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Relationships That Rapidly Propel

In a nutshell: Supportive relationships are key to your success, and time spent in unproductive ones takes away from what’s really important. Figuring out who does what in your relationship map will help bring you clarity. It will make it easier to reduce the time spent with people who bring you down and spend more time with the people who really matter to you.

The Ties That Bind

Our relationships with others are very diverse. They run the gamut from casual to essential, from neutral to passionate, and from supportive to destructive. They also change over time. We ourselves change over time, and our needs and desires are often different at various points in our life.

We tend to weigh ourselves down with relationships we stay in for far too long that no longer fulfill any need. But it’s extremely hard to extricate ourselves from them. They cover our lives like thickly growing ivy on a house that we don’t even notice after a while.

I know a number of people who realized that they were in friendships that had run their course and no longer provided any pleasure. In some cases, both sides made an effort to re-ignite what had once been an important relationship. But these attempts were invariably out of sync and couldn’t halt a natural evolution. The basis of the relationship was no longer there. They needed to walk away.

Instead, they would meet up, have unsatisfying conversations and schedule another lunch or dinner, often canceling the appointment several times to put off what would not be a fun event in lives that were short of free time.

They epitomized The New Yorker cartoon by Robert Mankoff of a man standing in his office making an appointment with someone over the phone:

“No, Thursday’s out. How about never—is never good for you?”¹

We all do this. We spend time with people when we really don’t want to and don’t get enough time with others we thoroughly enjoy. Sometimes it’s about honoring a value we have around family, loyalty, or commitments. We go to see that aging uncle because we think it’s important to take care of people in their old age, even though it’s a drag to get out to him and the trip takes up half the day.

We sometimes do things we don’t want to, a secondary choice, in order to support something that’s really important, a primary choice. In this case traveling to visit that uncle is a secondary choice, because it supports our value around caring for elderly relatives, the primary choice.

What’s interesting is that in both cases we are making a choice. We don’t have to visit that uncle. Lots of people don’t visit their elderly relatives. Knowing that it’s a choice relieves the sense of burden and we now enjoy the trip because we remember why we are doing it: to support a value that is important to us.

But what about the other relationships, the ones in which there is no higher value being served? Why do we continue to spend time with people who bring us down or simply don’t bring anything? These are the ties that bind, in a bad way.

Often the hardest of these ties to change are the familial ones. It’s easy for me to suggest you stop spending time with people who bring you down, but what if that person is your mother?

You’re not alone in having difficult relationships with people you still have to see or want to see, be they siblings, parents, or other family members. One way to approach it is to have a relationship with them as they are and stop wishing they would be different.

That means adjusting your expectations to the reality of the people you’re dealing with. They have probably been consistent in their behavior for years, yet you still expect them to be someone else. Try having a relationship with them based in the reality of who they are. That might mean finally cutting back the amount of time you see them or speak with them. Or it might mean changing the subject so you don’t end up so furious after time spent with them. If you want to maintain the relationship, find something you can enjoy together, cut out the rest, and remember you’re making a choice.

Map the Landscape

When I worked at the World Bank, I was responsible for external communications at its private sector investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IFC’s mandate was to support economic growth and job creation in developing countries. It did this by investing in businesses large and small around the world and by encouraging other investors to join in financing those businesses. Many of these companies were operating in very tough environments where regular banks didn’t want to lend.

Often, the projects they wanted to finance were long-term infrastructure investments that needed patient capital and plenty of expertise to manage their environmental and social impact. That’s where the IFC came in. It didn’t need to make a quick return on its investment, and it had world-class experts to help mitigate the impact of large pipelines and power plants.

The environmental issues were often challenging, like making sure the water that comes out of a pulp and paper plant into a local river is as clean or cleaner than the water that went into it upstream. But the social issues were just as important. It was imperative to make sure that the local communities were not adversely impacted by a project and that they benefited in some way.

Often, that was in the form of jobs and being part of the “supply chain” to the project. If the local towns and villages could provide labor, food, or transport services to the plant, the company would save money by not importing from the capital and the locals benefit from increased incomes. This was especially important in remote communities where jobs were few and far between. It also meant that relations between the company and the local community were based on a mutual interdependence and likely to be constructive. Many companies had seen the cost of not having good relations with local communities in the form of sabotage, protests, and road blockages that could shut a plant down and cost the company millions of dollars.

To make sure they got this right, the social and environmental experts at the IFC would draw up what they called a “stakeholder map.” This was a document that catalogued all of the different groups impacted by the project in some way. This could include everyone from the central government to local councils or village elders, residents, farmers, workers, activist groups, religious organizations, local businesses, and schools. They were called stakeholders and each was impacted differently by the project and had a different level of influence. Some were loud and vocal but not actually affected by the project, and others could be easily overlooked but would be significantly impacted or should stand to benefit from the project.

