Internal Networking: What, Why, How

I recently wrote a post about networking in which I focused on external networking. Then recently, while running with a coworker, I had a conversation that me realize that I had completely disregarded the importance of internal networking. So what is internal networking? Why is it important? How do I network internally?

What is Internal Networking?

By internal networking, I mean both getting to know people on other teams within your company as well as building up social capital with those people. These can be people on teams close to yours — since I’m on the File System Engineering team, it makes sense for me to get to know people on the Storage team or people on the Uploads and Downloads team because we’ll likely have a lot of dependencies and features that interact with or affect each other. These are just the more obvious connections though. It can also be useful to know people on teams in different disciplines as well — people in HR, Finance, and the list goes on.

Just knowing someone on a different team usually isn’t enough on it’s own, however. You also have to build up social capital. We’ve all interacted with that person who you met once and suddenly you’re now the one they expect to solve all of their problems whether or not it’s your job. No one likes that. In order to be able to successfully leverage these people, you need to get to know these people, be useful to them and recognize that when you ask them for something that requires a lot of work on their part, you’ve used up some of that capital you’ve accumulated.

Why is Internal Networking Important?

No one can know everything or do everything perfectly and even if for some crazy reason, you can do everything, it’s often not the best use of your time. As it turns out, knowing everything isn’t actually important either. What’s important is that you know how to find out something when you need the information and you know how to make something happen when you need it done. In fact, as you climb the career ladder, there is less and less of an expectation that you do or know anything specific yourself. It becomes all about being able to leverage the correct people for each situation.

On the flip side, having other people leverage you also highlights your abilities. If you’re able to help someone out, they start to think of you as knowledgeable. Eventually, people will come to see you as an expert in your area. Who I chose to ask a question is usually about half who I think knows the answer, but the other half is who I know personally. The more people I know, the more people that will come to me and the more influence I have.

As I was telling my friend, I’m sure I’ve been promoted to my current level partially because of my technical and leadership skills, but part of it is also because of my internal network. I’ve been at Box a long time so I know a lot of the product very well which helps me make informed decisions. At the same time though, I know who to ask for all of the pieces I don’t know. I know which people on which teams to bring together to solve a particular problem. I know who to consult to give me an alternate perspective making my solutions better. Because I know the right people, I’m able to get certain tasks done faster or more effectively.

How Do I Network Internally?

Internal networking is a lot like external networking and a lot of the same things still apply. There are obviously a lot of articles on this topic already and I already covered some of this in my previous article, so this is just what I consider to be a few top things and is not meant to be exhaustive.

1. You don’t always have to get to know people on a vast array of teams. People switch teams over time allowing you to get to know more people and people on more teams over time. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t still try to get to know others, but this doesn’t always need to be your priority.
2. Getting to know someone better, even in a non-work context, can be just as important if not more important than meeting more people. I talk about this one in more depth in my other post, but basically, the better you know someone, the more they’ll be willing to help you out when you need it. My run with my coworker was internal networking.
3. Face time is important. With all the collaboration tools these days, it’s possible to go your entire day interacting with others only through email, chat, documents, etc. However, while all of these tools are important and have solid use-cases (I use all of them heavily), in person interactions are also important. Meaning and emotion can get lost over chat and it’s easier to get angry at, ignore or discredit a line of text than an actual person.
4. Don’t be a jerk — every interaction may be important. This should really be the case any time you’re interacting with people, but especially when it’s co-workers, the chance that you’ll have to work with them professionally in the future is much higher. You never know when you may need something from him or her or when he or she might be able to help you out. Furthermore, if you go beyond not being a jerk and instead have a very positive interaction, the case that he or she will go out of their way for you is much higher.

We spend a lot of time talking and thinking about external networking, but internal networking can be just as important. You don’t necessarily have to go out of your way or change a lot of things to make it happen, but it’s good to keep in mind. You never know when knowing the right person will make all the difference for your current assignment.