Last week I had my first ever personal skype RCT meeting…

An “RCT” is a programme which connects people randomly for coffee and a chat (with no expectations around content of the conversation), the aim being to improving trusting networks within an organisation, which can improve knowledge sharing and cross-selling.

(If you’d like to know more about RCTs, have a look here).

I often meet with peers for coffee and a chat. I often talk/skype with law firm KMers to help them out and share experiences. I often meet with other small business owners to talk about business stuff and share ideas.

But I haven’t actually ever skyped with someone for no reason other than to make a connection and chat, with no agenda on either side.

As some of you may be thinking about starting an RCT programme within your organisations, I thought it might be helpful to hear my experience as a participant.

My RCT programme was organised by a LinkedIn KM group. The group organiser offered to pair us up (it was an opt-in, voluntary programme), then left us to make our own arrangements for meeting.

It was very simple to arrange: a couple of emails to arrange dates and work out time zones, then we swapped skype IDs, put it in the diary, and that was it.

Overall, our discussion was

• pros – interesting, stimulating and thought-provoking (meeting someone new in a related but different field of work, from a different country); and
• cons – mildly weird (meeting someone entirely new, not even a friend of a friend, for no reason other than chat), but in a good way.

The pros definitely outweighed the cons and I would definitely do it again.

It took about 5-10 mins to arrange and we spent about 45mins chatting, so not at all onerous and now I have a new contact whom I feel I know quite well.

Have you thought of starting an RCT programme within your organisation? It can be a very simple, cost-effective way to improve trusting networks for knowledge sharing and cross-selling.

A free e-book about it here.

Or come along to a lunchtime training event in Manchester (email me or comment below for details).

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