“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.”

Anthony J. D’Angelo, writer

Technology is pretty amazing, isn’t it? If you want to get in touch with someone, you can send an email or call on the office phone, the home phone, the mobile phone. Maybe see each other via a video link or using a webcam. Even send an instant message on MSN Messenger, ‘poke’ each other on Facebook or update your Twitter feed about what you’re up to. The list goes on.

Yet humans evolved to deal with each other face to face, eye to eye. We’re social animals. We have an in-built need to get together, to shake hands, hug, kiss, pat each other on the back, whisper in each other’s ears. We actually have centres in our brains that are specifically designed to recognise human faces – that part of the brain lights up whenever we see a friendly face.

But we don’t all need people to the same extent. You probably know some people who are never at home, who are constantly going to parties and evenings out, socialising and networking with friends, colleagues and clients. Even when they’re at home, they’re entertaining, having friends round for drinks, dinners or to watch the big match together.

You probably also know people who prefer to keep to themselves, who shy away from the spotlight and prefer the company of their good friends rather than constantly having to meet different people.

These two extremes represent the two ends of the Affiliation dimension – the extent to which you enjoy and are energised by spending time with people. You probably already have a very good sense of where you sit on that continuum.

What kind of person are you?

You’re probably already familiar with the concept of the Affiliation dimension and the two ends of its spectrum. Low-Affiliation individuals are naturally more introverted: High-Affiliation people are essentially more extroverted.

Our natural levels of Affiliation are down to how much buzz – or, to be more precise, physiological arousal – we have in our brains. Individuals who are low for Affiliation have plenty of internal buzz, so don’t seek much stimulation from other people. Individuals who are higher for Affiliation may have less buzz in their brains and so look for ways to gain that energy from the people around them.

The Low-Affiliation person: self-sufficient and independent

You’re the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because you get to produce your best work. You can think, muse and reflect.

It’s not that you lack social skills, you just take pleasure in having your own space. You find being with people for too long somewhat draining. They disrupt your train of thought, bugging and bothering you with questions, comments, noise. They prevent you from doing the stuff that needs doing. Getting away from them allows you to recharge. In a way, you are your own best companion.

You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people. Plus, you’re a great listener – you don’t feel the need to talk about yourself and monopolise the conversation all the time. You simply prefer to spend time with your circle of closest friends. You take more pleasure from getting to know a smaller group of people intimately than in flitting from one new person to the next. Perhaps you shun the superficial quality of those kinds of interactions.

When you have work to do, you can get your head down and focus ruthlessly on it. You thrive when you can work on your own or with a smaller group of people rather than an endless procession of new faces. You enjoy the technical and mental challenges of your work.

You don’t get distracted easily. You don’t wonder what other people are doing or get drawn into idle conversation and gossip. The work won’t do itself, right?

The High-Affiliation person: the unreserved extrovert

You’re drawn to people, like a moth to a flame – you can’t help yourself. You probably find yourself striking up conversations with complete strangers on trains and planes or when you’re caught in a boring queue. If you see someone wearing something you admire or doing something you’re intrigued by, you have no compunction about talking to them. When you interact with others, you feel alive. You find it easy to smile and love to laugh. People say that you’re approachable, gregarious, outgoing, sociable, talkative, even entertaining.

Hell for you would be a job in which you were stuck in front of a computer with no one to talk to. You do your best work when you’re surrounded by people. When you can bounce ideas around, talk things through and share your thoughts there and then. Why send an email when you can speak to someone face to face?

You enjoy connecting with people, forging relationships. Others may shy away from meeting new people, but not you. You find new faces a challenge – you want to strike up conversations and see what you have in common. Fun for you is a roomful of people that you can delight and charm.

You’re happy to share information about yourself, your work, your loves and losses, and your life. You sometimes end up being the centre of attention when you get together with friends or colleagues. You don’t mean for it to happen, it just does.

Make the most of yourself – for Low-Affiliation people

As someone who appreciates having your space, you enjoy thinking, working and being on your own. Thing is, even the most independent of us need other people occasionally.

