advocacy for you and your team, and if you believe you can always learn from others’ career journeys, you should invest the time to be prepared for these high-value meetings.

OK, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

]]> https://www.bobbielaporte.com/blog/prepare-to-network-strategically-at-cross-company-meetings/feed/ 0 Prepare to Network Strategically at Cross-Company Events nonadult https://www.bobbielaporte.com/blog/build-career-advancing-relationships-at-company-events/ https://www.bobbielaporte.com/blog/build-career-advancing-relationships-at-company-events/#respond Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:21:49 +0000 https://www.bobbielaporte.com/?p=5385 Most of us who mostly work remotely understand how important it is to get together with our work colleagues at least occasionally in person. But just “showing up” is not enough. Watch Bobbie LaPorte’s August 20 “Calling the Game” video for some tips on how to intentionally prepare for these get-togethers—and make the most out of every opportunity to nurture your professional relationships.

Leverage In-Person Meetings to Forge Cross-Functional Connections

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

I’ve written previously in this space about the importance of bringing people together vs. always meeting remotely. There are many benefits of being in the same room with others from your company, not the least of which is our basic human need to connect.

I am happy to see this trend continuing this summer and into the last few (busy and critical) months of the year. Often, these are larger events, such as leadership forums, departmental offsites, and year-end company retreats. Many of you may tend to just “show up,” hang out with people you already know or hope to make some new connections in the elevator or coffee line.

Nope. Do not do that. These meetings represent significant and often rare opportunities to enhance many aspects of your and your team’s value and your career trajectory.

Here’s my case for being more intentionally prepared for these meetings:

1. Reorganizations and layoffs are continuing at many companies, and that often means changes to your current support network. You need to continually refresh and nurture those relational resources who are so critical to your career success.
2. There is more emphasis now on leaders being part of cross-functional initiatives necessary to solve today’s complex problems.  As a leader, you must develop relationships outside of your immediate area of responsibility.
   
3. Reaching out to others in your organization helps you gain their perspective on your value to the company and builds visibility and advocacy for your work.

And that’s just to start.

Professional relationships, particularly cross-functional enterprise relationships, are more important than ever. So don’t take the opportunity these meetings present for granted.

Next week: I will continue on this topic and present some guidance on how to be more intentional in preparing for such meetings: from who to seek out and why (hint: your boss’s peers should be at the top of your list) and what to say.

OK, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

Discover Opportunities to Demonstrate Lateral Agility Skills in Your Organization

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

In my last vlog, I introduced the concept of “lateral agility,” or how you further the broader goals of the enterprise while also focusing on your own team’s objectives. I believe this is the most important leadership capability for today’s leaders.

So, as a follow-up, I wanted to offer some suggestions about how to put this capability into practice.

First, let me share some basic assumptions about the concept of lateral agility.

1. Leaders who practice this spend at least half their time working across the organization instead of with their own team. That is probably a big shift in how you might be currently spending your time.
2. Having “vertical” success—that is, in your own domain or functional areas—doesn’t necessarily translate to success with lateral agility. You need to recognize that you can’t rely on your positional authority when the organization’s critical work is primarily cross-functional.
3. It requires a different mindset—an enterprise mindset that requires the humility to acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers and that your and others’ success will come from solving problems together.
4. And again – it is all about relationships. Your social capital replaces your positional power.

How do you operationalize lateral agility in your company?

Here is an example:

One of my clients led a program office that served a number of stakeholders in the company, so by nature, his function needed to work with and through other parts of the organization.

It was not unusual, but he took a broader, enterprise view of the work he and his team did, looking beyond specific projects they were working on to how he could impact some of the larger, complex issues the company was facing.

He leveraged his relationships–his social capital. He became known as a strategic leader who was able to bring diverse groups together around a shared purpose–a selfless leader who actively supported others’ success.

As a result of his success and contributions, he is now leading a C-level function in the company focused on solving critical enterprise-level issues.

Discover your lateral agility opportunities

• Where does the work you and your team are doing intersect with others?
• What is one big problem or gap you see in your company?
• How can you reach out to others and enlist them to support an enterprise goal?

Developing lateral agility doesn’t have to be difficult. It does require that you hold an enterprise mindset and that you see the value in mobilizing people around a shared purpose regardless of your defined role.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

“Lateral agility” might sound like a football drill—but it’s also what Bobbie LaPorte considers to be today’s #1 most important leadership skill. Watch her May 21 “Calling the Game” video to find out why lateral agility is so essential, and what it looks like in action.

Furthering the Broader Goals of the Enterprise While Focusing on Your Team’s Objectives

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

In a recent vlog, I talked about the importance of leaders taking the enterprise view, i.e., how you connect your team’s value proposition to the broader and emerging goals of the company, thereby increasing your and your team’s impact.

Related to that, today I want to share what I see as the single most important leadership capability for today’s leaders – what’s called “lateral agility” – or how you further the broader goals of the enterprise while also focusing on your own team’s objectives.

