How to improve networking and relationship building

Networking and relationship building can unlock a wealth of opportunities, not just for individual careers, but for our profession as a whole. By communicating and debating, we can achieve truly transformational growth and innovation.

So what does networking and relationship building look like in the school business profession today? We sat down with ISBL CEO Stephen Morales to find out.

Thank you for sitting down with us again, Stephen! So our first question is around the value of networking and relationship building – what does successful networking mean for school business professionals and leaders?

I think it’s critical in any profession to build networks and learn from them. The truth is you’ll learn much more from conversations you have with colleagues who have done new or different things, taken a different approach, embarked on new projects, than you will by limiting conversations to your own setting.

By a similar notion, don’t limit your networks. You shouldn't just try and find a clone of yourself and build a network with people who do exactly what you do. While that can be helpful and reassuring, it's worth remembering that innovation and growth come from stepping outside your own environment.

You can do that from a local context to regional, to national – we can even go international, or you can step outside of your own industry. For instance, you can take a look at what the health sector is doing or have a look at what commerce is doing, and you can build your knowledge from there.

You’ve already touched on this in the previous question, but in terms of the impact that networking and relationship building can have – firstly on an individual and their career, and secondly on the industry as a whole – how vital is it when it comes to seeing that progress and innovation come through?

It’s essential – not only in terms of building skills and knowledge but resilience as well. Building networks of people can help on a number of different fronts; it gives you someone to bounce ideas off, to share challenges with, to share successes with, and someone who just understands what you’re dealing with on an emotional level, too. I think our community finds it incredibly powerful to be able to go to somebody in a similar situation, particularly if they’re having a tough day, and say ‘it’s really hard, isn’t it?’ and to have them respond, ‘yeah, I understand.’ And that really matters.

That said, there is one small warning around networking and peer-to-peer support. It’s easy to place too much reliance on a phone call or an email to a friend, or even a Tweet, where someone believes they have the right answer for you. Don’t just accept the first response you get without hesitation.

You mentioned email and Twitter there as a couple of the channels through which you’d expect networking to take place. Do you think there are certain channels or modes of communication that work best?

There are so many good channels to use today. For us, way back before the Institute and the National Association, it started with informal gatherings – colleagues in the same role would come together and share ideas, challenges and frustrations. In that way, regional groups began to form. Some of them were more formal than others; for instance, there were some who met over a cup of coffee, and some who created their own proper constitution.

That was an early version of networking for school business professionals, which evolved into a company around 25 years ago now, and more recently transitioned from the National Association to the Institute.

Alongside that, you’ve got so many more possibilities with social media today. A lot of colleagues use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where people exchange ideas and knowledge or support each other emotionally.

Is there a particular channel that you’ve found to be more valuable than the others, or do you find that it is more a case of personal preference?

It’s largely personal preference and what you feel comfortable with. We see a large number of people creating new groups and forums to discuss certain topics, and it just creates more opportunities for everyone, regardless of where you are more comfortable communicating.

It can also depend on what you’re looking for from those channels. For instance, there’s a much more professional conversation taking place on LinkedIn because the platform lends itself to that really well. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got Twitter, which is much more fluid and can sometimes be less coherent because you’ve got a limited number of characters to use.

Do you have any particular examples of networking success stories?

From my experience, a lot of success comes from the regional groups that have been established over the last few decades throughout the country. They do fantastic work for their local communities and local business leader communities, too. Of course, people within these groups naturally gravitate towards people with very similar roles with similar needs, and they’ll create their own mini-networks within the regional groups, and that’s powerful.

For me, what I would like to see more of is bringing in expertise from outside education. So for example, you might be trying to complete a certain task or area of compliance that is challenging or perhaps new for your organisation, and there could be a limited amount of help or support within education for that. But externally, whether it’s in local authorities or health or even business, there may be people who have already been there and done that and feel comfortable approaching that kind of task.

