Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2008-06-11

  • @Catalina_h You have to register for wikispaces and then request access to edit the wiki http://tinyurl.com/6ce8zq #
  • Wow, what a busy morning. Sending this Tweet from an elevator, this is my first time off my seat since I arrived this morning. #
  • I need to create an Instructional Design Document template. Does anybody have one of these they can share for some ideas? #
  • Long day. Home tonight to catch up on RSS feeds and tweak my lesson for tomorrow’s Leadership class. #
  • Long day. Home tonight to catch up on RSS feeds and tweak my lesson for tomorrow’s Leadership class. #

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Networking and T&D’s Uncovering the Unconnected Employee

The May issue of T&D (Training and Development, the ASTD monthly magazine) had an interesting article on networking and the value of establishing and promoting business networking. While the article is not online, there is a related podcast for this).

The article by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon focuses on the phrase “unconnected employees,” by which they mean “employees who lack the skills to build effective business relationships.” As I find business and academic networking a challenge, I thought at times they were writing this article about / for me!

They describe 8 ways that employees who do not network can hurt a business:

  1. They get off to a slow start as new hires
  2. They are less productive
  3. They don’t make it their business to recruit
  4. They don’t know how to make their expertise known so it can be used, and so they can advance in their careers
  5. They are less successful as managers
  6. They make poor decisions
  7. They aren’t creative and innovative
  8. They fail to bring back business intelligence from conferences

Wow, do I have a lot of work to do, especially having just returned from the ASTD conference last week!

While I am not sure how the authors created their list (there was a mention in the article about the literature, yet I would like to have seen something a bit more methodological so I can read more about this, especially from an evidence-based perspective), the list does in fact seem to make some sense to me. The authors speak briefly about each of these, though I hope they consider writing a follow-up with more concrete suggestions for how to address each of these.

To take a concrete first step in addressing these issues in my own professional practice, I revised my LinkedIn profile and am committing to try to leverage the system. Take a look at it; any suggestions are most appreciated!

View Jeffrey Keefer's profile on LinkedIn