The Networking Canvas will help you develop your support Network effectively and in line with your career goals.
It includes 3 key development areas: personal, career and business, and 3 strategic priorities: learn, boost, develop – to help you identify the contacts you need to add or review based on 9 key categories.
The Networking Canvas is part of our Career Innovation Toolkit: read the getting started and click below to download it now along with the rest of our Professional Innovation Toolkit and join the Smart Networking age.
(Read the tool license)
Getting started with the Networking Canvas
Successful people have “diverse but select networks, made up of high-quality relationships with people who come from several different spheres”
Rob Cross, Professor at Babson College.
To use the Networking Canvas, print it out on a piece of paper which is at least A3 in size. Then follow these steps:
- List
- Learn
- Innovate
1.List
Take some Post-Its and a nice marker. Write the names of the key people who are currently in your network on separate Post-Its. Choose the block in which to stick the Post-its on the basis of the benefits you receive from interacting which each person. Place the contacts you interact with the most before the others.
2.Learn
What have you learned from completing the Canvas so far?
Are you trying to maintain relationships with too many contacts?
Which contacts use up your energy or time the most?
Which areas are too detailed or are not detailed enough? And which areas need greater balance?
Which of your professional goals could be achieved with the help of new contacts or by altering relationships with some of your existing contacts?
To further clarify your Networking goals, you can use the Personal Business Model Canvas or Personal Branding Canvas.
3. Innovate
First of all, you need to eliminate all those contacts that sap your energy or those that are not aligned with your goals. Also revise the relationship with those contacts that regularly distract you from achieving your goals.
Now that (hopefully) you have more space, add new or relocate existing contacts on the basis of your goals. Choose the blocks you need to improve by starting from areas that require action and your strategic priorities. For example, you need to DEVELOP your BUSINESS, so the block you need to work on is OPPORTUNITIES (the people that can activate new job opportunities)!
Note: The Networking Canvas was inspired by the work of Rob Cross, author and professor at Babson College.