Are you hanging out enough?
Sounds a little bizarre doesn’t it? Nobody hangs out at the office do they? Well look again. After reading this piece, I promise on Monday when you get back to work you will spot those “hanging” and they are making all the right moves doing it.
The Personal and the Professional are one and here’s why.
- It makes you memorable.
- It opens up a path for you to feel comfortable when talking business. Just like breaking a sheet of ice, once you connect on a personal level, you will feel free to speak comfortably in any business situation with your manager.
- It makes it soooooo much easier when you need to ask your manager for something later on (and you will) like wanting work from home days, training, more salary, vacation – you name it.
So what are ways in which you should be hanging out? Here’s the Top 3 and your homework assignment is to pick one over the next week and start hanging out regularly.
Attend the meeting before the meeting.
Instead of going to the meeting at 3pm, show up at 2:50 and start kicking in with some casual chit-chat with your manager and colleagues. Ask about the weekend. Ask about their vacation. Talk about your family. Just don’t talk about work yet.
Drop ins – hanging out in your manager’s office
At least once a week, drop by your manager’s office and give a quick hi. See how things are going. Ask how their weekend was. Ask how their weekend will be. It takes 2 seconds to simply connect on this level but can go so far later on, in opening up communication channels which will put you at ease.
Elevator run-ins.
You are always going to have them. Instead of talking about the weather, be prepared to have one or two meaty conversation points that tie into the company or a project in the works when you run into them, because you will!
These are just 3 opportunity areas you are overlooking but there are several: After-work drinks, the Christmas party, World Cup pub crawls – you name it. The point is to pick your head up from the trees and look around. Light and airy personal connections influence the professional ones.
With love and lots of gutsiness,