The experts at the IFC would “map” the stakeholders to make sure they understood the scale of the impact on them and make sure no one was being overlooked and that the relationships with each were being appropriately managed.

You are not trying to manage the impact of a hydroelectric power plant in Africa, but surprisingly the same approach works just as well with your relationships.

You can map the quality of your relationships against their importance to you. That will help you see where you should be spending your time.

If it helps to think about influence rather than importance, do that. Many of our professional relationships are easier to see through this lens. You’ll also notice that some people may not seem important, but they have outsize influence; take the assistant to your boss, for example and look at the sample on page 121 that I have created.

Now place the people in your life in one of those four quadrants. Some will have high influence and you have a good relationship. That’s great. With others you have a great relationship but they are not very influential. For example, I love my mail carrier, Brian, and he is fond of me, but ultimately he doesn’t impact my life that much. You’ll hopefully find any truly hostile people in the lower-left quadrant, low quality of relationship and low influence.

Now bring your attention to whoever is in the top left quadrant. These are the people with whom you don’t have a great relationship but they have influence over your life. This is where you have work to do. You ideally want to move them into the top right corner. Think about the ways you might improve your relationship with them or, if that seems unlikely, see if you can remove yourself from their orbit to reduce their influence.

Values Come in Tiers

Companies talk a lot nowadays about their values. There is an entire industry in helping companies figure out their values and develop mission statements. There is a belief that articulating key elements of your corporate culture helps employees be more engaged and productive.

Companies also use things like mission statements and values to impress upon customers what they stand for. Google has the “Google Truths,” for example. The truths include statements like: “Focus on the user and all else will follow,” “It’s best to do one thing really, really well,” and “You can be serious without a suit.”² GE has Growth Values: external focus, clear thinker, imagination and courage, inclusiveness and expertise. And Mars Incorporated has Five Principals: quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency, and freedom.

Issues arise for companies when the stated values are not what employees or customers experience. It’s fair to say that companies like Enron and Countrywide Financial had values they proclaimed to adhere to and patently didn’t. In the fall of 2016, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million for fraudulently opening millions of accounts customers didn’t ask for or need. Yet, Wells Fargo proclaims that “ethics” and “what’s right for customers” are two of its five core values. When employees know that the corporate culture internally doesn’t match up with what is espoused externally, it creates conflict and generally customers experience that conflict. It’s hard to fake a corporate culture.

The same thing is true for individuals. You are much better off when you are aware of your personal values and they align with what you’re doing professionally. If not, you experience the same sense of conflict as those employees inside a company where the values are not reflected in reality.

The following is an exercise to discover your values. This is much easier with a partner.

Exercise: Jot down five things that are very important to you. Then, taking one of the five things at a time, ask yourself why they are important. For each answer, ask why is that important, and again for that answer ask why it is important until you get to a dead end and are answering “It just is.”

Here’s an example. If “money” is one of the things you list as important to you, ask why. You might have a number of different answers that lead you to a different underlying value.

Person #1

• Pick one of the five things that is important to you: Money.
• Why is money important to you? So I can take care of my family.
• Why is it important to take care of your family? Because I want them to be well taken care of and for us to be able to do what we want.
• Why is that important to you? Because I want us to have choices.
• Why is that important? It’s really important to have control and freedom to choose what we do.
• Do you think that’s a core value for you? Yes.
• What is a word or phrase that expresses that value? Freedom.

For someone else the same word could lead in a different direction.

Person #2

• Pick one of the five things that are important to you: Money.
• Why is money important to you? I don’t want to worry about it.
• Why is it important to you not to worry about money? Because I don’t like to worry about not having enough money.
• Why is that important to you? Because I like to feel secure and know I can pay for what I need.
• Why is that important? Because I like to know I will be okay even if things change.
• Do you think that’s a core value for you? Yes.
• What is a word or phrase that expresses that value? Security.

Figuring out your values is a really useful exercise because it can shed light on why you have difficulty in some relationships compared to others. Often when we get into conflict with others, it’s because our values are not aligned.

For example, if our boss drops something on us at the last minute we will react differently if we value structure or enjoy spontaneity. For some people it’s enormously stressful to have their workday derailed and for others it gives an energy boost and feeling of being useful. Obviously how the request is made also plays a big role.

Look back at your relationship map and see how some of those difficult relationships might be due to differing values. It’s not that you should only have relationships with people who are likeminded in terms of values, but it helps us understand why things go wrong when values are not aligned.

If you find that you’re working in an environment with very different values to the ones you hold, recognize that it can be very stressful. It’s not easy for you to change your values, and why would you? But it’s even harder to change the values of the organization around you. You can either make your peace with these differences or look to make a move.

