“Networking” — a word that strikes fear into the heart of any introvert.
But, I started a new job at the end of October. I only moved across the street but I might as well have stepped into a new world. Not only was I starting in a different organisation but I was in a different role, domain, and industry to anything I’d ever done before. I knew that I would need to quickly find my tribe and build partnerships to overcome the steep learning curve ahead of me.
P.S. I was in a team of One. Even the team I nominally reported to, who were on completely different projects, were based six floors below my desk. I’d have to get creative.
There were two things I tried which I found least daunting but most rewarding in my first two months. One a ridiculous personal challenge and the other was a little bit of initiative felt rather awkward at the time.
100 Cuppas
I think it was someone from Te Arawhiti that, in passing, mentioned “100 cuppas” (cups of tea) and those words have imprinted on my brain.
I believe it was intended to highlight that engagement with iwi (Māori communities) cannot be a one-off. Not a single corporate meeting and certainly not with a narrow selection of people. To truely serve a community, you need to know them. Have a cup of tea, share kai (food), and understand who they are before getting down to business.
Whether you work in design or execution, in policy or service delivery, the spirit of 100 cuppas reflects exactly what ‘we-in-digital’ preach.
Starting a totally new job in an unfamiliar industry, I figured the best way to learn about the organisation was to talk with the widest cross-section of people I could find and learn what makes them tick and how we can help each other be successful. So, I set out to have 100 cuppas.
Wait? Seriously? 100 cuppas?
Not literal cups of tea or coffee — not even my superhuman caffeine tolerance could quite manage that. But 100 connections. To meet someone without an agenda or purpose but just to create a space for open dialogue. Let them share whatever they wish to and for me to be open and vulnerable in that moment.
Cuppas are great though:
- they give you something to do other than sit there feeling awkward
- and if the awkward is unavoidable it’ll be over soon
- but it’s usually long enough to break the ice and get to know each other
- I’m much more at ease with one or two people, than a room full of strangers at once
- if I’m buying, it’s affordable
The arbitrary target also helped to motivate me during those periods where I truly wanted to hibernate and not see another person. (Not that I did it just for the numbers — I went back and tallied up the appointments in my calendar to keep track.)
I will count meeting the same person twice (in fact, if I didn’t, I’d be doing it wrong) but I will not count official “meetings” or bumping into someone in the corridor.
I clocked up 17 connections in my first five days. Ten weeks later, I ticked over 103. I am exhausted.
It was worth it, though I’ll probably scale back now (my usual average is one connection a week).
It was the perfect excuse to meet with people from all corners of the building and:
- meet new allies and friends
- understand how I can work together with other teams to achieve a common goal
- begin to appreciate their perspective of my job — what they need from me but also what they’ve seen go so so wrong in the past
In two months I’ve built a network not dissimilar to the network I’d previously taken the best part of seven years to build.
Monthly check-ins
Now, to translate these connections into a professional context and build momentum towards our shared outcomes.
Once a month I host a half hour session in a common area — an open invite for people to pull up a chair and each share highlights from our work. In my last role I hosted two of these (one for AI and one to discuss our role in delivering Public Value), they were a surprising success but I started them when I already knew my domain really well and had some really strong connections — I was worried it wouldn’t translate to my new role, but I hosted my first one two weeks into the job and they’ve been going really well.
You might call them “office-hours”, but they’re not. I’m not the centre of the universe here. No one should be dropping in to see me, we’re dropping in to connect with each other and anyone could contribute anything tangentially related to the subject.
What are they?
They are informal and casual chats, time boxed to a half-hour. Attendance is optional.
Why meet?
The intent is that these check-ins serve as a standing opportunity to:
- Promote visibility of progress — particularly on products/areas we don’t work with each day;
- Remain connected with complementary pieces of work; and
- Identify opportunities for collaboration
Who’s it for?
Everyone is welcome, but intended for an internal audience only. This helps everyone to speak freely.
In the first instance, invites are targeted but people are encouraged to forward the meetings (and notes) to interested parties. It helps to connect different projects working in similar spaces (without them coming to your standup, and you going to theirs), but is also really valuable for people who don’t work in that particular area every day but who show an interest in the work and want to be kept up to date.
How does it work?
There is no agenda. Everyone’s encouraged to contribute whatever is top of mind for them — however, these sessions aren’t to solve the world’s problems. It can connect people to solve the world’s problems after the session, but I try to avoid rabbit holes so everyone gets a chance to share something if they wish to.
Whoever shows up is welcome. I’ve got 20–ish people on the standing invite and about 6–8 attend each session. Usually a couple of core people join, with others rotating in and out as they’re available. One month I was the only person who showed up — but I still had the session and took the opportunity for self-reflection — and shared my notes afterwards.
After each meeting I summarise the discussion in an email. I string these emails together into a thread and they quickly begin showing an arc of our progress and collaboration. This week someone who had never come to one of these sessions thanked me for running them — with a quick scan of a dozen bullet points and she’s up to speed on who’s doing what in this space. When her boss asks what my project is up to, she can pull up that email and even forward it on directly as a quick peace-of-mind update.
It’s helped me to better understand the wider landscape I work in. It’s given my work a higher profile and credibility. It’s connected different people together. A huge success.
