Charisma is less a quality of a person than a quality of a person’s relationships with others.
—Jay Conger
Building relationships means building bridges with people and across organizations. It is the defining step for pursuing a career with purpose and meaning. This is where the game changes and transformation begins. It’s as Yogi Berra describes, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Going up the ladder is a continuation of accumulating your accomplishments in exchange for money, promotions, and everything else the ladder experience entails, good or bad. Building Bridges and Burning Ladders means taking the fork and leaving the Road to Not Good Enough. It may not be clear where these bridges take you because people and opportunities govern what could be a nonlinear direction. This is now your adventure, one to pursue what’s critical to you and working with people who share your desire to do something meaningful.
Ladder Climbers see connections and relationships as a means to an end. Ladderburners see connections and relationships as the end. That is why Ladderburners study people, invest in building relationships, and move in the direction where the relationships, not the job, take them.
Relationships transform everything, powerful beyond the course of doing everyday business. This is not about collecting people for business purposes like a Ladder Climber collects personal achievements. Your relationships are the source of strength, motivation, and opportunity. The “coincidences” and “luck” in Scott Zarett’s career, for example, can be traced to people and relationships he built along the way, not just things that magically popped up out of nowhere.
The Importance of Interesting and Interested People
Dr. Randy and Carolyn Cole
Finding meaning means finding meaningful people, wherever they are and whatever they do. These people share two characteristics. They are interested and interesting. They have purpose and heart. They are story tellers, yet they distinguish themselves by engaging their audience in the stories themselves. Take Carolyn and Randy Cole, a couple I met two years ago on a photography trip to Northern Ireland. Both are big whole brain thinkers. Randy has a technical background in sound engineering, and he loves art. Carolyn is a designer and artist, and she has supported important scientific endeavors in her career. Both had worked with the early pioneers of the Internet, people like Bob Kahn, Vinton Serf, and Danny Cohen. They spoke of their involvement with them more as collective exploits, not solo contributions. Our conversations are memorable for me because of their animation and laughter, not so much the details. You might think this was the Guinness talking, but I would say it’s more what engagement and meaning sound like. When I mentioned I was thinking about writing this book, it hit me - the appreciation of meeting interesting and interested people like the Coles. These conversations went on for days. Carolyn, Randy, and I came together for a photography trip. We left with bigger hearts. When you’re engaged, the rest takes care of itself.1
Types of Relationships
Relationships are types of encounters that vary by purpose, depth, and duration:
• Contacts are loose connections with infrequent communications. Contacts come and go.
• Connections are stronger and more enduring interactions with individuals inside and outside your organization. Connections form your network—for solving problems, getting input and feedback, sharing ideas, making things happen, navigating the bureaucracy, looking for new opportunities, getting tickets to Hamilton, or making other connections.
• Relationships are people with whom you share a deep connection. They are active participants, not bystanders, of a unique group with whom you surround yourself.
Building relationships may not be your full-time job, but it is a full-time responsibility. These are people in the critical path of your work, influencers, decision makers, and career connections.
People in the Critical Path of Your Job
Earlier I discussed the importance of creating a context for your position by identifying the critical “who.” People in the critical path of a project or assignment are what Professor Ibarra describes as “an operational network,” created to provide reliability for an immediate purpose. These relationships tend to be instrumental—a means to an end. Some people experience the “yuk” factor because the requests appear self-serving and manipulative.2 Over time this group of individuals change, but the need to identify them and build solid working relationships never goes away.
Work-Related Influencers and Decision Makers
Influencers are important connections at all levels of the organization. They have the reputation for making things happen, and knowing what’s going on—particularly behind the scenes. They are usually no more than two or three degrees of separation from anything important. These are people others listen to, respect, admire, seek out for advice, and “get the scoop.” They have the political clout to make things happen. Decision makers can also be influencers, but the major difference is decision makers have control over the allocation of resources—in other words, money and people. Knowing who they are is the first step; getting visibility to them, second; getting to know them and them getting to know you, third.
Learning how to make connections is an important part of building a base of competence and credibility. To discover who are the influencers and decision makers, begin with people you know to identify those at the center of the action, the people whose names keep popping up. Think about these connections in the context of the short and long terms. The short term is the operational network that Ibarra describes. The longer term is building relationships when there are no problems to resolve or issues to address. Even if they are at different levels of the organizational hierarchy today, you could be colleagues tomorrow. Recently, I had dinner with a friend who played tennis in college, then continued to play when he enlisted in the Navy. He and his doubles partner won a big tournament. The partner was the aide to the admiral. The admiral was also a tennis player. You see where this is headed?
Tips for Connecting
1. If you’re looking to make a connection with an influencer or decision maker you don’t know very well or at all, you need a reason to speak with them.
2. You may need an introduction from someone you know.
3. Start with some current or relevant situation, like getting their perspective on a current project or talking about the impact of a proposed change.
4. Keep in mind these people are important, and their time is important. You are not there to ask them to solve your problems. You are not there to let them know how good you are or recite your resume. You’re seeking their perspective and counsel. There’s a difference.
