developing better relations Archives — NIMBLE FOUNDATION BLOG

Unlocking the Power of Networking: Why It Matters?

What are the hurdles in successful networking?

Successful networking can be challenging due to several hurdles, including:

Lack of Confidence: Many people feel nervous or intimidated when approaching strangers or initiating conversations, which can prevent them from effectively networking.

Time Constraints: Building and maintaining a network requires time and effort. Busy schedules can make it difficult to attend networking events or follow up with new contacts.

Poor Communication Skills: Effective networking involves good communication skills, including active listening, clear articulation, and the ability to engage in meaningful conversations.

Limited Access to Opportunities: Some individuals may lack access to networking events or platforms, particularly those in remote areas or from underrepresented groups.

Not Understanding the Value of Networking: Some people fail to recognize the importance of networking or misunderstand its purpose, seeing it solely as a means to advance their careers rather than a way to build mutually beneficial relationships.

Fear of Rejection: The fear of being ignored or rejected can deter individuals from reaching out to others or following up on initial contacts.

Lack of Follow-Up: Making an initial connection is just the first step. Consistent and meaningful follow-up is crucial for turning acquaintances into lasting professional relationships.

Overcoming Stereotypes and Biases: Preconceived notions and biases can hinder effective networking, especially in diverse or cross-cultural environments.

Difficulty in Finding Common Ground: Establishing rapport with new contacts can be challenging if there is no apparent common interest or shared experience.

Maintaining Relationships: Keeping in touch and nurturing relationships over time requires effort and intentionality, which can be difficult amidst other professional and personal commitments.

Balancing Personal and Professional Boundaries: Navigating the line between personal and professional interactions can be tricky, particularly in informal networking settings.

What are the opportunities we lose if we do not properly network?

Failing to properly network can result in several lost opportunities across various areas of personal and professional development. Here are some key opportunities that can be missed:

1. Career Advancement

Job Opportunities: Many job openings are never advertised publicly. They are filled through internal referrals or recommendations from trusted contacts. Without a strong network, you may miss out on these hidden job markets.
Promotions and Raises: Building relationships with colleagues and superiors can lead to greater visibility within an organization, which can be crucial when it comes to promotions and salary increases.

2. Knowledge and Skills

Learning and Development: Networking allows you to learn from others’ experiences and gain insights into different industries or areas of expertise. Without this, your personal and professional growth may be stunted.
Mentorship: Mentors can provide valuable guidance, feedback, and advice. A lack of networking can mean missing out on finding a mentor who can help you navigate your career path.

3. Business Opportunities

Partnerships and Collaborations: Networking can lead to potential business partnerships, collaborations, and joint ventures. Without these connections, you might miss out on opportunities to expand or enhance your business.
Client Acquisition: For entrepreneurs and business owners, networking is often a primary way to attract new clients and customers. Missing out on networking can limit business growth and revenue potential.

4. Professional Reputation

Visibility and Recognition: Being active in your professional community helps build your reputation and establish yourself as a thought leader. Without networking, it’s harder to achieve recognition in your field.
Credibility and Trust: Strong networks help build trust and credibility. People are more likely to trust and do business with those who come recommended by mutual contacts.

5. Personal Development

Support System: Networking provides a support system of peers who can offer advice, support, and encouragement during challenging times.
Opportunities for Feedback: Regular interactions with a network can provide constructive feedback, helping you improve personally and professionally.

6. Market Insights

Industry Trends: Networking keeps you informed about the latest industry trends, market conditions, and competitive landscape. Without these insights, you might miss out on critical information that could affect your strategic decisions.
Innovation and Ideas: Exchanging ideas with a diverse group of professionals can spark innovation and creativity. Lack of networking can result in a more insular and less innovative approach to problem-solving.

7. Social Capital

Access to Resources: Networks can provide access to resources such as funding, technology, and expertise that you might not have on your own.
Influence and Advocacy: A strong network can advocate on your behalf, helping to influence decisions or open doors that might otherwise remain closed.

8. Event Invitations

Conferences and Seminars: Networking often leads to invitations to important industry events, conferences, and seminars, which are prime opportunities for learning and further networking.
Social Events: Networking also includes social gatherings where informal connections can be made, leading to unexpected opportunities.

9. Volunteer and Community Engagement

Community Involvement: Networking can lead to opportunities to get involved in community projects, volunteer work, and other social impact initiatives that can be both personally rewarding and professionally beneficial.

What are the benefits of networking?

