Due to technical difficulties last week, we are sharing this topic again. We have made a few changes and added some additional tips and tools. We hope you enjoy the read and find the information beneficial!
One competency you need to be building, regardless of who you are and what you do, is social capital. But creating a to-do list or development plan for building this competency is not something that comes naturally. For most,it’s like something that grows organically and exponentially once you do it. And to a large extent, this is true.
But like all good things that need to be done, doing it with intentionality leads to better results. Try this list of steps to get you started on an intentional focus for building your social capital:
1. Realize the WHY behind your building. Social capital, by definition is about building relationships that result in us doing things for each other because of the law or norms of reciprocity. It’s human nature that if you do something to help someone, they want to in turn, help you. So…
2. Start helping others. Look for ways and opportunities to volunteer to help others through your expertise or connections. Make a list of three people at least once a week that you can reach out to or meet with to see what you can do for them, not what they can do for you. Respond positively when people seek out your help.
3. As you are reaching out to help people, Assess your network. – Look up, down, left right, inside your organization, industry and community and outside of it. Where are the gaps? Here’s a link to help you do this.
4. Set goals to plug the holes in your network. Set no more than three goals to plug the holes in your network. Some ideas to do this include committing to joining at least one group outside your box and attending at least one conference or event outside of your wheelhouse this year. Also, just simply going to a place you don’t normally go at least once a week can be powerful if you stimulate conversation with others while there. Actually, just making conversation with someone where you frequently go may do the trick. Next time you walk into Starbucks for your routine cup of joe, pay attention to who is there and talk to them.For more on setting good goals and tracking them, these posts may help:
Goal Setting – Diminishing Returns
5. Finally, be self-aware. Examine your environment regularly to make sure you aren’t limiting the potential exponential power of social capital. Maybe this should be a separate post, but I think it drives home this point. I have been sitting in on several community meetings about the need to improve the community I live in. In every meeting, everyone is white, middle to upper middle class, business professionals. My community isn’t just white, college educated, professionals. In fact, like most communities, there are more people who are not college educated than those who are, our community is racially and ethnically diverse and we have the gamete of income earning. In one group, there is a diversity of gender and age, but in another, I’ve been one of two women at the table. While I’m extremely humbled to be sitting at the table with these successful people- more often than not I don’t feel worthy to be doing so- I wonder if we could make a difference more if we had people around the table that don’t frequent the same circles we frequent and think like we think?
For you, what is hardest part of building social capital?
Like this post? You may also like to check out Talent Anarchy’s blog posts on social capital.
