Building a Qualified Network

I’ve often heard the phrase, “Your network is your net worth.” While I haven’t spoken to that from a financial perspective to this point, the strength we can each develop through great professional relationships will definitely yield success in just about any aspect of our lives that we’re willing to apply it. When we invest in growing our qualifications beyond a certificate or credential, doors will open that we may not have even known existed otherwise.

As I got started in behavior-based safety, albeit without ever getting any type of formal certification, I immediately found opportunities to interact with and learn from my peers within the company I worked for at the time. The more experience I gained, though, the more I looked for others in different organizations to connect with so I could study the best practices. I remember making a case my boss (Kevin) and our corporate safety director (Tim) to apply to serve as a volunteer on a committee that planned a large annual conference hosted for all the businesses around the world that held licenses with Behavioral Science Technologies (the folks we contracted with back then on our behavior-based safety process). That committee met twice annually, typically in the location where the following year’s conference would be held. I felt like a very small fish in a freaking ocean as I sat down at the conference table with that group for the very first time. Not only was every other member of that committee quite a bit older and more experienced, they represented some of the largest companies in the world. But because I had developed a reasonable skill set in that field, no one ever looked down on me. In fact, I built solid friendships with several of them, and those friendships helped me become even better in that behavior-based safety initiative than I ever could have on my own.

Similarly, earning the "Certified Professional” credential through the Society for Human Resource Management gave me a chance to interact with HR professionals locally and at the state level in a way I hadn’t experienced prior to that. But the more qualified I became in that space, the more opportunities I had to work with business owners and executives in every other field. I was able to offer them a very unique perspective - one that combined practical, boots-on-the-ground experience and firm grasp on both safety and human resource regulations - but the interaction with them gave me a behind-the-scenes look at issues every business faces that I never would have seen from a safety human resources role.

Combining what I had learned through behavior-based safety and human resources with all that I did to study some of the world’s top leadership experts, from a distance and as close as I could get through things like the Maxwell Leadership certification process, allowed me to continue increasing my own qualification as I began providing mentorship to some of the executives within my new network. The more experience I developed, the more value I could offer. And the more opportunities I had to offer that value, the larger my network became and the more influential each person was who made up that network. Although the majority of my employment was in construction and manufacturing, the diversity of my network had tremendously broadened my experiential base. Quite frankly, building that qualified network was a key driver for creating our public Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank and IMPACT Leadership Academy models, and those have given us wonderful opportunities to help each participant build their own qualified network of professionals whose experience stands head and shoulders above even the best credential.

In complete transparency, leading those groups for now nearly a decade has added some pressure for us though. Launching them required trust from the initial participants but adding ongoing value has forced us to sustain our qualification to deserve their time over the long haul - because every single leader who’s been actively engaged has grown exponentially. To continue adding value as they progress, we couldn’t be stagnant. We’ll look at that more next. Until then, I’ll challenge you to identify and connect with a qualified peer within the next week - someone who is as good in their field of expertise as you are in yours - to intentionally build your qualified network.