Networking offers a wide range of benefits, both personally and professionally. Here are some of the key advantages:

Professional Growth

Career Opportunities: Networking can open doors to job opportunities, promotions, and career advancements that might not be advertised publicly.
Industry Insights: Staying connected with professionals in your field keeps you informed about industry trends, best practices, and new developments.
Mentorship and Guidance: Experienced professionals can offer advice, guidance, and mentorship, helping you navigate your career path more effectively.
Skill Development: Interacting with a diverse group of professionals can help you acquire new skills and knowledge, enhancing your professional competencies.

Personal Growth
Confidence Building: Regularly interacting with new people and engaging in professional discussions can boost your confidence and improve your communication skills.
Expanding Perspectives: Networking exposes you to different viewpoints and ideas, fostering a broader understanding of your industry and beyond.

Business Benefits

Business Development: Networking can lead to new clients, partnerships, and business opportunities, helping to grow your business.
Brand Visibility: Regular participation in networking events increases your personal or business brand’s visibility and credibility.
Problem-Solving: Engaging with a network of professionals allows you to seek advice and solutions to business challenges from experienced peers.
Collaboration: Networking can facilitate collaborations and joint ventures, leading to innovative solutions and shared successes.

Knowledge Sharing
Access to Resources: A strong network provides access to valuable resources such as information, tools, and contacts that can aid in personal and professional projects.
Learning Opportunities: Networking often involves attending workshops, seminars, and conferences where you can learn from experts in your field.

Social Benefits
Support System: A professional network can offer emotional support, encouragement, and motivation during challenging times.
Friendships: Networking can lead to the development of lasting personal friendships that enrich your life beyond professional contexts.

Practical Examples

Job Referrals: Many job vacancies are filled through referrals from network contacts.
Market Intelligence: Learning about market shifts and competitor strategies through informal conversations.
Collaborative Projects: Partnering with network contacts on projects that require complementary skills.

Networking of Professional

Networking professionally is a vital skill for career development and business growth. Here are some strategies to effectively build and maintain a professional network:

1. Attend Industry Events and Conferences

Engage in Workshops and Seminars: Participate actively in industry-related events, workshops, and seminars to meet like-minded professionals.
Join Trade Shows and Expos: These events are great for discovering new trends and meeting potential clients or partners.

2. Leverage Social Media and Professional Networks

LinkedIn: Optimize your LinkedIn profile, join relevant groups, and actively participate in discussions.
Twitter and Other Platforms: Follow industry leaders, engage in conversations, and share insightful content.

3. Join Professional Associations

Memberships: Join professional organizations or associations related to your field.
Volunteering: Take up volunteer roles or leadership positions within these organizations to increase visibility.

4. Engage in Online Communities

Forums and Discussion Boards: Participate in forums like Reddit, Quora, or specialized industry boards.
Webinars and Online Workshops: Attend and engage in webinars hosted by industry experts.

5. Utilize Alumni Networks

Alumni Associations: Connect with your alma mater’s alumni network to find common ground with professionals in your industry.
Events and Reunions: Attend alumni events and reunions to renew connections.

6. Informational Interviews

Request Meetings: Reach out to industry veterans for informational interviews to learn and gain insights.
Prepare Questions: Have a list of thoughtful questions and show genuine interest in their experiences.

7. Networking Events and Meetups

Local Meetups: Participate in local networking events or meetups through platforms like Meetup.com.
Speed Networking: Engage in speed networking events to meet multiple professionals quickly.

8. Maintain and Nurture Relationships

Follow-up: Always follow up after meeting someone new. Send a thank-you note or connect on LinkedIn.
Regular Check-ins: Periodically check in with your network to keep the relationship warm.

9. Mentorship

Find a Mentor: Look for mentors who can guide and support your career growth.
Be a Mentor: Offer to mentor others, which can also expand your network.

Thanks for reading.

