Networking Is the Most Important Skill a New Manager Needs to Develop - Essay Example

NETWORKING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL A NEW MANAGER NEEDS TO DEVELOP IF THEY ARE TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THEIR SECTOR By School City, State Date The work of a manager assumes a lot of communicating with other people. So one of the major skills an effective manager requires is networking. If a new manager feels lack of networking he or she will have more difficulties in performing his or her work. Therefore, this skill should not be neglected, and it can and must be developed. Manager’s functions assume managing projects or people. In order to do these functions effectively a manager is supposed to communicate with other people. Therefore, to become a successful manager, a an employee needs to communicate well, and to know right people both within the organization he or she works and around the industry. Today in fact every business faces fast changes and new opportunities constantly. That requires from managers to keep trace on the recent developments in terms of products, customers, employees, and so on, and that makes one of the most critical managerial skill to be networking (Pfeffer, J. 2009). Every successful manager has a priori several traits, which help him to network. He or she can certainly do well such things as: talk, listen and hear, remember names of people, keep in mind the news related to the company’s products, industry news, staff changes, etc. Such a manager knows his or her colleagues good, has good relations with them, knows what is going on in the organization and outside. All that gives additional advantages, for example, to apply for a position, which have just become vacant, or to get involved in an interesting project, about which not many people know, etc. Such a manager values his or her connections, tries to keep and develop them. He or she never burns bridges, for example when leaves some place in a bad situation, he or she will try his or her best to save good relations with people, because there is a very big chance to meet them in life later, may be in other roles. Networking assumes the ability to speak good. In order to develop speaking skills a person needs to practice them. Toastmasters’ clubs exist to become a great speaker and to find new acquaintances. In order to find new acquaintances a person needs to have deep knowledge in at least several general topics to be able to talk about, say football, music, and politics. In this case there is a very big probability that a person will be able to keep communication with somebody whom he or she sees the first time in life. Knowing other cultures and other languages increases the networking opportunities greatly. In case you know a foreign language you may network with people who do not know English, but know that other language. In this case you may be the one who will help to develop the international cooperation for the company, because it may happen that there will be no other person in your department who will have the skills you have and at the same time know another language. A person needs to use all the ways to get more involved in the professional circles. Needless to say that those who have good networking, have their business cards with themselves most of the time, because you never know when it may be needed. You need to keep your profile in the professional social networks, like LinkedIn and others. Public speaking opportunities should be used. An employee will find very useful attending professional events like specialized conferences, seminars, and exhibitions. It would be very helpful to have an opportunity to make speeches at such kind of events. When a person speaks at the conference, he or she increases awareness of him or herself among the specialists in a professional circle. It is also a great chance to get new contacts. In addition the ability to communicate with peers during not working events has an important role for networking. Such events may include a corporate birthday or boss’ birthday celebration. Let’s imagine boss invited to a restaurant or to a picnic the whole team, including a new employee. That would be a great opportunity for the employee to get acquaintance with the team. He or she will have a chance to see the boss in a different situation – not formal clothing, other discussion topics, etc. It will also be a great chance for a new employee to see the other colleagues, to make some new friends. In a non-formal situation it is easier to see who in the command is informal leader, that knowledge would be very important to use during working hours later. Non-formal gathering of a working team will allow a recently hired person to see the atmosphere in a team, whether it is more autocratic, or democratic. If it is the case that while a boss is present and the colleagues tell their opinion and look at the boss, like looking for his or her approval for what they said, and such a situation happens often, and the most of colleagues do it, the relations in that team seem to be more autocratic. On the other hand, if any team member may joke, and jokes not depending on if the boss hears them or not, it tells us about more democratic relations in the team. If in a big team there are several people who dominate the others, and the others are very obedient to these several people, it may imply that they are more influential in this team, and that should also be used in the work, because the more influential people will ease to promote any ideas and projects the person will want to promote. As a conclusion we can say that a successful manager must be good at networking and to develop it constantly. The good networking implies several traits a person needs to have. Those traits and also the ways to develop them are described above in the essay. In the essay are also shown the particular situations, in which networking helps a manager to get certain decisions. References Pfeffer J., 2009, ‘Understanding power in organizations’, Cambridge University Press, Power and Interdependence in Organizations. Read More