{"id":84404,"date":"2014-11-14T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=84404"},"modified":"2014-11-13T17:03:22","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T23:03:22","slug":"the-sport-of-networking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=84404","title":{"rendered":"The Sport of Networking"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Christina Wilson, Senior Assistant,\u00a0INALJ Alberta<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0INALJ Manitoba<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Sport of Networking<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"ChristinaWilson\"<\/a>Recently I read an intriguing article in The Globe and Mail \u201cHockey Course Helps Women\u00a0Break the Ice\u201d (September 27, 2014) about \u201cThe Gal\u2019s Got Game\u201d, a networking company that\u00a0developed a crash course on hockey specifically aimed at helping professional women get\u00a0ahead in business by learning about sports. At an event for a group of 50 female professionals,\u00a0the day involved learning hockey by watching the Toronto Maple Leafs practice, listening to\u00a0hockey stories from former Leafs, including retired Captain Wendel Clark and then watching\u00a0a game against the Ottawa Senators. Recognising that sports provides a common language,\u00a0can be an ice-breaker in networking settings and is also an equaliser in the business world\u00a0where both the CEO of a company and a mailroom clerk can bond while reviewing last night\u2019s\u00a0game, the event helped women with no background in sports develop networking skills based\u00a0upon hockey language and knowledge. Hockey was selected because it is Canada\u2019s dominant\u00a0national sport and the women professionals wanted to succeed in Canadian businesses.<\/p>\n

As a library professional who plays a variety of sports (basketball, soccer, tennis, golf and\u00a0hockey), I can attest to the value of sports knowledge as a valuable networking ice-breaker, an\u00a0image adjustment and a useful positioning tool when meeting the library community. While\u00a0working as a public librarian, I\u2019ve found time to keep playing women\u2019s basketball, soccer\u00a0and golf at a fairly good level, both for the professional and personal benefits. Participation\u00a0in sports puts me in contact with a different group of women than I\u2019d normally meet in\u00a0library settings; however, our common interest is a tremendous ice-breaker. And while the\u00a0teams that I\u2019ve played on are comprised of teachers, nurses, dentists, lawyers and health\u00a0professionals, it\u2019s rare to meet another library professional. I feel that I\u2019m working against the\u00a0stereotype of our profession whenever I sink a basket, steal the ball or land on the green! But\u00a0I\u2019m able to network with other, often emerging, women professionals in my community. While\u00a0these women might support the idea of libraries, they are often not actual library users, so I am\u00a0frequently selling the value of libraries to these tax-payers. Advocacy can creep up even in the\u00a0after game social.<\/p>\n

Playing sports has other benefits, all related to personal development, continuous\u00a0improvement and self-control, all of which are beneficial in our work environment. Learning to\u00a0post up and shoot over a taller opponent is something I learned through observation, then trial.\u00a0(I applied the same approach when I needed to become more proficient with HTML, Excel tasks\u00a0and Google\u2019s suite of tools.) When playing with a diverse group of women, focused on a team\u00a0goal of winning, you learn to take and apply critical feedback. One is able to practise focussing,\u00a0if only for the few seconds needed to get the puck in the net or the ball in the hoop, cup or net.\u00a0Playing after a busy work day is the best outlet for taking one completely away from work.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve encouraged library co-workers to play with me by setting up an after work golf group\u00a0for colleagues of all capabilities, male and female and challenging nearby public libraries to a\u00a0friendly game of baseball on a warm summer night. Both endeavours reaped benefits in terms\u00a0of equalising relations among staff who participated, providing a fun outlet for staff and their\u00a0families and allowing for inter-departmental and inter-library bonding as we \u201ctoured\u201d area golf\u00a0courses and baseball diamonds in our region. It\u2019s possible that interlibrary lending improved,\u00a0too!<\/p>\n

I recommend adding sports or sporting events to your professional life. The benefits in terms of\u00a0professional networking are significant, however the true benefits will last a lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Christina Wilson, Senior Assistant,\u00a0INALJ Alberta\u00a0and\u00a0INALJ Manitoba The Sport of Networking Recently I read an intriguing article in The Globe and Mail \u201cHockey Course Helps Women\u00a0Break the Ice\u201d (September 27, 2014) about \u201cThe Gal\u2019s Got Game\u201d, a networking company that\u00a0developed a crash course on hockey specifically aimed at helping professional women get\u00a0ahead in business by…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":65306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3974,6672,3666,5888,356,6673,6674],"class_list":["post-84404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-christina-wilson","tag-golf","tag-inalj-alberta","tag-inalj-manitoba","tag-networking","tag-networking-and-sports","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/ChristinaWilson.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-lXm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}