homeBuild a Safer Future by Doubling Your Network 30 June 2008
By Francis Wade,
Francis Wade is a management consultant who  is releasing an e-book on Caribbean networking in June 2008 that will be free to the public for a limited time. See http://fwconsulting.com/newnetworking for details.
Here in the Caribbean, our professionals still have a tendency to build professional networks that stop where the water starts. In other words, most of us have few if any trusted colleagues living in other countries in the region.
The act is, due to the effects of migration, we often know more about Miami, New York and London than do Montego Bay, Georgetown or St. Johns.
The result is that our networks are local, small and therefore limited. Is there a reason to try to double, or triple them?
While Trinidad has the fastest growing economy in the hemisphere, the other countries in the region with their untapped labour and consumer markets (e.g. Jamaica,) and huge reservoirs of natural resources (e.g. Guyana) represent opportunities for business-people with the networks to exploit them.Â
Without the right trusted networks, all we have as business-people are ideas with no means of executing them. It’s still not easy for us to do business with people that we don’t know well, but the key is not to give up and to focus on our immediate circles. Instead, the answer is to expand our circles as dramatically as we can.
Yet, there are significant obstacles to overcome even in this simple task. I have spoken with Trinidadian executives who are convinced that a business trip to Jamaica is tantamount to taking one’s life into one’s hands. Some Jamaican businessmen have asked me (seriously) whether or not they could be targeted for kidnapping in Port of Spain if they were to visit, somehow thinking that the bandits are like mango thieves – they take whatever they can find on any given day.
The fact is, our regional executives have not really begun to travel, and to network in earnest. They would not consider vacationing in Jamaica (too dangerous) or in Barbados (too boring) or in Trinidad (too risqué.) They allow old stereotypes to prevent them from making the necessary tactical moves to double and triple their networks.
What are the benefits of taking this course of action?
The first benefit is that it provides job security. Trinidadian companies are competing fiercely with each other for a relatively small market. Tapping into other regional markets would give their businesses an opportunity to grow, a fact that larger Trinidadian companies have begun to exploit since the late 1990’s. However, the mid-size companies are slow to follow suit.
In the old ways of thinking, job security came from loyalty to a single company. If an employee kept her nose clean, employment was assured.
In the new, flattened global economy, security comes from having a large and trusted network that appreciates the unique value that a professional brings. When that network crosses several national boundaries then opportunities multiply for the well-networked individual.
Second, having a network that is large, and diverse, allows us to grow professionally. Jamaican civil engineers who are working in Trinidad are being employed in the oil and natural gas companies, affording them an opportunity to work in industries that are not indigenous to the island. Trinidadian bankers working in Jamaica benefit from their exposure to a more sophisticated financial regulatory environment, and bring back the painful lessons that Jamaican learned in the 1990s’ to prevent a similar melt-down from happening back home. All professionals  gain more skills and experience as a result and when they return, their countries benefit.
In my own field of management consulting, a knowledge of different regional cultures has helped me to engage in cross-country projects and to consult with firms that have multiple offices.
The same applies to every profession. There is a great deal for us to learn from our regional colleagues, and a lot for us to contribute, and there are knowledge and skills to be learned from simply having a network that is big and diverse enough to challenge us to grow.
Thirdly, committing to developing a network beyond the boundaries forces us to develop more advanced internet skills, in order to save thousands of dollars in communication costs. It also causes us to learn how to maintain contact with those that we may never meet, but must somehow come to trust.
We in the Caribbean still conduct business with those that we think we  must be able to see.  Those professionals who know how to create and maintain remote, internet-based relationships have a powerful advantage over the rest, and have a basis for growing their network rapidly. The more internet technology is used, the more quality networking can be done — the equation is that simple.
Those who are still delegating their email to a secretary are only missing out on learning the new tools that are coming out daily, allowing themselves to fall further behind.
When I gave a speech at the JEF conference a year ago, I had not discovered the power of social networking as an absolutely essential  tool for regional networking. Now, I look back and laugh, because  in a matter of months Facebook has enabled me to deepen and expand  my network in a way that I did not know was possible.
 This should be a message to all Trinidadian professionals to keep  an eye open for the next tool that will change everything  about how Caribbean professionals reach and relate to each other. Merely “keeping up” is no longer an option, and the professionals who will thrive are those who develop and grow diverse and deep networks that last a lifetime.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Guardian Life of the Caribbean Limited.