Posts from — March 2008

Give people your full attention - and you will be appreciated as a strong leader.

This will sound like common sense - unfortunately there isn’t much of it out there. You have all been there - meeting with someone formally, or just chatting, and their attention is anywhere but on you. Perhaps you are in a department meeting and your boss answers any phone call that interrupts as if his team is the last thing on his list of important items. A person may be greeting you but they are looking around the room for the next person to chat with. Or you go to someone’s office to see them and they are checking their email, or answering their phone. I have even been speaking with a person on the phone who was trying to juggle one or more other phone calls at the same time.

I know, I hear you - maybe it’s me! Well I imagine it has been on occasion - but I know in most cases these are people who feel too busy, too much of a slave to their work and have deluded themselves into thinking that they can multitask.

If you are a leader doing this to your employees, trust me you are not earning their confidence. They will lose their desire to speak with you and communication in the office will break down. Your effectiveness as a leader will be seriously compromised. If you are hoping to accelerate your career, such behavior will most certainly not instill confidence in your superiors.

Focus on the person, even if you have to limit their time

It is a fact of life that you are busy. But rather than trying to do too much at one time and to satisfy everyone, you would be much better served to focus on the people you are dealing with, even if it has to be a brief encounter. If you lead a very busy life nobody will be upset if you begin a meeting with a time budget - “John, you deserve my full attention, and that’s what you will get - but I have only 5 minutes today. If we can deal with this in 5 minutes then fantastic - if you need more time we’ll need to schedule it Thursday.” People will appreciate your frankness, and especially in a group meeting everyone will be happy - after all who likes meetings?

When you meet this way, deliver on your promise. Turn off your phone or have it answered for you. Close the lid to your laptop, or better still get out from behind your desk and meet face to face. Don’t scan the room but look at the person or people you meet with directly. If someone approaches you to interrupt, be polite but firm - “Sorry Susan, but I promised this time to John, can you see me later?”

Rather than appearing frantic, uninterested and disorganized, people will see you as a firm but respectful leader who values their work and their opinions. In turn they will be more respectful of your time, and they will probably pick up this good habit and it will spread in your organization.

Take a few moments to go and check out alltop.com and Sproutwire, which you will need to apply to look at in “beta” form.

Alltop is an automated aggregator which pulls and displays RSS feeds from “all the top” blogs on a range of topics. It introduced me to several, and is a great way to compile lots of interesting information.

Sproutwire has similar aims but in a very different manner - their articles are “personal” that is, they are hand picked by real live human beings. So far there are only a small number of articles, but the look and feel of the site is fantastic and it may prove to be a great timesaver for busy individuals. They also have profiles of successful entrepreneurs on home page - great inspiration to start your day!

Yesterday I offered five dead ends to building relationships - here they are again, but with a more positive twist.

1. Use Linked In, Facebook or other Social networking sites to your advantage.

There is little or no use simply adding people at random as friends. You can still use social networking to your advantage. Remember, these services are only an introduction. If you have been introduced to someone you will still need to make a real-world connection. Whether it is the phone, over coffee or remotely via skype or some other web-based service, you still need to communicate directly with someone to build upon that relationship.

If your business is right for it, adding a group on Facebook or mySpace can help identify “fans” that you can open a dialogue with. Of course commenters on a company blog will also introduce themselves and you should look to develop more meaningful connections with some of them.

2. Proper thank yous after meetings or introductions.

A proper thank you after meeting someone can be very effective if it is personal. Mention something of importance in the note - some common ground. Make it clear that you were paying attention. If there is obvious immediate follow-up, then do it and let your contact know what has been done.

“Dear Sally, great to finally meet yesterday. I was excited to learn of your experience with XYZ. Thanks to your suggestion our team has added some XYZ to our site - I hope it fits with what you were thinking. I look forward to meeting again.”

Also, email is entirely appropriate, but consider the audience. For some people a hand written note will be far more powerful.

3. Sending personal Christmas or other holiday cards

There’s nothing wrong with sending cards at Christmas or another appropriate holiday. But they will only make a difference if you do something that sets you apart - be personal. At the very least, that means a few lines and a personal signature. Do you have a few hundred on your list and you can’t bear the thought of how long it will take? That’s the point - others feel this way and take short cuts. Just a few lines like “John, great working together this year on ABC. I hope that you, Sally, Suzie and Jimmy have a wonderful family holiday together.” will set you apart from the others by a country mile.

4. Taking up golf or tennis.

Golf, tennis, squash, running or some other sport are all great things to take on. The benefits of a healthy lifestyle will pay dividends in every facet of your life, not just business. Having some skills like these when the time is right - a fundraiser golf tournament, or just over conversation will pay dividends without a doubt. You don’t need to be an expert, but if you can reach a level of competence where you can share a social experience then you will have common ground to share with your business associates. It may not mean five hours on the golf course, it might just mean swapping stories, but it will be a real connection.