Those conversations have a great deal of potential to help education innovate and modernise the way we work. I think at the moment, we maybe haven’t matured enough as a profession for that, but it's important to understand that there is a wealth of experience out there in becoming more ‘efficient’ – and by that, I don’t mean spending less money, but becoming more dynamic, more streamlined and modern to help us tackle the challenges we’ve got with more confidence and with stronger results.

You mentioned there that the profession was maybe not quite mature enough for those connections to be made just yet. What do you think has to change to allow us to reach that level of maturity?

Well, I've been in this role for 10 years now, just approaching my 10th anniversary as the CEO of the Institute, and my ambition has always been a professionalised workforce that sees itself as a profession that’s continually engaged in meaningful CPD, self-growth and self-improvement. And we've made really important inroads there, and there are colleagues who are certainly kind of grasping the next level of improvement and innovation.

But there’s certainly more to do before we get there. I think two things, in particular, are creating barriers. One is the extent to which other leaders within the setting of both maintained schools and academies are on board with embracing the change needed. There doesn’t seem to be a huge appetite among, say, head teachers, senior teachers, the board, governors, for the level of change needed.

The other is the extent to which school business leaders are going to push against that and say we’ve got to do this and move on to the next stage. And this leads us into a kind of stalemate, where we’ve got a senior leadership team who are quite happy with the legacy approach and school business leaders saying if you’re not going to push on and help to give us the opportunity to learn more and develop new approaches, then I’m not going to push hard.

That’s not to say that taking that next step isn’t challenging. We have an ageing community of school business leaders, and to suddenly be asked to really up your game in terms of your knowledge of technical accountancy or digital technology is huge. But we need to start thinking about how we’re developing the next cohort of school business professionals and make sure that we’re helping them to get on the right path that’s going to get us where we need to be.

We talked quite a bit about the regional groups, which are a fundamental part of ISBL and your community. How else is ISBL facilitating and promoting networking opportunities among your members?

There are lots of ways for people to join in and get involved, and it’s not just for members, either. We run a number of regional and national conferences throughout the year, and these take place in every corner of the country. For most people, there will undoubtedly be an event you can get to within an hour, and there are plenty of opportunities to network throughout. So, in the case of our showcase National Conference, that’s a three-day event, and we have dinners, workshops, guest speakers, panel discussions – there’s plenty going on, and you can get involved in as much of it as you want.

Some of our affiliated groups also run their own conferences, and they’re incredibly successful as well, so it’s hard for me to think of any part of the country where we don’t have a group presence. So, if you are looking for a group with networking opportunities, we’ll most definitely be able to point you in the right direction.

Looking ahead, we’re very ambitious in terms of creating even further opportunities. We know that it can be a challenge for colleagues across the country to come together with any kind of frequency, and social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter, while great ways of communicating, don’t always offer the right level of depth or moderation that we’d like for certain conversations. So we’re currently looking at creating a new platform for members to be able to communicate and converse with each other in a safe, dedicated environment to make sure we’re able to have those conversations that we’d love to have, without having to navigate social media or travel across the country. That’s really where we want to be.

And finally, what would your top tips for networking and relationship building be?

The most important thing is to start. Get out there and speak to colleagues, even if it is very local to start with. From there, take a look around and see if there is a group locally or regionally that you can join – if for some reason you can’t find one, don’t be afraid to start building one! And at any point, if you want someone to point you in the right direction, or if you want support in building your own network, get in touch with the Institute.

Again, I’d give one warning if you’re looking to social media to dive straight in. Make sure you have full transparency of who you’re talking to, and try to validate the information that you are receiving. There are a lot of great things happening on social platforms, but you do need to take it with a pinch of salt as it can be difficult to know who you are talking to and how reliable the information they give is.

I would also strongly recommend developing a relationship with a national entity, and of course, I’d love people to come to the Institute, but unions do a great job as well. By building relationships with a national group, you have access to opportunities throughout the country and have a trusted support network too, so it provides a fantastic pathway.

If you’re unsure how to make the most of networking opportunities, or just need some advice on where to start, do reach out – we have plenty of information and support to get you started.