13
GET READY SOCIALLY
We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Humans were not made to live and work alone. They were designed for the companionship of other humans. No individual ever built a civilization. Every society has been built upon the cooperative efforts of many individuals. It follows, then, that individuals succeed by working with other individuals. You will be unable to execute your action plans alone. You will need the help of others, and you will have to build upon the foundations of many others.
American philosopher Abraham Maslow developed a pyramid to illustrate the basic human needs. At the base of that pyramid are the bare essentials for human existence: food, clothing, and shelter, which he calls “physiological needs.” These are the fundamental needs humans strive to meet. Once we have satisfied these basic needs, we move up to the next level of the pyramid: safety needs. These represent the things we need to secure ourselves against threats to our existence. Once we have achieved security, we begin working on the next level of human needs: the need to belong to a social group. The fourth level is the achievement of ego satisfaction, or self-esteem. The final level is “self-actualization”—becoming all that we can be.
Notice that social needs are near the foundation of the pyramid, just above food, clothing, and shelter, and the need for safety. You can satisfy them by focusing your attention on these areas:
ACQUIRE SOCIAL BALANCE
Being socially balanced means being a participating member of society. Society is made up of a wide variety of social units. The basic unit is the family, but beyond the family doorstep lie the schools, the community, the governmental programs and agencies, and all the organizations that hold the community together.
These social units provide you with important services, but they themselves need to be nourished by human efforts. A person who is socially unbalanced takes from this menu of social services without giving anything in return. Such individuals remain perpetually dependent on society, but they exist only at the subsistence level. They’re like the slave in the parable of Jesus, who took the talent from his master, hoarded it away, and realized no benefit from it.
A balanced individual learns that society repays those who contribute to it. Those who sow abundantly reap abundantly.
SOCIAL BALANCE AT HOME
Social balance begins at home. We all know workaholics who spend twenty-four hours a day thinking about their careers, their businesses, or their hobbies, neglecting to nurture the human relationships that provide the foundation for happiness.
Sometimes marriage partners become so absorbed in their careers that they neglect each other. Their marriages slowly dissolve until one day they realize that nothing is left but a hollow shell.
One executive, who was in a business partnership with her husband, described the process this way:
Our family income was going up every year. We were considered
the new wonder kids in our town. . . . We moved into a
bigger house. It should have been great, right? But we never
sought each other’s company. We were already saturated. We
were both working hard, but I was in the worst mode of crisis
management. Sometimes I couldn’t get home until 7 or 8 P.M....
There was a fundamental moment in this time when I chose
the business over the marriage. I just didn’t know it, and if I
could go back in time, I would do it differently.... The strain,
the urgency to move the business forward, and the neglect of
the family seem to be endemic to entrepreneurs.1
Some people obsess on television or sports instead of the job. The results are similar. A family is like a houseplant, in need of regular watering. People who are truly successful take time to nurture their relationships with spouses and children. The payoff is in solid support from the horne front when things get tough in business and careers.
If you consistently miss your children’s plays and recitals, never show up at sports events in which they take part, and have no time to get to know their teachers, you need to restore some social balance. If you never have time to sit down and talk heart-to-heart with your spouse, if you consistently forget birthdays and anniversaries, and feel too harried and tense to say “I love you,” you need to restore some balance.
Mealtime is an excellent time to knit family relationships. Playwright Israel Horovitz recalled fond memories of Sunday dinners in his family, when relatives and friends were always invited over. “My mother’s side of the family told jokes, and we all rolled up and laughed,” he said. “My father’s side sat quietly and told impressive success stories.” In his own marriage, Horovitz continued the pattern.2
The family dinner has been neglected all too often in the rush of modem society. Working mothers often lament that they don’t have the time to interact with their families over dinner. One survey showed that 77 percent of working mothers do all the work in preparing dinner and 64 percent do all the cleaning up. Unfair? You bet, but it also represents a missed opportunity. Bringing husband and kids into the kitchen is an excellent way for the family to share time and activities.
Surveys also show that among families with children under eighteen at horne, 42 percent leave the television set on while eating. No wonder family members feel isolated from each other. Mealtime is an excellent time for family members to share the interesting and exciting things that happened in their lives during the day. Local and national issues can be discussed, with children being invited to submit their own views on matters of interest to them.
Unmarried people, too, need family closeness. If you’re unmarried and living away from your parents, you can still cultivate a closeness with friends and relatives who have had a significant impact on your life. If you don’t have such friends, go out and cultivate them!
SOCIAL BALANCE IN THE COMMUNITY
Beyond the family lies the community. Successful people make it a point to become active in their communities. They join service clubs and volunteer organizations. They coach community-league athletic teams. They become active with Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and other youth organizations.
They also take the lead in addressing local needs. Every community has needs that are not being met. There may be an environmental problem that needs addressing. There may be a need for a shelter for battered spouses. The young people may need more recreational facilities. Your neighborhood may need to unite to meet a challenge from undesirable development on its fringes.
If you perceive such a need, become involved in addressing it. Your efforts in community service will mark you as a concerned leader and will pave the way toward success in other endeavors. It will give you a sense of connectedness with others that will go a long way toward satisfying your need for social balance.
Authors James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner polled more than seventy-five hundred American business managers and asked them what qualities they admired in their leaders. Among them were the abilities to inspire, to understand the perspectives of others, to stand up for what you believe, and to speak with passion. If you cultivate these qualities, you will be known to the people in your community, and they will look to you for leadership.