5. Sending an email or other newsletter.

Newsletters make a great deal of sense for many businesses. But they require proper follow-up to have any role in developing a relationship. Inviting clients to have a role in content - suggestions, profiles etc. will help you connect with them. On a web site a newsletter subscription can connect you with readers - but their real power might be from introducing you to new “fans” that you can connect with in a more personal way.

Relationships are about more than techniques

These five are not the top five relationship builders by any means. I selected them only because they were slight modifications to the five false builders that I posted yesterday. My point? Look beyond the tool or technique to make a personal connection at every turn. There is no technique that can build a proper relationship other than real personal communication. There are many routes to an introduction - and really, that’s what all of these things are. Once the contact has been made it takes good old-fashioned people skills to make a relationship.

Recently in the New York Times “Shifting Careers” Blog a post entitled “A Board of Advisors - for Your Life” appeared. It was interesting to see the comments section - where I added my 2 cents as well. The vast majority take a cynical view of this. I tend to agree with them, to a point.

Despite my hope to produce a few useful ideas on this blog for your career, it is sad that relationships are so riddled with “systems.” I suppose many carer builders will find the concept of a personal Board exciting and inspiring. If that works for you then fine, I suppose. But the article really described good friendships. I’m sure some would counter that keeping in regular touch with old mentors, business partners etc goes beyond friendship because you wouldn’t choose to go to the movies with these folks. Really though I would offer that this is taking a more mature view of friendship. There are many sorts of friendship. An old teacher of mine can be a friend, though his age and experience go far beyond mine. I can be a friend to a younger person just starting out. As long as we both enjoy the relationship and grow from it, that’s a friendship.

If a few of my friends want to say I am on their Board of Directors, fine by me. But really, I’m just doing what any friend would. And he has something in his day-timer reminding him to call me every month or so. Sounds a bit cold - but it’s better contact than many friends have.

There are many dead ends to building business relationships. Here are five:

1. Adding your client as a friend in Facebook.

Adding someone to a list does not make them a friend. This is at best insincere and at worst dangerous. I don’t think your new “friend” needs to see all the useless things posted by you and your buddies or the over-personal comments. You can build a relationship that is professional without being uncomfortably personal.

1b. Adding them on Linked In. Same ineffectiveness. Less creepy.

2. Email thank yous after meetings.

“Sally, great meeting you, hope we can continue to work together on exciting projects like this.”

This seems like a good idea - it’s a contact, it’s a thank you. But it is so impersonal that it’s cold. These very few characters are a waste of time that can even be damaging. They make you sound insincere. They say “You really mean very little to me, but my business system says I’m supposed to thank you.”

3. Sending corporate Christmas cards signed by “The ABC Company Team.”

How many ways can this go wrong? First, it’s impersonal. It reeks of doing it because you think everyone else is doing it. At the same time signing from The Team, The Company or some sort of catch all that doesn’t use your name says you were in a hurry and the recipient isn’t worth you time. Want to make it even worse? Preprint the signatures, then get an assistant to stuff them in envelopes with mailing labels on them. Can you make it any more clear that you had no involvement whatsoever? Here’s another hint: if you don’t feel comfortable signing your name, then the recipient probably doesn’t know you by name - which means there is no relationship in place to build upon. Create the relationship first, send the card later.

Care to screw it up even more? Send to everyone in your list without thinking and wish Merry Christmas to people who don’t celebrate Christmas! You don’t say Merry Christmas for this reason? Here’s another hint: If you feel it’s safest to say “Happy Holidays” for fear of offending then you probably shouldn’t be sending to the person - again you probably don’t know them well enough.

4. Taking up golf or tennis.

Go ahead. They may be useful at some point. But a few golf lessons don’t suddenly make for a relationship. In fact it doesn’t suddenly give you anyone to play with. And you probably shouldn’t be inviting business associates out for golf if there is no decent relationship already. It’s a bit like trying too hard on the first date.

5. Sending an email or other newsletter.

Sure the newsletter you get from the real estate agent or your university fund raising department keep you connected, peripherally, but they do little or nothing to build a “relationship.” They are a bit like the family newsletters that you get at Christmas. Yes, they are far better than just a card. Yes, you like to be kept in the loop. But let’s face it, they are sent because people feel guilty for not having really connected during the year, and because they don’t have the time to send a proper note directly to you.

This might be a useful business move. Just don’t kid yourself that it makes a relationship.

Relationships are about more than techniques

It’s not that all of these are bad ideas. But on their own they don’t create relationships. There are no shortcuts to good relationships, just like there are no shortcuts to good business. Linked In can be a useful tool - but it’s the work you do offline that is helpful. Newsletters keep people connected - but there has to be something in place before they will connect you, or there needs to be some one on one follow up for them to have much usefulness to a relationship.

Are there more?

There must be many more that drive you nuts. The sad thing is they are all out there because people think they work, or that they have to be done. So help us out - what false relationship builders do you know of? What are your pet peeves. Add a comment please!

Tomorrow: Real Relationship Builders