Abhishek Goswami

Social media platforms have emerged as great enablers for increasing one's network. Writing good content and sharing them on these platforms will help overcome the initial fear of opening up. Follow good content, make value adding comments on the contents you come across, and share your perspectives. This will gradually help you to speak what's going in your mind and you won't confine your thoughts and life just to yourself.

It may happen that your initial attempt to connect with the person meets a dead end, because of no response. But this should not dishearten you. The person may have been busy or may have missed your message or may have even thought to connect/reply back later and then forgot about it. Try following up with the person after a few days. Talk about why and how you feel networking with him can help you and even add value to his time. Alternatively, try connecting with him through his existing network and also through other channels.

You need to cut the noise and focus on whom you want to network with and for what end goals. If you just want it to be for a professional or business reasons, you have to define focus group for yourself. Instead of bombarding everyone you meet with a exchange of pleasantries, and feeling a cold feet thinking how they will respond, make a calm and composed move. Give time to observe and understand the person and then approach him/her. Always remember, you are not pursuing a target to meet X no.of people. Instead, you are growing your network with like minded people

Sharing stories from your own life can go a long way in inspiring the mentee. As someone who has been there, done that, your suggestions will appear credible. Discussions on the need for being updated on the international issues, the challenges and opportunities lying in the world arena and how we can see the big picture by making us abreast with global developments, can make your mentee inquisitive. Informal conversations can be a great boost to such initiatives

Develop insights from successful use cases across industries and organisations. Participate in seminars, conferences and virtual discussions on Data Governance, its need, the challenges it is facing and the consequences of non-compliance. Different industries have different levels of governance policies and regulatory bodies periodically update the best practises. Keeping a check on these updates can be a good starting point for developing good data governance framework

We need to understand that the team is made of humans, and not machines which can be trained to act in a particular way. Sitting together with the team to understand the root cause of the problem can be a starting point. Aligning skillsets with the aspirations and roles can help build interest in the work. Increased collaboration among the team members may develop respect and bond among the members. Not only this, regular and timely communication regarding the challenges or updates keep the team aligned on one track. A feeling of oneness needs to be developed in the team, stressing the importance of every individual and the benefits of their coming together, to achieve a common goal.