by John Goetz
It was a normal Monday morning as I opened my Outlook inbox to review the emails received over the weekend. As the messages populated, an unexpected wave of excitement washed over me as I zeroed in on one name. A former commander of mine had reached out, sharing a picture of us taken long ago and asking how I was doing. Normally, slogging through weekend emails can be a daunting task, but this was different. In their message, they took a genuine interest in what I had been up to over the last almost-decade: life changes, assignments, all of it. As I scrolled down, I realized this message was actually a continuation of the previous emails we had shared over the years—dating back to the original time I sent them the photo of us, nine (yes, nine) years prior.
This conversation reopened a line of communication between us, allowing us to reconnect and learn what happened in each other’s life. In today’s world, nine years is an eternity—over that time, we had both been creating professional, personal, and social worlds of our own. By the simple act of just reaching out and staying in touch, we brought those worlds back together with just a quick message.
My former commander is a master of staying in touch, and I have been fortunate to learn the value of making it a habit. The benefits of staying in touch are common to almost all environments and industries, but unfortunately the practice is not as common as one might expect. Regardless of how often you reach out to folks from the past or how comfortable you may be at reaching out, these skills are valuable and fortunately, very learnable.
Reprogramming Our Networking Brains
When thinking of networking, our brains often draw a negative connotation. Some folks will take that even further to actively avoid even the appearance of networking to prevent associations with Courtney Massengale-types of Once an Eagle infamy. Thankfully, social scientist David Burkus provides a much more productive and constructive definition of networking—friendships with a purpose. Burkus describes networking as, “anything you do to map, understand, and connect with the people in your life”. He pictures networking in the computer science sense—our personal connections are not exclusively ours, but rather belong to multiple other networks at the same time. We ourselves are part of the personal networks belonging to those we know. Keeping networks strong requires care and attention, balancing the integration of new connections with maintenance of existing ones. This may seem daunting, but on a fundamental level networking is just an extension of friendship—knowing who’s a friend, and who’s a Friend of a Friend. Simply put, the easiest way to go about keeping our personal networks strong is to just stay in touch.
But who do we stay in touch with, you ask? It helps to know where to look. The people we share daily interactions with, our friends and coworkers, are the people that Burkus describes as active ties. When circumstances change and people move on to new assignments or companies, these relationships can fade and become dormant ties. They are still our friends, but they begin to build their own active ties independent of ours. The inverse is also true—you will build active ties with people they may not know. As the disparate networks grow, so too grows their combined networking potential. To continue the computer science analogy, think of both active networks as integrated server stacks. When we imagine what could happen if we connect them, networking suddenly becomes a little less formidable and a lot more accessible.
When my former commander reached out, he reactivated a dormant tie. The preexisting trust between us allowed us to pick up the relationship right where we left it, even after years apart. There was no agenda in reaching out, he simply wanted to stay in touch. This is how networking is supposed to be and feel. Now, should an opportunity arise for either of us to seek assistance from the other’s network, this conversation will be a natural starting point that ideally dispels any feelings of awkwardness. As the organizational psychologist Daniel Hallak says, “if networking feels gross, you’re doing it wrong.” Now that we understand why we should keep in touch, let’s explore some ways to do it.
Starting off Strong: The Importance of Reaching Out Early
Often, one of the largest barriers to communication is self-imposed: not wanting to break the ice after a break in contact for a long time. Fortunately, the remedy for this problem is simple—start the conversation early. While the most appropriate medium of communication will vary based on the context of your specific relationship, migrating your personal relationship to the digital realm allows both parties to take advantage of the technology that connects our world. Just as physics teaches us that it’s easier to keep an object in motion than it is to move a static one, the same principle applies to staying in touch. It’s easier to cross a preexisting bridge of communication than it is to build one at the same time while you’re trying to reach out. In doing so, you can bypass the “I hope this email finds you well” ice-breaking games altogether. The open line of communication between myself and my former commander had been there for years, we just hadn’t used it in a while.
Migrating your conversation with someone can even be as simple as a “thank you for your time” or “I really liked what you said about this” message after an interaction. Building a bridge early in the relationship can remove uncertainty when reactivating dormant ties in the future. The more lines of communication you have available, the easier it will be (for both of you) to prevent any self-imposed barriers from forming. In the end, the “how” is much less important than the act of reaching out itself. Just doing the thing is what makes the difference.
Keep Your Head Up: Look for Opportunities to Reestablish Connections
In the non-stop workplace and the constant churn of operations, it can be difficult to keep your head up sometimes. In the military community, the announcement of promotions and key assignments happens on a regular schedule. Similarly, the hiring and admissions cycles for companies and grad schools occur at roughly the same time every year. When you know letters of acceptance for grad schools or promotion lists for Colonels are coming out soon, keep an eye out for people in your network sharing the good news. These are perfect opportunities to reach out and say congrats—and reactivate some of our dormant ties at the same time.
To take staying in touch a step further, you may even be able to integrate your network further by introducing them to one of your active or dormant ties. Perhaps you know someone at the post they are about to PCS to, or someone in a position similar to the one they are about to assume. When reaching out to share news of my promotion and change in career field, my former commander introduced me to a friend of theirs who happened to be the former commander of the unit I was about to join. This is just one example of the endless possibilities that can open if someone just starts the conversation.
Build Your Base: Make Relationships Multifaceted
Having multiple means of reaching out to someone is great, but it can be even better if you have multiple reasons to reach out. The better you know someone, the more chances that genuine reasons to check in with them will arise. These short check-ins are very useful for maintaining a relationship, as they take very little time to write but have an outsized impact on keeping our network strong. Thus, we should strive to make our relationships as multifaceted as possible, while they are still our active ties. One of the easiest ways to build these personal relationships is to get to know people outside of work.
Forming bonds beyond work will forge a deeper relationship based on a shared hobby, faith, or even sports team. While my relationship with my former commander had many facets, most of our conversations included our shared passion of weightlifting. For you, it may be the first day of fishing season, your friend’s sports team going all the way, or a religious holiday from your or their faith. Personalization is the key—finding the things that make your relationship special will help ensure that the relationship becomes dormant, not defunct.
Putting it All Together
I encourage you to use these strategies as a jumping-off point to develop your own. Books can offer further ideas of where to begin—Friend of a Friend, How to Talk to Anyone, Works Well with Others, and The Compound Effect are all great resources. The single best thing though is to start your own journey. Taking a deliberate approach to create and maintain your own personal, authentic network is the first step to figuring out how you can make it fulfill its potential. Honestly, staying in touch is the reason this article even exists. After publishing a previous article, a friend (who I hadn’t spoken to in years) reached out and asked if I’d consider writing something for FTGN—this article is the result. Now that you know the power of staying in touch, I hope you’ll take this as an opportunity to invest in yourself. Stay in touch—go forth and make the world a smaller, better place.
John Goetz is a Civil Affairs officer with the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, and a 2016 graduate of the United States Military Academy. He served as an Infantry Officer with the 82nd Airborne Division, deploying to Iraq in 2017 before attending the Civil Affairs Qualification Course. He hopes you might stay in touch with him, starting with (and hopefully progressing past) his LinkedIn page.