Listen to being Loved and be Happy

Loved breeds happiness. And when you make others happy, you are loved. There is a close bond between love and happiness. How does listening help you in being loved and being happy? This is the subject of our discussion in this essay. The feeling that you are being loved brings you satisfaction. It enhances your self esteem and results in happiness. When others care for you, you feel important and when they listen to you, you feel significant and elated which adds to your happiness. Same is true when you listen to them.
Let’s deal with the subject by considering the following 3 questions:
What is good listening?
How does it help you to being loved?
How does it help you to be happy?
Question 1. What is good listening?
i)It requires you to put your agenda aside and totally devote to understanding and assimilating what is being said. You don’t listen to give a reply, but you just listen to understand. The moment you become keen to give a reply, your mind will start analyzing the speech from your own perspective. It will hinder your ‘objective’ understanding.
ii) Your attention should be fully in the present. There should be no thoughts about the past nor should you think about future.
iii) You need also to understand the body language of the speaker. And, this would include eye contact, posture, facial expression etc.
iv) Listening needs to be non-judgmental. You must not allow your likes and dislikes or personal prejudice to affect the meaning the speakers wants to project.
v) To be listened is so important for the people that many a times they will like to be heard rather than just granted the request what they requested.
vi) Active listening calls for you to listen about 80% of the time without interruption balance 20% of the time you may ask questions. This will indeed be an attribute of good listening.
vii) You need to make it known to the speaker that you are attentively listening. Thus, your nods with your head and words like ‘Yes’hmm ‘I see, I agree go long way to make be you an adept active listener.
viii) You will indeed enjoy your choice of active listening with the results that you will derive from the activity.
Question 2. How does active listening help you to being loved?
Now we can consider how listening actively makes others happy and make you in turn happy. They not only respect you but they love you if you actively listen to what they say.
The speaker feels that he/she are important when you carefully listen to them. They are reassured that you care for them. In turn they will care for you. The speaker thinks that they have some worthy ideas that is being expressed. And if you don’t listen to them with due attention, they will feel let down. But if on the other hand you not only listen but make it known that you have listened, the speaker will feel elated and happy and so will you be. Respect is always mutual, you have to earn respect. You have to make others happy to receive positive vibes making you happy in return.
Besides, better listening rids you of any bitter discussion. You understand that these are futile. Avoiding arguing, you also avoid bitterness which often is the result of trying to win an agreement. Active listening empowers you to hold your opinion without any offence. Because of your listening skills you are in a position to offer you opinion in a relevant manner. When your conversation with everyone becomes more meaningful, both of you enjoy it. Undoubtedly it brings happiness. Exchange of ideas in such a situation brings about a lot of learning on both sides. Continuous learning raises your self –esteem which in turn makes you satisfied with yourself and be contented.
In fact, even between the spouses the problem starts with one not listening to other. One feels ignored and the problem starts. Left unattended, it grows into unmanageable differences. If we are unhappy at home or at the work, place life is messed up. Children too turn rebellious because they feel that parents don’t try to understand them. In the fast changing world today maintaining good relations is more challenging than ever. Yet good relationship is emanating from better understanding which forms the foundation of respect and love.
So if you want to be loved by others listen to them and make them feel that they are loved. If you want to gain happiness distribute the same among others who will gladly reciprocate.

Question 3. How does Good Listening help you to be Happy?
Every living being has physiological needs and safety needs. Living being must have food to live and is keen to care for life. That part is survival story. No happiness is involved. But, after survival needs are fulfilled, psychological needs come to the fore for human beings.
As social entities, humans want to have a feeling of belonging. It’s an experience that they belong to a community, a family or a group gives them a feeling of satisfaction. If they are alone and uncared their psychological craving of togetherness disturbs them.
Good listening helps you to have cordial relations with your family and friends. When you listen to them they come closer to you, they experience that you are giving them importance. By listening you reassure them of their significance. Inwardly they feel obliged to you as you are fulfilling their psychological need of heart to heart communication.
As we discussed earlier ability to express your ideas give a great satisfaction. However, you approve of your ability only if the listeners pay attention, understand and when possible and needed, take action. Likewise when you are actively listening, the speaker feels comfortable and satisfied with his skill of expression. In turn the process fosters better relation and love for each other. This is particularly important among the family members and close friends. Besides, when you speak, you say what you already know. No doubt it satisfies your need for expression, but you don’t learn anything new. But listening gives you the opportunity to learn what you don’t know. Learning gives a great satisfaction and enhances your self esteem. When your self esteem is high you wish to do greater things. Self-esteem enables you to venture on the new turf, start new project. Maslow’s theory of happiness is recognized as the last word in respect of this great wishful emotion-happiness.
“There is a clear distinction between love and respect or esteem. The ability to feel self-esteem springs from being embraced by families and communities”. Further, you become more creative which again contributes to your confidence.
Good listening also helps you to mitigate your personal ego. Because when you are full of ego, you tend to behave as if you know all and therefore you shun listening, much less active listening.
Actualization makes you really happy. And what is actualization? Maslow defines actualization as “what a man can be, he must be. This need may be referred to the desire for self-fulfillment. So discovery of self, understanding the capabilities and then doing what it takes to actualize yourself will grant the best results. But this cannot take place unless you are a good listener. Further, survey reveals that you tend to perceive situations, people and their reality more accurately if you are good listeners.
With all the advantages described above there remains no doubt that listening and its resultant process will make you one, who understands the world and the people better. This understanding will make you happier, more than your expectations.
Thanks for reading.

