 In this episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast, I'm going to give you three actions that you can take to network and build relationships more effectively, even if you are an introvert. Let's do it. So for this episode, I thought I'd focus on this topic that came from a question and an article that I wrote for the American Society of Civil Engineers Career and Leadership which was a civil engineer who reached out and said, can I network effectively if I'm an introvert? How can I do that? And I thought about it a little bit and the word introvert, if you look it up in the dictionary, it essentially means a shy person. And a lot of engineers or at least they become labeled as introverts because we are analytical, we are technical, we deal a lot with details. And so this can be a common question for civil engineers. And the reason that this is important is because the general kind of progression of a lot of civil engineers, especially in the private sector, maybe not so much in the public sector, is that as they progress in their career, their company expects them to start to build relationships and bring in new business and revenue for the firm. And kind of if you can't do that, it can become a barrier to advancement in your career in the private consulting world. However, what I will also say is that if you are in the public sector, building relationships is a skill that can be good wherever you work, right? If you're in the public sector, you're still dealing with other engineers and other people that you need to build relationships with. And you never know when you might leave the public sector and go into the private sector and then have to do that networking relationship and business development. So what I'd like to do in this episode is to focus on three specific actions that you can take even as an introvert to start to build relationships with people and network more effectively. And the first one is to start to build deeper relationships with people that you already know. I think sometimes what happens in terms of networking, whether you're an introvert or not, is we are fearful around it because we think about the idea of having to go out and network with people that we don't know. That's scary. I mean, anytime you do that, that's scary. That's scary when you're in kindergarten and you go into a class with new people. And it's scary when you're an experienced engineering professional who goes to a networking or professional association event, you have to go up to someone you don't know and start speaking with them or networking with them. So what I recommend that you do to warm yourself up to networking is identify contacts that you already know, but you don't get to talk to or communicate with that much. It might be your college roommate. It might be a couple of people in your local professional association chapter that you kind of know, but you'd like to get to know more. And I would start with them, call them, see if they want to grab lunch one day. If you see them at an association meeting, make it a point to go over and chat with them. By focusing on the people that you already know, it's a warmer approach. It's more comfortable for you and it will allow you to practice your networking skills. So if you really want to take action on this, make a list of five to 10 people that you know by name, you know, people that you've met a few times and you know them, but you don't really know them. And think of one thing that you can do to start to get to know them better. It might be attending a specific event you know they're going to be at. It might be calling them and just saying hello and catching up. It might be shooting them an email and asking them if they'd be interested in grabbing a cup of coffee together, you know, whatever the case, maybe reach out to those people and that will help you to warm up in terms of networking, even as an introvert. Now that's one thing that you can do. The second action that you can take and I've recommended this probably in out of 135 podcast episodes, I've probably recommended this on 30% of them. Join Toastmasters to improve your public speaking skills, because this directly correlates to your confidence, which correlates to your ability to network and build relationships. Toastmasters International, if you're not familiar with it, is a global non-profit educational organization that has clubs worldwide and the purpose of Toastmasters is to promote communication and public speaking skills. And so, most people that go to Toastmasters are going because they want to become better speakers. They may have to give a lot of presentations for work and by the way, a lot of times it is a critical component of a successful civil engineering career, whether you're giving presentations for project approvals or you're trying to get funding or you're meeting with prospective clients to pitch a proposal. So it will help you in that regard, but what Toastmasters does is it puts you up in front of a room and it makes you speak and communicate with people and doing that builds confidence. And when you go out and you want to network, especially if you're a shy introverted person, you need confidence because that's the one thing that can push you over that shyness, over being the introvert is confidence in yourself, confidence in your communication skills. And so by joining Toastmasters, going through the initial 10 speeches, doing the things that Toastmasters kind of forces you to do in a positive way in a positive supportive atmosphere, it will help you tremendously to be able to network and build more relationships. And the thing about Toastmasters that makes it work is really two things. One is accountability. They give you a book with 10 speeches. We like that as engineers. We've got a checklist that we can go through. Let's get my speeches done. Your first speech is like an introductory speech about yourself for a couple of minutes. But the second thing that makes Toastmasters powerful is that it's a supportive atmosphere. All of the people in the room also are working on improving their public speaking skills. So it feels safe. It feels like, you know, he or she sitting down there is in the same position as me. They're not professional speakers. And so I can't recommend Toastmasters enough. All of the civil engineers that I recommended joined it. And those that did join it, they have seen big progressions in their career because of their activity in Toastmasters. And the third action that you can take, if you really want to build those networking skills as an introvert is to utilize predetermined conversation starters when you go to networking events. I know this sounds like a little over the top, but it's really not. Just take a piece of paper, sketch out five to 10 conversation starter questions, right? Like, oh, you know, tell me about your current job position or how did you get to the company you worked for? Or how long have you been a member of this society and what are some of the positions you've held, right? Make a list of questions that you can use and go over them on the car right there, you know, the day before. And by doing that, it's going to put you again at ease. It's going to give you some more confidence. And it's going to give you the kind of the have those words at the forefront of your mind. So when you get into the conversation, instead of locking up, freezing, going into your nervous, shy shell, you'll have things on the tip of your tongue that you can say to start the conversations. Because really, at the end of the day, conversations are really what drives networking, just having conversations. However, if you don't know how to start those conversations, if you can't get the ball rolling, then it will be difficult for you to calm down in the moment and have that back and forth flow. And that's the one thing just to remember. Overall, is you just really want to consider networking as building relationships. That's what I tell all engineers, because when you think of networking as a complex, intricate thing, I have to go places, I have to meet people, I have to use LinkedIn a whole bunch. No, just focus on building relationships. If you do that, you will become a successful networker. And you will be just you will yield so many opportunities from network that you build because you took the time and invested in it. So with that, I hope that you find these to be helpful. Again, the three steps for building your relationships as an introvert is one, start with people you know, connect with them, deepen those relationships will allow you to use your skills and improve them. Number two, join Toastmasters International, there's probably a group in your town, maybe even in the building that your company is in and some of you may have a chapter within your company. Again, that's Toastmasters International. And the third one is, and this one is, I know something that maybe over the top, you may not be thinking that far ahead, but you should develop a couple of conversation starters that you can use at your next networking event. With that, I hope that you found these helpful. I hope you enjoy the Civil Engineering Podcast here on YouTube. I asked for you to subscribe to our channel because we put these podcasts out in our Engineering Manager 8020 Shorts videos on a regular basis. Until next time, I hope you continue to engineer your own success. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast on YouTube produced by the Engineering Management Institute. We're always looking for new ways to help engineers become effective managers and leaders. You can view all of our content on our website at engineeringmanagementinstitute.org and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for our weekly videos. Until next time, please continue to engineer your own success.