Posts tagged ‘relationship’
Love in the Time of Economic Indicators
Matt’s in love.
This may seem pretty mundane given that it’s Spring and a young man’s fancy is supposed to turn that way. But Matt is a first class Explorer. Traveling man for a lot of his professional life. Not exactly a bon vivant – too hardworking for that – but not a cocooner by nature.
When the economy was rocking, Matt was an executive in the human capital industry, hitting the bright lights in the big cities with pretty young things and being surprised when nothing evolved into the long term. He’d lament, and I’d laugh and say, you need a Watchdog. An Explorer needs the one who’ll make a home base for him (or her), even if those travels are just on the web or in the cerebral cortex. But Watchdogs don’t go for flashdancing. They’re more the ‘comfort food’ of the relationship world.
So I asked Matt if he was familiar with the theory of one of the world’s great economic experts who said something like this: when the economy is up, it’s easy to find a great job but harder to find love; when the economy’s down, good jobs are hard to find but love is easy. He guessed Galbraith. I laughed. It’s Helen Gurley Brown, former Cosmopolitan editor and author of Sex and the Single Girl. (I never actually referred to her as an economist but really, her pronouncement is more accurate than the predictions of the average pedigreed academic.)
Matt put it together pretty quickly and realized how distracting his success was to his goal of finding love. He also admitted how right I was about who he’d really fit with. But of course I had all the theory behind Role-Based Assessment at my disposal.
So here’s the moral of the story. The economy is off and is likely to stay that way for a while. You might as well look for love. And don’t restrict yourself to the personal kind either. (Caveat: Do not confuse love and sex!)
Find people you love. You’ll know when you’re there because you can work easily with them and feel great about it.
Figure out how to create an organization with them and do something. It doesn’t matter what as long as it’s something you enjoy doing together. When the economic smoke clears, you might find yourself with everything you ever wanted – a great job and great love.
Networking for the New Year (and beyond)
I was talking with some people last week who were trying to define “relationship” in the context of networking as a step to defining how to value those relationships. It was one of those conversations that seems to go on forever and get nowhere because people aren’t thinking in terms of outcome but are getting tied up in their own words. The next day I was emailing with someone else who wanted to know what had been accomplished and I wrote out my operational definition. I like it so much (as did the other person) I’m going to do the ultimate narcissistic act I hate doing and will quote myself:
“A relationship is a connection. When you connect one of your relationships to another, you create a new node on the relationship network. The more nodes you create and the stronger they are, the more value you have brought to your entire network.” – Dr. Janice Presser
One of the up and coming New Year’s resolutions I keep hearing from people is that they are going to get out and network more. I used to just try to bite my tongue and not ask rude questions like, are you out of work? This year I’m going to focus on creating value for my whole network. So please, even if the person I introduce to you is not an experienced networker (that is, they haven’t yet learned to offer something to you, too) would you try to help them? I’ll respect you for it and even if they don’t give you something of value, I’ll try to. Or, if this works as I believe it does, someone else – another node-creator – will.
Happy 2008!
How to Destroy a Sales Expert in Five Easy Lessons
1- Hire the right person and then put them in the wrong job. This will be much easier to do if you make sure your job posting bears little or no relationship to the actual position.
2- Be careful to assign new hires to sales managers who will do their utmost to reduce any excitement or enthusiasm that may remain after the hiring process. Crush employee engagement before it ever affects your retention metrics.
3- If you have been foolish enough to hire people who actually get along well with each other, install a compensation scheme that will break down those bonds. Remember, silos will make it easier for you to rule your domain.
4- Pay particular attention to any sales support people, especially if they seem to be providing a “home base” for sales people. If they make their sales partners’ lives easier, the whole department will come to expect that they can have other people fill in for their weaker points and not have to obsess on them every sleepless night.
5- Use a performance assessment system that covers every possible detail of the position. If you don’t, you’ll never be able to find an excuse for blaming, shaming or defaming.
