All too often, after someone has lost their job due to a lay-off from a merger or downsizing or a decline of revenues, I’ll ask them what professional organizations they belong to and what meetings they attend regularly, and I’ll get the single word, “None,” as a response, which may be followed up by -- “I’m not a ‘joiner’.”

A side note: Among the people I coach are women, many of them single and the sole support for themselves, who have done amazing things in terms of achievement because they devote themselves to the details of their work with a depth and passion that’s amazing.

But what’s significant in their zeal for doing their job in the best, most dedicated, most professional way possible, is that any contact with the world that surrounds their company or organization is minimal and is almost always related to the immediate project that they’re working on.

At the risk of “preaching to the choir”, what’s missing here is comprehensive knowledge of what’s happening in their field; what parallel companies or organizations are doing that may be different from what they’re doing; what their contemporaries are involved with; what the trends are; what the pay scale variations are; who the players are in the other groups; who’s hiring; who’s not; etc., etc. and ad absurdum.

What’s missing is time spent on learning such things. It’s a hermetically-sealed work life that I see, with very little input from outside the limited sphere of the work they do in the company they’re doing it in.

Now I acknowledge that most peoples’ jobs take up a lot of time and energy and, if they have a family or significant relationship, it occupies a very big niche in their lives. That’s a fact and it can’t be ignored. But it can’t be used as an excuse for not expanding the horizon and seeking out additional contacts and information that can be useful in your (a) current job and especially (b) if you’re ever in a position where you have to find another job.

The alternative is to be out in the cold when, and if, you’re ever laid off or fired – much more traumatic and painful than devoting a few evenings a month to such meetings.

I mentioned professional organizations. By joining them and getting involved with them, you meet others who work at other companies and other organizations. Some of these people can, if you’re willing to build relationships with them, lead you to job opportunities, new perspectives, new insights about your place in the bigger sphere of work around you. That’s a good thing in a world in which layoffs can occur at any time, even when your boss has promised you that your job is secure and there’s no need to worry.

There are two types of professional organizations. One is the “professional” group, like the Project Management Institute (PMI) or the CPCU (Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters). [NOTE and personal plug: I’m proud to say I’ll be conducting three workshops at the CPCU’s Annual Meeting in Orlando in October. Anyone who’s interested can download their brochure and refer to pages 8, 11 and 14 for full descriptions. Obviously I’d be happy to conduct such workshops for other organizations.]

Such groups not only provide an arena for contacts but keep you apprised of what’s going on in a given field. Some of them, like PMI and CPCU, offer certification that can be important in your career.

The other type of networking organization is more generic. It may be a general as “Executive Women In Business” or it may be as specific as “Toastmasters,” in which the general objective is to learn more about how to talk in public.

Both are fine places to meet people across the spectrum, at your level or at different levels, in your field or in other fields. If you’re a woman, it’s a fine time to join such womens’ organizations because they’re usually very open, very dedicated to helping their members to grow, more so than many of the old-line, good-old-boy mens’ groups.

The point is that both types of professional organizations are important, and “attention must be paid.” I feel strongly that — since most of us are confronted with the reality that we have to earn a living and that at least forty hours of work plus commuting time is the price we pay for that — we need to devote the extra five hours (or more) a month to becoming involved in networking, using such professional organizations as a springboard and reaping the benefits.

There’re two other kinds of networking, while you’re currently employed, that are worthwhile. The first involves aligning yourself with a group that reflects a personal interest, such as the arts, or a humanitarian cause, or a special interest. Get involved with a local dance company or a charitable group, or something like that, and serve on their Board or in some capacity that relates to your professional interests and the work you do. This is for personal growth, but it often has utilitarian paybacks.

The second involves meeting regularly with other individuals on a one-on-one basis, making time for that lunch with a colleague or the headhunter who handles people in your field, getting to know them and vice versa. The benefits of this are obvious, especially when that headhunter says, “Did you know that XYZ is hiring?” or your colleague tells you, “I know for a fact that the head of the department just quit…”

If you really get into networking, by the way, it can be really enjoyable. It doesn’t have any of the drawbacks of cold-calling, or selling, and sometimes it results in quite wonderful friendships.

On a deeper level, many of the people we encounter in our coaching practice are competent in the domain of Self-Management (the “I” Domain) and Facts & Events (the “It” Domain), but have minimal competence in the Relationships With Others (the “We” domain), based on the model presented by James Flaherty, Coaching – Evoking Excellence in Others. It’s in this domain that competence in networking occurs, and it’s this domain that I’m writing about here.

I bring all this up as a reminder to all of you who are reading this and not networking – to state again that networking is important, damned important, and if you’re not doing it, you’re missing out on something very critical.

Why people don't network