Without a doubt, this is the dominant trend I see today in leadership readiness. It is a significant trend in today’s executive landscape and a major shift in what companies now expect of leaders in high-impact roles.

What Exactly Does Lateral Agility Look Like?

Let’s dig into what it is and what it is not.

Lateral agility is not just about building working relationships with your peers—it goes further. It’s relationship building in a different way, identifying other parts of your company that can benefit from your team’s skills and talents. This shows you are a leader who is committed to supporting the success of others.

It’s not about influencing company stakeholders to drive your agenda. It is about identifying and addressing the organization’s needs together.

It’s not about collaboration across silos in the organization.

It is about using collective wisdom to solve problems and innovate, mobilizing people around a shared purpose regardless of your own defined role.

It is – the most concrete and impactful way to put “taking the enterprise view” into action.

I’ll share more about the “how” of putting lateral agility into practice in my next vlog.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

This week’s Your Best Next Move: The Importance of Social Capital in an Economic Slowdown

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly leadership tip for your Best Next Move, where I help you see continuing curveballs as an opportunity. This year, I will help you actively use your personal agency to accelerate what you want to accomplish in 2022.

This week I’d like to continue to address the topic I introduced last week – which is the current economic slowdown we are experiencing.

And in this environment, the concept of “social capital” is more important than ever.

What is the importance of social capital in an economic slowdown?

Because our professional networks have shrunk since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, while our companies’ attrition and hiring challenges are growing. To help reverse these trends, people and organizations will need to manage workplace interactions more intentionally. And it all starts with you as a leader.

Before I provide more context and offer my tip, let’s define social capital.

Social capital is the presence of networks, relationships, shared norms, and trust among individuals, teams, and business leaders. It is the glue that holds organizations together.

When teams feel connected, they tend to get more work done and do it faster. When colleagues trust their managers and one another, they tend to be more engaged, more willing to go beyond minimum work requirements, more likely to stick around, and more likely to recommend that others join their organization.

Social capital matters to an organization’s performance. And it is an important currency for today’s leaders.

Also, employees who feel more connected with people in their networks are two times more likely than those who feel less connected to report higher levels of sponsorship for their career advancement, one and a half times more likely to report a sense of belonging at work, and one and a half times more likely to report being engaged at work.

But recent research shows people are less focused on building or nurturing their networks. During the pandemic, employees turned inward and focused mostly on maintaining connections with close associates and members of their own teams rather than building or maintaining relationships with newer colleagues or other indirect associates.

While this varied by industry, job level, and gender, it is clear that social capital is no longer just nice to have. It’s becoming a core lever business leaders can use to attract, retain, and bring out the best in employees, enabling them to achieve (and even exceed) their performance goals.

Leaders should manage social capital in the same way that they manage other types of corporate capital: intentionally.

So here is my tip:

Motivation is one of the keys to building and maintaining relationships in this environment.

Consider your motivation: how can being more intentional in building and deploying your social capital to benefit you/ your team/your organization? Start with identifying just one person who could be instrumental to your success. Then answer these 3 questions:

1. Do you have a strong, existing relationship with this person?
2. Do you need to repair/reinvest in this relationship?
3. Do you need to build this relationship from scratch?

If you do this each week for the next month, you will be on your way to building the critical social capital you need…and starting to role-model how this is done for your team.

That’s my tip for this week. Please also check out my “Summer Slowdown” tips on LinkedIn each Thursday to help you make the most of this summer.

Have a great week; I’ll see you next Monday.

“Your Best Next Move” weekly leadership tip: Reestablish Your Social Skills and Professional Networking Activities

Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly leadership tip for Your Best Next Move, where I help you see continuing curveballs as an opportunity. This year, I will help you actively use your personal agency to accelerate what you want to accomplish in 2022.

Over the last few months, it’s been great to see people getting back together for in-person meetings: running sales kick-offs, visiting customers, attending conferences.

I’ve done 3 team offsites in the last few weeks which has been a blast. Nothing like getting together and having the benefit of connecting with people in person and in real time. I will never take that for granted again.

But with that, does it sometimes feel like you need to reestablish your social skills…. to relearn how to relate in someone’s presence?

That’s an observation many have made, and I think this is particularly true when it comes to “networking.” I think it’s fair to say that most of us are not natural networkers; while it may not be something you dread, it might not be something you look forward to.

As we open up activity to family and other social activities, we only have so much energy and cognitive capacity to do more.

And I’m concerned that your more formal, professional networking activities will be a casualty of our return to in-person meetings. And that’s not a good thing.

Your professional network is part of the currency of your success. Think of networking as getting to know people and sharing information: about yourself, your work, your world. You never know when a connection can be helpful.

So, here’s my tip:

Commit to finding a networking opportunity in the next few weeks and GO.

Don’t set your expectations too high. Just make the move to get back out there, connect with peers, learn what they are doing and learning as they, too, get back into the game.

I made this same recommendation to two clients recently, and while they were also hesitant, they reported that it was totally worth the effort. And it created momentum for them to continue.

That’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next Monday.