Connected Worker

My wife and I got into an animated discussion (read: argument) yesterday morning about whether she should follow up with an acquaintance she hadn’t heard from in a few months.

My wife’s take: she shouldn’t. She argued that it was the acquaintance who had twice canceled plans at the last minute and had promised to call soon to reschedule. And if that was too difficult to do, well, then, maybe the meetup wasn’t worth pursuing in the first place.

My take: my wife should make the call anyway.

There are probably dozens of people in my personal, professional, and personal/professional networks that I’m overdue on following up and reconnecting with. I’ve been busy. They’ve been busy. I haven’t called or e-mailed. They haven’t called or e-mailed. But here’s the bottom line: I haven’t been in touch with people that are important to me. Does it really matter whose “turn” it is to initiate our next conversation?

All of us usually have the best of intentions when we say we’ll follow up, but the longer the wait, the harder reaching out again sometimes becomes. But as Connected Workers, you and I know that we need to take that initiative.

So here’s a challenge for you this week: take a look at your Outlook address book, your cellphone contacts, or your LinkedIn connections, and identify three people that you haven’t spoken with in at least three to six months. Make a pledge today to reach out to all of them in the next seven days and say you’ve been thinking about them. If you also happen to live in the same physical part of the world — a seemingly decreasing reality in this online social media age — propose catching up over a meal or drink, or at a family event. You could do that in the form of an e-mail, text message, or Jott, or you could really surprise them with a phone call. You — and they — will be glad you did.

Share This

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.