5. Engage them in a succinct and meaningful conversation.
6. They talk, you listen.
7. You ask questions, they respond, you clarify.
8. They teach, you learn.
9. You thank them. This is how relationships start.
From that point forward, it’s up to you to nurture the relationship. These are not forced encounters, nor do they have to be formal. Think of this as a discovery process, like in the Learning Lab, a time to learn about people. It starts with a specific situation and builds out to broader discussions of someone’s perspective and understanding for what’s important to them. You’ll learn more about them, and they’ll learn more about you. It’s a process without shortcuts. Anyway, what’s the rush? These conversations are investments, not achievements.
Traditional Career Connections
• Your manager
Having a great manager is not always a choice. It’s a little bit like choosing your in-laws—they come with the package. When you have a great manager, they will provide you with feedback and get you in front of important people in the organization. And if you don’t have a great manager? Keep your head down and look busy. Avoid eye contact when possible.
• Mentors
Often I am asked about the need for a mentor. Mentors can be helpful, especially early on in a career. The key is how well they understand what’s important to you. Mentors don’t grow on trees. By nature, they are good teachers and coaches. If you don’t know someone who fits that role, use your network to find that person. It does not need to be someone you’re currently working with. Just be sure this is someone you can trust.
• Sponsors
From a long-range perspective, a key individual for career success is a sponsor. A sponsor is not the same as a mentor. Sponsors are at high levels in the organization. They are personally familiar with your capabilities and track record. They have the political clout to increase your visibility across the organization and position you for opportunities for greater impact.
• “Weak ties” with big potential
This one is a little less conventional. Remember those contacts that came and went? They could be your best sources for new opportunities. This is David Burkus’s argument. When you only spend time inside your group or function, the relatively of what’s known—to you, about you, and about others—is high. However, when you turn to “weak ties,” people like college associates, past work colleagues, chance meetings with strangers at an event, or friends of friends you didn’t know, they can be sources for new information and opportunities, and they are more plentiful than your stronger connections. “Weak ties make strong connections.”3
Ladderburning Requires Relationships
All these relationships have the potential to move your career in different directions. Ladder Climbing operates on the belief that the next job is above you, assuming it’s still there when you’re ready and available. Ladderburners have a different approach. They think big. They think that doing something meaningful outweighs waiting to move up. All relationships, even those set in a traditional Ladder Climbing context, can be gateways.
Conducting a Relationship-Building Clinic
Marian Sheridan
Retired School Administrator
Ladderburners understand that relationships are not organizationally confined. It’s the belief that every interaction and every conversation have the power to connect. That’s the philosophy of Marian Sheridan.4 Marian is a recently retired school administrator, and she credits her success with many community-based projects like a young women’s empowerment program, Girls on the Run,5 to her experience and background in public health. She operates with the mindset that every interaction has the power to connect. I’ve watched how she engages with people one-on-one, even if it’s with somebody she doesn’t know. Her approach is to tie and bring people together when something important needs to happen. Marian knows that every conversation counts and every relationship has the power to convert meaning into action. These conversations, while second nature to her, are the type of Learning Lab experience people need to practice and acquire.
The pursuit of work with meaning and purpose leads you to interested and interesting people. It’s not so much that you share the same background or experience. It’s more that you’re equally committed to seeking a level of enthusiasm for something important.
Where are these people? Everywhere. It’s your responsibility to find and connect with them. It’s not their responsibility to find you. Find them to find meaning.
Food for Thought
1. Building relationships represents the “fork in the road” for those Climbing the Corporate Ladder. Rather than bundling up personal accomplishments in the hope of moving higher, Ladderburners focus attention on building relationships, looking for opportunities to work with interesting people, wherever they are, wherever that might take them.
2. Relationships are transformative because of their potential to set your career in the direction—whatever that might look like—you aspire to.
3. Unsure about what you “really” want to do with a career? Think of the relationships that are meaningful to you. What about these people and the nature of the relationship reflect on what’s important to you?
4. Don’t have this conversation in your head. Talk it out. Listen. Think. Then have an internal dialogue.
5. Instrumental relationships, built to improve your ability to get results, can make up a large part of your network, particularly when you are starting out or starting at a new organization. You need these connections, particularly to get buy-in, commitment, resources, and my personal favorite, to work your way through and around the bureaucracy.
6. Deeper relationships start in any number of ways, including with contacts and connections over time. Sometimes, these are “chance” meetings, including with friends of friends. These are emotional connections that endure over time. Knowing what connects you is a clue to what’s critical to you.
7. There’s no shortcut to building relationships. The people who do this best—like Marian Sheridan—strive to make every conversation and interaction count.
8. If you feel building relationships takes too much time and is not what you were hired to do, you will limit your forward movement. You will be isolated, passed over for promotions, and watch doors shut right before your very eyes.
Resources
To get good advice and detailed information on the value of networks and how to build them, go to Burkus, Friend of a Friend, and Ibarra, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader.
