We are all working remotely. There’s an onslaught of change, new work habits, and “coworkers.” We are inundated by content about COVID-19 that leaves us worried and overwhelmed.
Take a breath.
When we are distancing ourselves in a way we have never done before, it is more important than ever to stay connected to the people who matter most in your life–your network–and to be willing to connect with them digitally in a strategic way.
As Eric Schurenberg, CEO of Mansueto Ventures, shared in a letter published earlier: “It’s disorienting, for sure, but we are getting on with it. There is a lot of work to be done.” The people in our lives are integral to everything we do. Having a plan helps to drive one’s meaningful activities, such as building and executing a digital networking strategy in a remote-work world.
An increased sense of isolation just adds to the layers of complexity that result from nearly all of us now operating in a remote-work world. A networking strategy is a deliberate and methodical approach to relationship building that enables us to prioritize our most important ones, focus on the quality over the quantity of our connections, engage in networking activities in an authentic and reciprocal way, and link our relationship-building activities to our overarching strategic goals. Time and energy are both limited commodities, so having a networking strategy just makes sense.
Before the pandemic, many of us felt isolated from one another, for a variety of reasons, from the overuse of technology and unrealistic expectations that we must “always be on” to respond to work inquiries, to the gross overscheduling of our calendars. Now, as we exist in locations in which shelter-in-place rules are in effect and social distancing (which is really just physical distancing) is required, we must all up our strategic networking game.
The good news is that if we can manage to interweave conference calls with story time and freeze-dance-style movement breaks with work deliverables, building and executing our digital networking strategies should be a piece of cake.