EDITION ONE CONTENTS
HOW TO NETWORK EFFECTIVELY (and local opportunities to practice)
BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE
DISCUSSION POINT

FORUM PHOTOS
Visit the Townsville Forum Website to find photos taken by our event coordinator, Katherine Beatty, during the forums held this year in regional Queensland.

Networking is something most people do without thinking. Whenever you meet someone in a work context, the relationship you establish includes them in your own personal network. They may be a customer, or a colleague, or an employee of a business partner, but the trust and respect you develop is separate to the business relationship. It's a personal asset, something your business or employer can't count up or trade on although good employers will recognize how the strength of your personal network increases your value to the company.

But many women feel a sense of unease about networking. It's a feeling located somewhere between playing the game (making friends with a motive) and your first day at school (I like your shoes. Let's be friends!) This edition of Women & Leadership News is designed to give you confidence in your networking skills, by clearly understanding why we network, and how you can do it well. We'll begin with seven tips for effective networking from our staff at the Workplace Training Advisory of Australia.

1. E-mail does not work. Unsolicited e-mails are easy to ignore because they have no personal, social, emotional relevance for the recipient. And even when a message comes from someone the recipient knows, she can easily set it aside for later and never come back to it. This clouds your name with a vague sense of guilt in her mental rolodex, and that's not a good thing! Nothing beats the immediacy of a phonecall and coffee date when you want to make a request or catch up.

2. Know your field, and the players on it. You never know when an opportunity to make a new link in your network will appear. Most sectors have trade literature' you can read. Keep a mental or written list of people whose work impresses you, and when you meet them, you've got a ready-made introduction: I read your article about X and I loved it. Can you tell me more about If the time isn't right say you meet at a funeral you can ask for contact details and follow up later.

3. Do follow up. If you ask for someone's card, follow up within a day or two, either by telephone or e-mail. If you're on a committee with someone and you commit to doing something, get the job done. If someone says sure, send me some information, send them the information. Anyone can introduce themselves. Follow-up shows you value the connection and you mean business.

4. Know yourself and your product. Here's the scenario: you're alone in an elevator with when the boss / a potential investor / a wealthy philanthropist. It's a tall building but the elevator is fast, and you've got fifteen seconds to pitch your dream project. Networking is exactly like that you need a confident, assertive, conversational answer to the question So what do you do?

5. Be yourself, and don't sell. This is where the elevator pitch scenario falls short of reality if you lay the hard sell on a new acquaintance, you're treating them only as a means to an end. They'll resent it, and you'll feel dirty. When you meet someone new, the first priority is to establish trust and respect. The best approach is no approach.

6. Don't be intimidated by power. Remember there's a difference between a powerful role or reputation, and the person working within it. Most of the time that person has the same social needs as anyone else, and they'll welcome a friendly greeting. Effective networking is nothing more complicated than walking up and saying hello.

7. Maintain your network. This is a cheaty item included to bring the list up to seven, because it's really part of Hint Three follow up, and keep following up . Checking in with your contacts from time to time helps keep your network strong. Most people are happy to take an hour out of their week to have coffee and a chat, and often you'll discover hidden opportunities little moments of serendipity where you can work together to achieve mutual objectives.

Confidence is a tricky creature. It's not a personal characteristic you can possess the most confident people on earth will freely admit to having doubts and sometimes cold-sweat fear. Instead, confidence is a characteristic of the way you act . You might feel terrified before a public speaking engagement, but any trainer or advocate will tell you that's normal. Confidence is getting up and giving the speech anyway, treating the adrenaline as energy, not as an obstacle.

Confidence is also a lesson you learn. When you get up and give that speech, and the sky does not fall in, you're learning that you can do something even though it's frightening you discover the capacity in yourself for confidence. It's an exhilarating discovery, even though the experience of public speaking may forever remain a terrifying one (as it does for most of us).

Remember the cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz , who believed he lacked confidence, only to discover it there within his actions, quite regardless of his beliefs. The trick about confidence is it's a confidence trick! If you feel in need of it, do something with confidence. This isn't a positive thinking exercise your thinking may be resolutely negative. But when you take your heart in your mouth and step forward to make a pitch, make a new link in your network, give a speech, stand up for something you believe in anything that requires confidence you'll find it there.

Two steps you can take to build your feeling of confidence over time —

• Throw yourself in the deep end, again and again. If public speaking is your fear — and surveys in Western societies reveal more people fear public speaking than death or spiders — join a local Rostrum group or debating society. It's never too late to start. Everyone begins as a quivering, trembling mess, therefore even experienced speakers listen with compassion for your situation and a heartfelt desire to help you improve. Terror is a terrific teacher, and the lesson you learn is that you can do things despite it.
• Reward yourself for taking confident action, and put the lid on your inner Oscar. Be gentle with yourself and interrupt your interior monologue whenever your inner grouch threatens to pour cold water on a recent achievement. For many women leaders it takes time to develop a self-image of ability, competence, expertise, and confidence, because these are traits our culture has long associated with stereotypical masculinity. When you downplay your achievements out of modesty, or because someone else does them better, you deny yourself the internal acknowledgment you need to reinforce the habit.

DEVELOP YOUR SKILLS

Rostrum is a public speaking association with a strong focus on developing the skills of beginners and providing critical feedback even experienced speakers can benefit from.

For Queensland clubs including Cairns, Townsville and the Sunshine coast, visit the QLD Rostrum Club Listing.

In 1901 the Census recorded the occupations of everyone in Australia. Among women, the most common occupations were 'domestic service and attendance' (6% of women), 'working in textile fabrics, dress and fibrous materials' (4%), 'engaged in religion, charity, health, education etc' and 'engaged in supplying board and lodging' (2% each). The rest -- 79% of women! -- were 'dependent on natural guardians'.

Even in 1901, some women were working outside the mainstream occupations prescribed by gender stereotype, with 42 women working in the industrial side of 'fuel, light and other forms of energy', 31 'engaged in the construction of buildings, roads, railways etc', 29 'engaged in mining and quarrying' and 29 women whose occupation was reported as 'speculators on chance events'!

And now

In 2002 the ABS released Labour Force Australia (March 2002, ABS Cat. 6203.0) which reports the most common occupations among women as 'intermediate clerical workers' (17%), 'elementary sales workers' (13%), 'intermediate service workers' (10%), education professionals and health professionals (6% each). The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) Women in Leadership Census (2004) reveals that around 14% of women employed fulltime occupy management roles, although this increases to nearly 30% when it comes to farm management. Unfortunately the record no longer reveals how many women work as speculators on chance events...

TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS
If you have feedback about the forums or stories of your experiences of leadership as a woman, we'd love to hear from you. From a sentence to an article, you can let us know by e-mail.