The local community is the forge in which national and world leaders are shaped and formed. Even the path to the White House starts in your own neighborhood. Harry Truman was a postmaster before he was president. Lyndon Johnson was a schoolteacher. William McKinley was both a postal clerk and a country schoolteacher. All of them rose to the presidency by becoming actively involved in their communities.
In today’s society, no one has to be a loner. But to establish social connections, you have to reach out. Usually, you don’t have to reach very far. Find an interest that appeals to you and look for an organization built around that interest. Join it, and you will soon find yourself in the midst of a social network.
Service clubs such as Rotary, the Lions, Kiwanis, Sertoma, Jaycees, and the Civitans offer excellent opportunities for meeting other success-oriented people, cultivating their friendships, and creating networks of supporters to help you as you move toward the goals you have set.
Many people looking for meaning in their lives find it by losing themselves in causes greater than they are. Look for a cause that touches you deeply. It may involve preserving a local historical treasure from the wrecking ball. It may mean creating jobs for people who are unemployed or underemployed. It may be finding solutions to problems of drug abuse and violence in your community. It may be improving the school system. Worthy causes abound. Find one that inspires you and lose yourself in it.
Keep matters in perspective, of course. If the values you identified in Chapter 3 include a warm and stable family, you’ll need to give that top priority. But strong family values thrive best in a stable, supportive community, and such a community can’t exist without the efforts of people willing to devote themselves unselfishly to causes greater than they are.
SOCIAL BALANCE IN THE WORKPLACE
Social connections are important in the workplace as well. I’m not talking about conversations around the water cooler or in the company cafeteria. Successful people become known throughout the organization in which they work. Their interests extend beyond their own workstations. They find out what happens upstream from them and downstream. They know the people in other departments and at other levels. They not only know their jobs; they also know the company. The people who work for a company need to have the same sense of belonging as do people who live in a community. A business organization is, after all, a community of people working toward common objectives.
In a healthy work environment, people feel a loyalty toward the company akin to the loyalty they feel toward their hometowns or their alma maters. This feeling of community in the workplace should be one of the factors you look for when choosing a place to work. This loyalty toward the company will serve you well in the team environment that is becoming the norm for progressive business organizations. It will help you to see things from the company’s perspective and not just from the vantage point of your workstation.
It will also help you do the networking that often makes the difference between a star performer and a mediocre one.
Jerry Wind, a marketing professor at Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, asked three hundred business executives what skills were needed in the corporate workplace. At the top of the list was the ability to “figure out what information they need and where to get it.”3 A study conducted in the Bell Labs Switching Systems Business Unit supports Wind’s finding. It revealed that the difference between star performers and their run-of-the-mill colleagues did not lie in talent or intelligence. It lay in the work strategies they followed. Among the most important differences between the standouts and the mediocre performers was their concept of networking. Both the star performers and the mediocre ones recognized the advantage of sharing their expertise with others who needed it and asking for help when they needed the expertise of someone else.
Star performers, however, created their networks before they needed the expertise. Run-of-the-mill performers waited until they had a problem before looking for someone who could help them. Star performers also reached out for responsibility beyond their job descriptions, and were more willing to volunteer for additional activities. They were also more vigorous in promoting new ideas.
These are the same qualities that distinguish community leaders from passive followers. Look upon your business organization as a community, and cultivate relationships there the same way you would cultivate them among your neighbors and in the service organizations to which you belong.
SOCIAL BALANCE IN LEISURE ACTIVITIES
Not all our social connections have to be dead serious, of course. All of us need to feel that we’re part of a group in which we can relax and be ourselves. In the presence of like-minded friends, we can exchange pleasantries, talk shop, talk golf, or just keep silent if we want. Your colleagues at work can be a fertile source of friendships of this type, but don’t confine your friendships to the workplace. Cultivate friends in other walks of life. These friendships will broaden your perspective and open up new opportunities for growth.
Develop interests that have no direct connection with your job. Take up a hobby or a sport. Then seek out others who share your interest. You’ll soon begin to build a network of friendships that will prove valuable in ways you can’t anticipate.
BECOME A KNOWLEDGEABLE PERSON
Whether you’re in a business, family, or community setting, your social skills will be greatly enhanced if you become a cultivator of knowledge. I’m not suggesting that you memorize the encyclopedia. But a well-rounded fund of knowledge will help you become an interesting conversationalist, which in turn will help you cultivate the network of friends so vital to your success.
Take time out during the day to scan your local newspaper. Clip out or tear out articles of particular interest, so that you can go back and read them at your leisure. Read a national news magazine as well. Use television as an information as well as an entertainment medium. Televised news magazines and news commentaries can make fascinating as well as useful viewing.
Adopt a global perspective. The business environment is becoming more and more globalized, and companies will be seeking out people who understand other cultures. As Fortune magazine noted, thinking globally “rarely means mastering 22 ways to shake hands in Romania. More often, it’s a true appreciation of how differently—and equally well—things get done in other parts of the world, and how you had better take steps to understand this deeply.” Learn a foreign language. It’s a major asset if you plan to sell in other countries. But it’s also a plus in an increasingly multicultural America.”4
Whatever the goals you’ve set, remember that success can never be a solitary pursuit. The more people you know and the smoother your relations with them, the greater your chances of attaining your goals.