Leadership idea - build relationships

You've heard the cliché, it's not what you know, it's who you know. When people see you as a leader and look to you for answers, you can't know everything. Invest time in building relationships not only with your own team members but with folks in other teams, and in other positions.

I'm a shy person, but I've learned there's no need to be afraid to ask, say, the platform team manager for a 30 minute 1:1. I did this in my last job. I found that person loved all things testing, and we set up a regular chat. Then whenever someone asked me to, say, put together a testing strategy for transitioning to the new deployment pipeline tool, I could pick that person's brain for ideas about risks and how to mitigate them. Then I collaborated with my own teammates and we planned, executed and tested the transition together, successfully.

How do you build these bridges to other people on other teams? Here are some ideas that worked for me, both in person and virtually:
* Ask for help! This is a great way to make friends.
* Invite a specialist to come explain to your team what they do.
* Offer to go to another team and explain what you and your team do.
* Offer to do a workshop on a skill that is useful to them.
* Ask them to pair with you for 30 minutes to look at a problem together.

Katrina Clokie's book _A Practical Guide to Testing in DevOps_ has a great section on building relationships, that's what inspired me.