Imagine that someone phones you up. You met once, briefly, at a party about six months ago. You’re slightly surprised to hear from him, but you chat for a bit and he tells you that he and his wife have three kids. You didn’t know he had children – you obviously didn’t talk for very long at that party. He asks you a couple of questions. How are you doing? Up to much? Then he asks, ‘Er, I was wondering if you could babysit little Thomas on Saturday night?’

How would you feel?

I don’t know about you, but most people I’ve posed this scenario to say they’d be more than a little annoyed. That this person is taking advantage. So most people would say no to the request from the ‘friend’.

Let’s flip the situation now. Say you’re asking a neighbour or a colleague to help you out. You feel that the request is perfectly sensible, but does your neighbour or colleague see it the same way? Your colleague is probably busy and may have other people asking for help. Does he see you as a buddy or merely someone who works at the same place? Same goes for your neighbour. Does she see you as a friend she can chat to and rely on or simply a person who happens to share the same geography?

You’re probably reading this book because you want to achieve more in life. Well, the truth is that we need people; we need relationships to succeed and we must build those relationships before we need them. If we go to people only to seek their help, we come across as desperate, as beggars – just people they know, not true friends. Why should they help you when they could be helping their friends?

The good news is that you can build rock-solid relationships. No matter how few or how many friends you have, you can gather more. One research study tells us that both extroverts and introverts can be good salespeople. However, introverts have to behave like extroverts in order to succeed. If some people can do it, why not you too?

Understand human nature

Suppose you receive an email from a customer that starts, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve dispatched my order yet.’ What exactly does he mean? Is he a little annoyed or downright angry? Being sarcastic or merely playful? Or is he trying to say that he understands you’re busy? Without tone of voice to guide us, we can easily reach the wrong conclusions.

Now reverse the situation. Because if you’re sending lots of emails, you can be certain that it’s your clients, colleagues and friends who will be wondering exactly what you mean.

When we can see someone face to face, we can pick up all sorts of clues that tell us what to say next. When a friend cringes or blushes, we know to shy away from a topic. When a client stays silent but nods approvingly, we know we’re on the right track. You can’t get any of that by email or even over the phone.

Humans have always been a social species. Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have clumped together in tribes. So our brains evolved to derive pleasure from the company of people we trust. And we tend to trust the people we’re near. This is because skin-on-skin contact – even in the form of something as simple as a handshake – releases oxytocin in the brain, a hormone that bonds people together. A mother cradling her baby receives a chemical hit of oxytocin. You get a boost of oxytocin when someone wraps you up in a bear hug, making you feel safe and loved when you’ve had a bad day. You can’t shake hands or exchange social kisses by email. You can’t give a hug or a pat on the back over the phone.

The most successful endeavours come about through cooperation, collaboration and teamwork. Whether at work or at home, you need to connect with people.

Press the flesh

If you’re a Low-Affiliation individual, you probably feel quite comfortable communicating via technology – email, phone calls and personal digital assistants (PDAs). But you must realise that other people need more.

To develop stronger relationships, to build that sense of liking and rapport, you need to meet more people in person. Make a conscious effort to get together more frequently than you feel you should. Because people who meet up get to know each other better. They like each other more and can’t help but want to do well by each other.

Thomas McConnell, an IT skills trainer, tells me:

Although I like to believe that, with me, what you see is what you get, I’ve realised that I need to connect more with clients. My natural inclination is to do everything by email, but clients like to put a face to a name. I’ve learned that meeting up is as much about chatting about nothing in particular and bonding as it is about exchanging information.

I caught up with one client to discuss amendments to a training manual we’re writing. We could have done it by phone or email, but as we chatted we happened to stray on to what else we’re up to. We threw ideas around and came up with a new project that will keep me employed for another three months.

I’m not asking you to create new friendships and relationships from nothing. Only to make an effort to spend more time with people who could enrich your work and life. Rather than telephoning a colleague on another floor, wander over and see if she can spare five minutes to talk your project through. Rather than having an email conversation with a friend about your favourite television programme, arrange to meet up and watch it together.