Making Meetings Work

Making Meetings Work
Lots of meetings are conducted by each organization every week. Often the participants are senior/middle level executives. The cost of the time spent by the participants is very high. Besides, if a meeting is a not successful in achieving the objectives, the frustration and interpersonal conflict add to the cost.
However, if meetings can be held effectively, these are invaluable techniques of taking strong decisions after thorough discussion. It’s necessary to understand for the coordinators and even the CEO’s to have adequate knowledge of how to make meetings effective and productive. The chairman of the meeting plays a very important role for the efficacy of the meeting. Besides, meetings must give a satisfaction of openly discussing the ideas which you may have but you may not find an opportunity to express. Thus while on the one side we find that the poor meetings can be waste of expensive time of the executives, on the other these can be very helpful. If the meetings are organized effectively, they can be tools for resolving many managerial issues. These can thus be very helpful for the Management. The first important question, therefore, is the real need for the meeting. The coordinator has to clearly workout the objectives of the meeting. He or she has also to clarify how best the objectives can be achieved.
In order that we make the meetings productive and helpful we should attend to the following points which are often ignored:
1)      Planning and preparation: we should define the objectives of the meeting.
2)      We should select the participants and prepare a list of the proposed attendees. We may also invite their suggestions on the proposed agenda.
3)      The organizer needs to set the ground rules off the meetings in consultation with the chairman. In his brief introduction before the meetings starts the chairman can explain these ground rules. These could be summarized as :–
a)      Participants should speak precisely and avoid verbosity.
b)      Only one person should speak at time.
c)      The point which is already made by one participant should not be repeated by the other and
d)      No one should take the discussion on a personal level.
4)      The organizer must contemplate on what could be the problems. Necessary steps to avoid these problems should be taken.
5)      Getting results and action: minutes of the meeting should be written sooner than later, these should be circulated among the participants with or without a note by the chairman.
6)      There should be follow up action plan and the action need to be monitored.
Thanks for reading. For more: Visit: http://satishkakriconsultants.com

‘Voice Modulation’

We hear a lot about voice modulation in the age of public presentations.
What is modulation? And why is it so important?
Voice Modulation is your ability, rather, talent to bring in variance in pace, pause, pitch, emphasis on the key word and the tone. Unless you modulate your voice while speaking to a group or even a lone listener, the chances are that you speech will not be effective at all. We have often seen some members of the audience dozing away while the speaker continues his/her speech. Now, I will explain- pace, pause, pitch, emphasis on the key word and the tone.
Pace: if you speak very fast you will not be understood but, if you speak very slowly you tend to become dull and listeners will not like to listen to you. However, when you speak with a medium speech, though audience can understand you but the same pace of your words will render your speech monotonous.
Pause: Just as in written text you have coma, full stop, paragraph and other punctuation marks, your speech too must reflect the same by means of pauses of different durations. This will make the speech effective.
Pitch: It is the note on which you speak. While attending a solemn meeting you cannot speak on higher pitch. But at the same time if the commentator of a football match speaks at a low pitch, nobody will like to listen to him.
Emphasis on the key word: Just as you get unwanted results if you Google a wrong key word, different meaning will be conveyed by the same sentence when you emphasis a wrong word.
Tone: Tone is most dicey. It is easy to control the words and the sentences. But it is very difficult to control the tone. Tone represents the emotions with which you speak. Often times, due to inappropriate tone the speaker lands into trouble.

Interpersonal Relations

Our interpersonal relations with others depend upon various factors. Two most important factors are one – our behavior towards the concerned persons, and two and how we speak to the concerned persons.

The contents of what we convey to our peers and friends will primarily depend upon our behavior. If our conduct to certain persons has been consistently good. It shows our regard towards them. But how we speak to them, is equally important if not more. The efficacy of our speech can be improved by making our speech articulate. Besides, we also need to become good listeners. People want that when they speak, total attention of the listener/listeners should be focused on their speech. Their ego is hurt if they find listeners inattentive.

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