Chapter 9
How to Win Friends and Influence People

You wait as the coffee machine slowly fills up your cup.

“Everything going OK?”

It’s Mark. He’s a fellow engineering manager running the team that’s responsible for dashboarding in the application.

“Yeah, all good. Definitely need this coffee though.”

“Tell me about it!” Mark replies.

A voice calls from across the kitchen.

“Oh, hi Mark! Thanks so much for our chat yesterday, it really helped.”

It’s Abigail, who runs the European sales team. You’ve seen her around but have always been intimidated by her seniority.

“Oh, no problem, it was good to find out how we’re doing in pitches. I’ve let the team know what you said.”

“Awesome, catch you later!” says Abigail, hastily departing.

You’re curious as to how Mark managed to make friends across the engineering and sales divide. You’re just about to ask him, but another voice erupts from behind you.

“What’s up Mark?” It’s Cara, a back-end engineer. “Thanks for helping me fix that bug yesterday. It always turns out to be such a stupid error, doesn’t it?”

“Hah, don’t worry about it. You just fixed it yourself while I sat there. You should see some of my bugs sometime…”

“Catch you later!” says Cara, walking off toward the meeting rooms.

Mark’s coffee finishes decanting, and you begin walking together back toward your desks. You remember that you were going to ask him about how he got to know Abigail, but, once again, another voice interrupts.

“Ah, just the person I was looking for!”

This time it’s the CEO.

“Mark, we’ve got one of our biggest customers coming to visit us next week, and they’d love to meet some folks from Engineering who build their favorite features. Would you be up for meeting them?”

“Of course!”

“Great. There’s an invite coming to your calendar.”

She walks off. You’re flabbergasted. How is he so well connected to all of these people? What is he doing that you’re not doing?

You turn toward him and open your mouth to formulate the question, but there’s another voice emanating from behind you.

“Oh, Mark!”

What a popular guy…

In this chapter we’re going to look beyond your team: we’re going outward into the rest of the department and company. Excellent managers are well connected, and being well connected carries a myriad of benefits. We’ll look into these in more detail as you learn the following:

• Why considering the world beyond your team matters. By being more engaged in the wider department and company, you’ll be able to discover more ways to get involved and that, often, many of these ways can positively impact your team. We’ll give you the motivation you need.

• How to build your network inside the company. We’ll look at concrete strategies for building your network and understand why it’s important.

• How to give back to others through mentoring and coaching. Another way to build your network is through giving back. By reading this book you’ve already learned many valuable skills that can help others out. We’ll look specifically at mentoring and coaching as ways that you can contribute.

You’ll begin to see that there are so many more ways in which you make your company a better place.