Back in the 1980s, management guru Tom Peters gave this idea a name in the workplace: MBWA – ‘Management By Walking Around’. That was in the days before email, the mobile phone, the Internet – the need is even more pressing in today’s world. And it’s not just the office where it counts. I therefore suggest a new acronym: SBMU – ‘Success By Meeting Up’. Whatever your aims in life, you will have a better chance at achieving them if you meet up (in the flesh) with others.

Technology helps us to shuffle facts and information around at digital speeds, but true relationship building is a contact sport.

I’ll give you a tiny example of how you can get started. Most people are too busy to take a proper lunch break. But change how you see your lunchtime. Instead of thinking of it as an intrusion into your day, see it as an opportunity to cement a relationship and remind people that you exist. Even if it’s merely popping out for 15 minutes to grab a sandwich together, make sure to do it with different people as often as you can.

Understand the need for networking

I answer questions as a business adviser on the website www.management-issues.com. One reader wrote:

I’ve never been the world’s most social person but I recently joined a new company where social networking seems almost as important as the job itself. I’d much rather get back to the wife and kids and it’s a long drive home. Any advice would be appreciated.

This was my reply:

Success in many organisations often comes down to social relationships. If your colleagues are socialising, they are building bridges and getting to know each other personally. And knowing someone personally is only a short step away from promoting them or entrusting them with that glamorous project overseas. Think about it: if you had to promote one of two people who were more or less equally qualified for a job but one of them was your best friend, who would you promote?

Outside of the workplace, Hilary Cottam, a founder of social welfare organisation Participle, believes that networking can help the elderly: ‘Many seniors worry about their safety, losing their money and what to do when the heating breaks down. The secret of a happy old age is getting on top of the everyday and being networked.’ Strong networks may benefit disenfranchised young people too. She writes on her website, ‘Behind every thriving young person is a personal support network: parents, family members, friends, teachers, pastors and so on.’

From young to old, from personal to professional, the secret of success lies in the fact that people want to help out people they like. If people don’t know you, how can they warm to you and want to help you out? When you have formal meetings with people, their defences are up; they’re sceptical and wary. It’s often when you’re chatting about nothing in particular, when you’re most relaxed, that you end up striking deals and getting friends and colleagues to offer advice and assistance. Whatever your goals, you need a network of people who like you.

If you’re looking for a job, you can ask friends to look out for opportunities, look over your CV, introduce you to the right people, run through mock interviews and give you advice. If you hanker after the boss’s job, your network can guide you, warn you about difficult colleagues, give you the inside scoop versus the official line and put a good word in with your boss. Even if you’re only looking for a good plumber or decorator for your home, would you rather look for one at random in the Yellow Pages or talk to the people you know and get a recommendation from someone you trust?

Get used to using people power

Networking and socialising at work aren’t simply distractions from the ‘real work’ of your job. I sometimes hear comments such as: ‘I don’t have enough time to do the job I’m paid for, let alone waste precious time trying to widen my circle of acquaintances.’ Ah, but focusing only on what you need to do today can blind you to the larger problems or opportunities that could come your way.

John Whiting, a partner at the world’s largest professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, tells me:

Of course you have to do your daily work, but many projects are too large and complex for just one person to deliver. Even if you’re very good at your job, you can’t know everything. Whether you work for a large firm or you’re on your own, sooner or later an issue will come up that you need help on. So you need people around you as back-up, a network. And for that you have to do some reaching out.

You can bounce ideas around with people in your network, cross-pollinate and test ideas. You can share information and insights, seek referrals and recommendations, even get moral support when times are tough. Whether you’re a small business owner on the lookout for new customers, a manager trying to make things happen, a parent looking for parenting advice or a retiree looking for ways to keep your mind sharp, networking is a fundamental part of succeeding in the twenty-first century.

Grow the number of people in your address book

Networking is both one of the most important and one of the most dreaded challenges facing people who want to achieve more. Thankfully, it’s also terribly misunderstood. It’s actually a lot easier than you think.

You may associate networking with milling about at conferences, trying to strike up conversations with complete strangers, stumbling to find common ground and pushing business cards at each other. But that’s so last season.

