The Solution
We put together a programme that helped lawyers to really think about their networking strategy and understand how important it was for their success and that of their firm. A firm-wide programme of short, two-hour sessions for groups of up to 30 lawyers was set up. These sessions mirrored “real” events to create a scenario where the lawyers could practice and embed skills in a realistic setting. We worked on the simple skills that would help to develop confident people who had a powerful initial impact, were good listeners and knew how to develop conversations of interest to anyone they spoke to.
We also broadened the scope of the programme to include social networks and online networking and helped the lawyers to see networking as “business as usual” and something they should always be doing.