Sponsors and Mentors

Sponsors and mentors are different, and you need both. A mentor is someone senior to you at your company (or in another organization), to whom you go to for advice. They don’t have supervisory responsibility for you.

A sponsor is someone senior who supports you in your career and can take action directly on your behalf or lobby for you to be promoted or be given new assignments. They may be your supervisor or above you in the reporting line. Or they may be outside your reporting line but have authority in the business.

A mentor is really helpful but a sponsor has more power. That’s why it’s important to have both.

Many firms now have formal mentoring programs. If those exist, check them out and see if colleagues have found them valuable. If the mentoring program holds events, these can be useful places for networking with peers and senior colleagues alike.

In formal programs, you may choose your mentor or they may be assigned to you. That can work out well or not. As the mentee, you need to be the one to reach out and be persistent in setting up time to meet with your mentor. Bring specific issues to those meetings; ask them about what they learned in the course of their career and so on. As the mentor, you always gain far more than you think in these relationships and often more than the mentee! You see the company from a different perspective, gain intelligence about what’s happening in other parts of the organization, and ensure that your own network expands rather than shrinks over time.

A mentor/mentee relationship is like a friendship with an older sibling except it’s at work, and you like them.

Sponsorship is a different kettle of fish. Here you are building a relationship with someone who can promote you, protect you, and progress your career. It’s almost like an artist having a patron. As the person being sponsored, your job is to be loyal and to make them look good whenever you can. Their job is to nurture talent that’s loyal to them and good for the company.

That can sometimes get out of whack when the goals of the sponsor are not aligned with the goals of the company. Then you end up with tribes loyal to different patrons who themselves are squabbling and using the members of their tribes as pawns in internecine corporate warfare.

But let’s assume that’s not the case where you work.

Do you have a sponsor already? Does your boss act as your sponsor or not? Who might be a good sponsor for you?

The sponsor–sponsored relationship isn’t always explicit. There is more upside to it than with a mentor, as it can result in promotions, pay increases, increased responsibility, and so on. There is also plenty more downside risk associated with sponsorship. That means when your sponsor is doing well, you may be doing well; but when they are not, you go down with them.

I knew a global media company in New York where patronage was well established and people were identified as belonging to one or another of half a dozen senior players. Colleagues would be identified as being “one of Michael’s people,” and the like. Whenever a top patron was toppled in a reshuffle, an entire team of people below them would go also, or find themselves in much diminished roles.

Map out your mentors and sponsors. Use an x/y axis like the one on page 121 to track the level of influence of your mentors and sponsors and the quality of your relationship with them. Make sure you have some people in that top right quadrant: high-influence and high-quality relationships!

Purposeful Networking

Coaching clients of mine frequently tell me they hate networking. They think it’s a waste of time. They despise the people who do it a lot. They think it’s about politics and sucking up. They think it’s about golf.

Here is why networking is important: It’s part of your job. For those of you who think you don’t have time to network, it actually makes you more effective and allows you to do more in less time. Think about it. You can get more done if you have strong relationships across a wide swathe of the business than if you are a stranger at the other end of an email exchange.

You can work across teams for which you don’t have authority more easily. You can get intelligence and advice more quickly. And you can navigate bumps and disagreements more successfully when you know people well and they know and trust you. All of that makes you more valuable to the business and better able to contribute.

So now that you’re over that hurdle, who should you be networking with?

The single most important aspect of professional networking is being purposeful about it. Networking is about having a network of strong relationships, not about golf. You need to think about why you want to network and that will help you figure out how. What’s your objective? Do you want credit for your team for something they did? Do you need more resources? Want a promotion?

Write down your objective. Now make a list of the people who need to be influenced on that issue. That’s your target audience. Now expand it a little by listing some of the key people who influence them. Don’t forget that these can be their subordinates. Look for gatekeepers like administrative assistants and resource holders like budget officers. This expanded group is your target audience. Keep them in mind. Now let’s move on to how to network.

Don’t overthink it. Build relationships. Provide value. Brag a little. That’s all you need to do. Be clear and straightforward about what you’re doing.

Find out what’s on the other person’s agenda. Ask them what they are having difficulty with and see if you can help. Find out what’s important to them and remember to ask about that.

Provide something of value, some intelligence from your side of the business, a relevant article you’ve read, or something practical that they need or would appreciate.

Women, stop asking your male colleagues about their families. That may be a good way to build a relationship with some female colleagues, but you’re generally better off asking guys what they’re working on. Then brag a little. Men think this is completely normal. That’s why they brag so often to you.

Don’t worry about how it comes across. Tell them about some minor coup or about how well your team did this quarter. Say “we” in your statements if you’re worried about being too boastful.

Show up early at events and receptions. Force yourself to talk to some of the people in your targeted group. Ask them about themselves, give them something of value, drop in some facts about the good stuff you’re doing, then go home. You’ve been networking. Job done.