Networking is simply about creating relationships with people. Perhaps the best way to describe networking is that it’s about making friends – it should be called ‘netfriending’ rather than networking. Ultimately, you may wish to discuss work or exchange ideas and advice with them. But the first step is simply to have a conversation, to say ‘hello’.

Ever asked a friend to go for lunch or a drink? If you have, then you already have all the skills you need to network. Networking is simply socialising, growing your circle of friends.

Extend your reach far and wide

OK, so growing your network isn’t that harrowing, but I am often asked by managers and would-be entrepreneurs how they can meet more senior people. Here’s the good news: you don’t have to attend conferences and cocktail parties. One of the best tactics, as a networker in training, is to turn your personal interests into ways to meet people.

At a major accountancy firm, Joanne Croft wanted to build her network, but didn’t know how. Talking it through, she mentioned, with a little frustration, that there were only men’s football and rugby teams within the firm. So she put a notice on the company’s intranet asking if anyone would be willing to put together a women’s netball team. She found several dozen women willing to take part on at least an occasional basis. In the last year, the team has challenged similar teams from other firms, including lawyers and bankers. To make up numbers, the team has often had to draft in friends of friends, which has only added to the diversity and value of the network. What began as a sporting enterprise has coalesced into a surprisingly powerful network of women spread across not only the divisions and departments of the firm but also other organisations.

Even your personal attributes, such as your nationality, gender, sexuality, religion or political leanings, can prove fertile ground for building a network. If you want to grow your network, you only need to think about what you might have in common with people.

Nurture your network

Great, so you can grow your network now. But be aware that your network is a living, breathing entity – it needs tending and feeding to flourish.

Helen McNamara, marketing expert at SME Academy, tells me:

People are so busy that they forget about you. After meeting someone, it takes between five and seven points of contact to build trust and for people to remember you. You need to drip-feed contact with them so you become the first person they think of, whether you’re promoting yourself, your company, or whatever else.

Simply having names and phone numbers in your address book is not the same as having a network! You need to keep a hum of conversation going with people before you need them. One of the biggest mistakes would-be networkers make is to call on people within their networks only when they need them. But if you wait until you need people, such a call can smack of desperation and risk alienating people with whom you have only a passing relationship.

There are plenty of ways to keep that hum going within your network. For example, one of my clients, Anne-Marie Lindley, writes a restaurant review blog. Every two or three weeks, she invites a group of between six and eight people to dine with her on the pretext of judging the restaurant. The blog is a hobby – she doesn’t care how many readers she attracts. But it does serve as a compelling way to draw groups of unrelated people together.

A friend, Justin Goldberg, sets up lunches and after-work drinks for people who might be able to help each other. For example, he invited me to have a drink with him and a business journalist. As a corporate psychologist, I can come up with ideas for the journalist to write about. In return, the journalist can publicise the work that my colleagues and I do at Talentspace.

A network is, by definition, a lattice of people, a muddle of cross-connections. Why compartmentalise your colleagues, friends or acquaintances? If you introduce people to each other, they have no choice but to talk about you whenever they get together!

Make the most of yourself – for High-Affiliation people

A client of mine, Claudia, is the human resources director at a publishing company and she loves her job. She spends most of her time in meetings or coaching the members of her team. She loves the open-plan environment and recently argued against a motion to remodel the layout of the floor to give senior managers their own offices – she didn’t want to be shut away from her team. She hates going through her emails or poring over the quarterly budgets – boring! When she speaks, she barely pauses for breath. I’ve rarely met anyone so full of bright-eyed enthusiasm and fun. Now forty-something, she is out socialising with friends – often people from work many years her junior – probably three or four nights a week. Oh, and she’s the lead singer in a band in her spare time.

When I first coached her, she didn’t think she could end up becoming the centre of attention. Only with some encouragement did she concede that her liveliness and energy could overwhelm a conversation. She admitted that she spent more time talking than listening. Often without realising it, she probably talked over other people.

High-Affiliation people can’t help but shine brightly. Put you in a roomful of people and you’re happy to talk and entertain. Claudia got the highest possible score on the Affiliation dimension. You’re probably not as extreme, but might your challenges be similar?

