How to network when you don’t know you’re networking — what I learned from my Grandfathers

My Grandfathers — Gwyn Thomas the barber, and Alvah Tucker, the butcher

These two are my Grandfathers, known in the family as Alvah (who was a butcher and then District Manager for a large firm of butchers) and Grampy, who was a barber.

I’ve realised just how much I learnt from them, and how important who they were has been to my career.

Grampy, as a professional barber, was an expert in conversation and particularly letting people talk about themselves and their lives. He kept the conversation going and also respected how chatty, or quiet, that customer wanted to be. He got to know his regular customers and their lives, so that he always had a conversation starter. And he loved that aspect of his work, because he was the same man in his family life, chatty, humorous, and always interested in what the other person had to say.

Alvah was a butcher who then went on to be District Manager for Dewhurst, the Master Butcher. He was with that company for over 50 years and loved his work there. He knew everything about his team. He knew about their lives outside of work, their strengths and, crucially, he understood their ‘why’, the thing that got them motivated, the thing that got them to work in the morning. He collected people, and wanted to know them. Again, he was the same man outside of work, being interested in…