Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Staying Actively In Touch

I received an electronic mail from, Douglas O’Loughlin my former-lecturer at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) today. He will be helping to organize an Organisational Development (OD) conference in Hyderabad, India. If you are a serious practitioner of OD, do consider attending GODS – Global OD Summit 2009 (19-22 August). It is a conference that was initiated and launched by practitioners passionate about the field of people development. This is a global tribe worth paying attention to!

My e-mail reply launched two highly positive and encouraging replies from him, and I am glad I did make the return move. To reiterate, staying actively in touch is very important for our today, and for our tomorrow. In a world fascinated and consumed by social media tools (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Squidoo, etc), it is so easy to ignore those on our lists of friends. Yes, we may have a large population of registered friends, yet how actively do we stay in touch with it?

Thus, give a friend or acquaintance an e-mail message, text message, or telephone call (by the way, it is not a tele-conversation!). You may be surprised by how fast you will receive a reply. If the Law of Attraction works, then you should receive a reciprocal response for your efforts shortly.

Be high-tech, but also high-touch! Having a cache of impressive, digital equipment does not make us a more connected being. Connect with others. Be deliberate. Be decisive. Work the technology to your advantage. Call a business associate, ex-colleague, teacher, exercise-buddy, or former-manager out for coffee. Exercise your communication skills. Stop procrastinating! Leaders lead. Lead on!

Leadership Lessons: Be active in your networking and networks. Start writing and calling people. Make that human connection.

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