Listen – no, really listen

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”

Ernest Hemingway, author

I remember taking home my first ever school report. I waited while my parents tore open the envelope and read my teachers’ comments. The consistent theme was: ‘Good work – would learn more by talking less.’

I get that you enjoy talking. You’re a born raconteur, a storyteller. But if you’re talking, you can’t find out the other person’s story, his or her personal interests and professional needs, dreams and aspirations, anything.

Or perhaps you listen, but only until you can jump in. I admit to hijacking a conversation occasionally. Someone will be talking and I’ll be dying to make a point or tell an anecdote about a funny situation that happened to me.

But listening isn’t simply about shutting your mouth. You probably know people who ‘listen’ while they’re watching the TV, reading a newspaper, checking their BlackBerry. When they do that, they are effectively saying, ‘You’re not important enough for me to give you my full attention, so keep talking and I’ll pick out the bits I find interesting.’ I don’t need to tell you not to be one of those types.

Even when we’re giving someone eye contact, we’re still not necessarily listening. It’s also about stopping that internal, silent mental chatter, the voice in your head that allows you to wonder what to have for dinner even while you’re nodding at the person in front of you.

You have a lot to say and you want to be helpful, funny, compassionate, empathetic. But without due care, you may occasionally blurt out your thoughts and cut people off before they’ve finished talking. You can take over before you’ve realised it. Not intentionally – it just happens.

It’s even more likely to happen when you’re in a position of power or authority. Researcher Ena Inesi at the London Business School tells me:

You have to understand where people come from to work together effectively. If you don’t take their perspectives, you will be asking them for things that they are less motivated by or less able to do.

So now’s the time to cultivate that silent and mysterious air about you. Because people with gravitas wait until the other person has finished. They allow themselves the luxury of silence – a few moments to think about how to respond. They are happy to leave a pregnant pause in the air rather than blurt out their immediate thoughts.

It takes effort to listen with respect, to get across: ‘I care enough about you as a person to give you my full attention.’ To build strong relationships with the people who matter, you must demonstrate that you can listen intently. Can you do it?

Listening to what’s not said

Listening is about more than simply paying attention and stopping whatever else you might want to be doing. That’s step one, the easy bit. Step two is about reading between the lines.

Good listening is as much about understanding what’s not being said as what is. Because people don’t always say what they mean. A friend can say, ‘I’m fine’ while his voice trembles and he avoids looking at you. A colleague can say, ‘It’s not a big deal’ about having just been promoted, even while she’s fighting to hold back a grin.

When people speak, what are the feelings behind their words? Perhaps they’re too shy to speak of their achievements and want you to praise them. Is it that their pride is under attack or they feel excited, insecure, unloved, angry, what?

Sure, you may have a perfectly valid point you want to get across. But the first rule of dialogue is this: to get other people to listen to you, you must first listen to them. More than that, you have to demonstrate that you listened. Paraphrase, summarise, check that you understand. Once you have understood not only their words but also their feelings, you put yourself in a commanding position to state your case.

Decide when to speak – if at all

So now it’s your turn to speak. Or is it?

Just because there’s a pause in the conversation doesn’t mean that it’s time for you to speak up. Quieter Low-Affiliation people may need a few moments to compose their thoughts before speaking again. Get used to giving people those few moments.

Even when the pause in the conversation turns into a lengthy silence, you may still not need to speak. Because the key issue is whether or not you have something that’s worthwhile enough to share.

I worked one on one with an executive who had been criticised during a recent performance review for being too hasty, for jumping to conclusions, for not listening. Working together, I helped him to conquer his instincts.

One day, he told me that he had made a breakthrough. He explained:

Before speaking, I take a moment to ask myself, ‘Would my comment get a thumbs-up from someone?’ If I can make a remark that genuinely moves the discussion on, I speak up. If what I want to say only showcases how clever I am, I shut up.

Another manager explained her tactic for becoming a better listener:

I still feel the desire to sort problems out for people and tell them what I’d do. But I’ve learned to hit the pause button and contribute by asking open-ended questions, such as, ‘What can I do to help?’ rather than telling others what I think they should do.

Before you speak, hit the pause button and ask yourself: ‘Am I going to get a thumbs-up?’

