Committed to Results? Then Create an Equal or Greater Commitment to Relationships

In 1973 Mark Granovetter wrote one of the most widely circulated, and most frequently referenced, papers in the social sciences, The Strength of Weak Ties. To grossly oversimplify, he makes a compelling case for us to rethink our perspectives about relationship and relating. In the process he dispels some myths with compelling research findings.

Originally he was studying how people find jobs. The myth was close friends are your best bet. Not so! Weak ties - friend-of-friends, or even friend-of-friends-of-friends - that's what he discovered about how people actually found their new jobs.

The implications of his insights go way beyond job hunting to discovering everything and anything we want - new insights, great places to vacation, great new customers or vendors... The bottom line, it becomes even clearer to us the importance of relationship and relating. Even more, the possible limitations and opportunities in the different kinds of relationships we have. For example, we are less likely to get new breakthrough insights from our familiars, those close ties, our community, family and close colleagues, those who see the world pretty much as we do. On the other hand, those people we have weak ties with, acquaintances, some employees, customers, vendors, external advisers, casual encounters, and so on, are much more likely to have very different views and insights and are therefore more likely, if given the opportunity, to be the catalysts for breakthrough thinking, new opportunities, and consequent innovative outcomes.

Most executives - this is an accusation I really want you to consider and not casually dismiss - are not very competent and relationship building and day-in-and-day-out relating. Let's be honest we have been trained to be transactional. Most of us did not even know such a phenomenon as EQ existed. Some still don't! My evidence for this assertion, the horrible way people are dealt with in corporations all over the country every day. As a coach and consultant to senior execs I have horror stories you would not believe.

The world is changing - no news flash there. Speed of change is increasing - yea, yea!

What we have not yet grasped, especially in the CSuite, is the importance of relationship and relating - and I don't mean the "so as to" transactional stuff we all do, and are good at, that happens to have people in the mix.

I mean the practice of connecting with people, discovering who they are, what makes them tick, their passions, concerns, commitments. Herb Kelleher was a great businesman and airline exec. But what he is most known for by the people who worked at Soutwest and the who he interacted with is his extraordinary capacity to get to the inards of people - he cared, he was interested, he understood the importance of relationship and relating. My perspective is that Southwest's success has less to do with all their process brilliance and fuel oil futures savvy, and so on, the technical stuff, and more to do with their brilliance and relationship and relating.

How many conversations do you have with your people that have no other agenda but to relate, to get to know them better, to find out what turns them on? In a head to head with the guru of relationship building Keith Ferrazzi would you have your own insights and stories of your prowess in this area? If not, I recommend an urgent crash course in the importance of a rich and diverse network of relationships. Read Never Eat Alone, create some practices and disciplines to build out your network - and remember, because we do forget, everything we accomplish is accomplished through and with other people - our network of relationships - which means the weak ties as much as, if not more so than the strong ties.