The Power of Networking

Networking is important: it builds connections and communities with likeminded people.  It enables you to tap into expertise and experience that you don’t have and learn from it.  It can introduce you to lots of lovely, abstract ideas like wisdom, reflection, empowerment and knowledge and is the best way to begin growing a vine of connections that branches out and blooms in all directions.  Did you know, for example, that there is an organisation called the Leading Women's Alliance (@LeadingWomenHT) who actively support women's journey into headship, or that the DfE have a whole programme that offers free coaching to female leaders in education?  I didn't!  This sort of knowledge and bridge building - if acted upon - can lead to very tangible things like interviews, promotions, career changes, support systems, publicity and more events with free nibbles.

The stereotypical image of professional socialising and networking, however - drinks, small talk, golf, long lunches, drunken debauchery - are often male-dominated, and rarely pregnancy or family friendly.  Whilst I am loathe to promote gender-exclusivity in any way, and cannot envision a world where the current statistics on headship and gender in secondary schools were reversed instead of balanced out, anecdotal evidence does seem to point towards the power of networking: those who do it get ahead, those who don't cannot influence or lead in isolation, but stories of powerful CEOs exchanging strategy over a relaxed family picnic or during baby yoga are few and far between.  Fortunately for women, however, in this 21st feminist century, there is a growing movement of more "feminine" networking circles like @WomenEd who simply have to accept and work around the demands of parenting and childcare in order to remain authentic and inclusive of their target audience, in the same way that they are obliged to celebrate and validate single women.

What is great news, in regards to the #maternityteacher conversation, is that - with a solutions focused approach - a lot of networking can be done in baby-friendly environments or on baby-friendly hours, sometimes without the need for childcare and, what's more, mothers on maternity leave are working on far more flexible time than colleagues who are tied into the classroom for ten hours a day.  True, you may not be sleeping half as much as them, but what about the following ideas:

• Many non-school educational organisations work normal office hours.  That means they are allowed to escape their desks for lunch.  Lo and behold, on maternity leave, you too are free for lunch.  If you have a baby that sleeps, or is quiet, or the person you are meeting just loves babies and is thrilled to have a half hour squeeze, you have built in a 30 minute meeting that other colleagues were too busy marking and supervising detentions to even think about.

• If you have a baby that never sleeps, screams, pukes and demands attention at all the wrong moments, and a friend who conveniently works in one of those fancy offices on the South Bank just down the road from your intended meeting cafe and who just wishes they had more time to spend getting to know your baby (this is a real life friend I'm thinking of), pull in the favour and ask them to have a baby-lunch whilst you zip off for your networking event.

• One lightbulb moment at this @WomenEd Lead Meet came when I heard @soph_bailey explain that her NCT group had provided her with amazing connections with leaders in business and organisations that had helped her to form the EdTech Podcast.  Other women who do your job, or who can help you to do your job better, are on maternity leave, too!  The more you talk and engage with social media in your pyjamas whilst breastfeeding, the more of these women you will discover. They might be at events you are able to attend, or friends of women attending events, or made known to you by articles you post on Twitter or blogs you write on StaffRM.  Find them, engage with them, invite them for coffee, coo over each others' babies and exchange tips on sleep patterns as well as strategically planning the next five years of your ascent to power.

• Lots of networking events happen at the weekend, and here is where I can really not be smug or optimistic: my husband works six days a week, my parents live three hours from me, my family-in-law live in a different country.  My best chance for weekend childcare is my sister, who is self-employed and so often has to cancel last minute because she gets a spontaneous booking.  However, as @TBAPTSA advised me, sorting out difficult conversations with your partner as early as possible can save a lot of tension in the long run.  Knowing when these events happen, organising those childcare responsibilities in advance for a set of agreed priorities (i.e. if a networking event falls on a Saturday, then hubby works his sixth day on Sunday/ my parents are visiting that weekend with the express purpose of babysitting on the Saturday afternoon) means that you will be free to attend and make the most of those events.

• When you are able to attend these events, it is likely/ possible that you will attend with a far more calculated agenda than others who have had a manic week and have not had the time to sit down and reflect over their intentions and goals for the conversations they are hoping to have.  I have been in that exact position: turning up at networking events not really knowing the focus of the evening or the people who will be there and mostly wishing I could be back at home with a bacon sandwich or worrying about the lessons that I have not planned.  If you have the time during the week to prepare for these events, however, you are much more likely to walk away having made more productive use of your time.

• Prioritise: teaching is exhausting. Being pregnant is exhausting.  Having a baby is exhausting.  Getting yourself and the baby washed and dressed, fed, in a buggy, getting the buggy out of the skinny corridor to the front door, getting the buggy to the tube platform in a station that has no lift access, on the tube, off the tube, feeding the baby, trying to look professional, navigating the buggy across London Bridge's cobbled streets, into a cafe, feeding the baby, changing the baby, sitting down for a networking chat, remembering any resources you wanted to bring with you, soothing the baby, feeding the baby, engaging with your colleague and then doing the whole thing in reverse is exhausting.  Be realistic about what you can manage - one professional coffee a month?  One professional lunch a week?  An entire day blocked out so that you can come home, change into your pyjamas at 3pm after the lunch and dedicate the rest of the daylight hours to recovering?  If you can't do it all, then think strategically: which commitments are going to make the most significant impact on your goals, and which would be biting off more than you can chew?  

• Be 10% braver: even the thought of this makes me shudder a little at the lack of professionalism, but babies are very real, present human beings and cannot just be left alone.  For the first few months of their lives, especially, they are particularly reliant on their mothers.  In some situations, it's unfortunate that they also make a lot of noise and require attention, but this is just the reality of a baby, and the reality of accommodating and empowering half the world's workforce is intrinsically linked to the tolerance, acceptance and adaptation to these noisy, messy, needy, space-consuming little people.  Is it therefore really a crime to ask, 'Do you mind if I bring my baby?' or 'Will there be childcare provided?' or even to state, confidently, and unapologetically, 'I'll be bringing my baby' or 'What are the childcare arrangements for the day?'  We would never dream of telling a wheelchair user, 'I'm sorry, this event isn't appropriate for you', so why is it such a squeamish, uncomfortable thought to feel self-righteous about the presence of someone that - in some situations - we can't just leave at a left luggage station?  Should we be 10% braver and simply ask, when we have the opportunity to network, if our baby can come along too?  Is a move towards reframing this baby-unfriendly attitude - whether it be reality or simply a mother's paranoid perception - part of the wider struggle for gender equality in the workplace?