Turn your best intentions into action

The fact that you need to speak less and listen more probably isn’t news. I’m guessing you realise you need to listen more. Perhaps you’ve been told more than once that you broadcast more than you receive. Question is: Why don’t you do it?

The reality is that you forget, have other matters on your mind. You get distracted. All of this is perfectly understandable, but it’s not an excuse, a way to let yourself off the hook.

If it matters to you, you need to use reminders, colleagues and buddies to support you as you work on talking less and listening – really listening – more.

Here are some examples of how other people have done it:

• One client, Elizabeth, writes the word ‘Listen’ on the first blank page of her notebook before meetings.
• Another client, Mark, asked his personal assistant to rattle a jar every time he talks over her. Like a swear box, he puts £5 in each time he does it. To make it fun for his assistant, the proceeds don’t go to charity – Mark tells her to spend the money on whatever she likes.
• Niall has asked his colleague and close friend Alistair to count the number of times he interrupts the conversation during meetings. Three times and Niall buys all the drinks on the next Friday evening.

Give people space

You’re a people-person, aren’t you? Like most High-Affiliation individuals, you’re probably energised by spending time with people.

When you’re presented with an impasse or challenge, you’d like nothing better than to gather folks around you, talk it through and throw ideas around. When you have good news or a juicy piece of gossip, you want to share it straight away. Low-Affiliation people, however, prefer to reflect on problems and challenges on their own. They don’t want their work interrupted by your news or gossip or even your help.

So here’s a question for you. How many of the people around you are as people-loving and gregarious as you?

Consider the people you spend the most time with – your colleagues, your loved ones, your clients. Is your boss someone who might prefer to receive an update on your project by email rather than having you talk it through there and then? Is your other half someone who needs to recharge by watching TV in silence rather than talking about the day at work? Might any of the people in your life need a bit more time on their own – that is, away from you?

Be prepared to exile yourself. Leave others alone. Force yourself to shut your door or simply shut your mouth. Sit at your desk. Fight the urge to talk, share a joke and laugh together, gossip, ask what someone’s up to. The quieter people in your life will thank you for it, honestly.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

Some of us tilt towards the more solitary end of the Affiliation spectrum, others towards the party-throwing end. Here’s a quick summary of words and phrases to remind you of the key differences separating Low-Affiliation and High-Affiliation people.

Low Affiliation	High Affiliation
Tend to be a good listeners.	Tend to be good entertainers.
Prefer the company of familiar people.	Enjoy meeting new people.
Private about their thoughts and feelings.	Public about sharing thoughts and feelings.
Usually reserved, modest, quiet.	Typically gregarious, outgoing, loud.
Can work independently for long periods.	Can work with others for long periods.
Need to network more.	Need to listen more intently.

If you scored lower on Affiliation:

• Respect your nature. You are at your best when you can spend at least some time thinking, reflecting, working and being alone. As you consider options in work and life, steer clear of crowded environments and situations where you have to meet scores of new people every day.
• Remember that other people may need more face-to-face interaction than you. Commit to getting away from your desk, home, computer and phone – go and meet people, remind them what you have in common and cement your bonds with them.
• Appreciate that both your personal and professional life will be richer if you have a sturdy network of people to support, help and advise you. Think collaboration, cooperation, teamwork. Other people can help you to achieve more.
• Think of netfriending rather than networking. You already have the skills to make more friends. Use your interests and pursuits to seek out like-minded people.

If you scored higher on Affiliation:

• Play to your strengths. You come alive when people surround you, allowing you to talk through ideas, discuss problems and jointly come up with solutions. So make sure you pursue opportunities in life that allow you to be with people. Projects involving solitary reflection, reading and research are not for you.
• Make a concerted effort to listen. Stop doing anything else, hold back your thoughts and opinions, and give the other person the full weight of your attention.
• Get used to paraphrasing what other people are saying and feeling. This is a great trick to check that you’re not jumping to the wrong conclusions; you also demonstrate that you’re listening intently.
• Recognise that not everyone else needs to spend as much time in company as you. Back off. Give people time on their own to think and recharge their batteries.