Networking to Relationship
Somehow, the word ' Relationship' sounded too personal for the Corporate world. So much so that the Business community used the word 'Professional Networking' to refer to a business relationship.
The presence of money brings in a dimension to 'professional networking' that expects us to keep emotions away and evaluate purely in terms of priorities - Revenues, costs, taxes and profit. But, similar to a 'relationship' , professional networking is also built with a lot of effort,keeping commitments and building credibility . Like personal relationship, professional credibility takes years to build and minutes to destroy. However, the rewards of building it are phenomenal.
My Boss [Raj Neravati] demonstrated me the power of building a professional relationship last week when we were working on a bid. I should say it was stunning for me to realize that the 'system', 'process' and all the other jargons that denote a pack of humans at work reward an individual who has built credibility in many subtle ways. Raj was able to get some important details for the bid using what I thought was 'Networking' but was actually something that we build in a 'relationship' - Trust !! Till then, I always thought professional networking and personal relationships are very different. Professional networkign is about credibility and personal relationship is about building trust.......That was my theory !! Thanks to Raj, he made me realize how similar they are in terms of building trust and winning the game. Of the many lessons I learnt from Raj, this one ranks right up there. It set me thinking and I tried to build an analogy and hypothesis around it.
Perhaps professional networking is like a Savings bank account - Credibility is built by demonstrating competence, delivering on commitments, extending favours without being asked. The credibility you build gets withdrawn a bit when you seek favours or fail to deliver on time. The biggest drain [withdrawal] to this account comes when comitments are broken - some of them can wipe out the entire balance and close the account itself. When your balance hits zero or goes into negative, the business relationship dies away. There is no overdraft facility.
How are personal relationships different ? They perhaps follow the same basic elements of withdrawal and deposits, except that there are more frequent , smaller amounts of deposits and withdrawals of trust. Of course, the big ones happen too, but on a daily basis it is small deposits and withdrawals. So, it is more like a Current account - with an overdraft facility. And when the balance hits zero, You just run into your overdraft -the relationship need not always end - the bank may give you a long rope and actually help you out to build trust again. This subtle difference is perhaps what makes personal relationships special and also difficult.
During this 'overdraft' phase when one person in the 'relationship' is at a deficit of trust, the other person needs to be really strong to carry on the relationship virtually single handed, facing a huge risk with no mitigation and just a hope that future will be better. Now, that is not easy and perhaps that is the reason why personal relationships are very stressful .
Unlike the bank current account and savings acccount, the interest calculation is reversed. Personal relationship [ current account ] credits a lot of interest on deposits and balance, while professional networking will probably not - you get to withdraw exactly what you deposited.
Of course, I seem to have oversimplified it - It is more complex than it sounds. But, there are many similarities and differences between 'Networking' and relationships and thanks Raj, for bringing to light the similarities between them....I now realize there is an element of 'Trust' in professional networking, just like there is an element of 'credibility' in personal relationships.
The presence of money brings in a dimension to 'professional networking' that expects us to keep emotions away and evaluate purely in terms of priorities - Revenues, costs, taxes and profit. But, similar to a 'relationship' , professional networking is also built with a lot of effort,keeping commitments and building credibility . Like personal relationship, professional credibility takes years to build and minutes to destroy. However, the rewards of building it are phenomenal.
My Boss [Raj Neravati] demonstrated me the power of building a professional relationship last week when we were working on a bid. I should say it was stunning for me to realize that the 'system', 'process' and all the other jargons that denote a pack of humans at work reward an individual who has built credibility in many subtle ways. Raj was able to get some important details for the bid using what I thought was 'Networking' but was actually something that we build in a 'relationship' - Trust !! Till then, I always thought professional networking and personal relationships are very different. Professional networkign is about credibility and personal relationship is about building trust.......That was my theory !! Thanks to Raj, he made me realize how similar they are in terms of building trust and winning the game. Of the many lessons I learnt from Raj, this one ranks right up there. It set me thinking and I tried to build an analogy and hypothesis around it.
Perhaps professional networking is like a Savings bank account - Credibility is built by demonstrating competence, delivering on commitments, extending favours without being asked. The credibility you build gets withdrawn a bit when you seek favours or fail to deliver on time. The biggest drain [withdrawal] to this account comes when comitments are broken - some of them can wipe out the entire balance and close the account itself. When your balance hits zero or goes into negative, the business relationship dies away. There is no overdraft facility.
How are personal relationships different ? They perhaps follow the same basic elements of withdrawal and deposits, except that there are more frequent , smaller amounts of deposits and withdrawals of trust. Of course, the big ones happen too, but on a daily basis it is small deposits and withdrawals. So, it is more like a Current account - with an overdraft facility. And when the balance hits zero, You just run into your overdraft -the relationship need not always end - the bank may give you a long rope and actually help you out to build trust again. This subtle difference is perhaps what makes personal relationships special and also difficult.
During this 'overdraft' phase when one person in the 'relationship' is at a deficit of trust, the other person needs to be really strong to carry on the relationship virtually single handed, facing a huge risk with no mitigation and just a hope that future will be better. Now, that is not easy and perhaps that is the reason why personal relationships are very stressful .
Unlike the bank current account and savings acccount, the interest calculation is reversed. Personal relationship [ current account ] credits a lot of interest on deposits and balance, while professional networking will probably not - you get to withdraw exactly what you deposited.
Of course, I seem to have oversimplified it - It is more complex than it sounds. But, there are many similarities and differences between 'Networking' and relationships and thanks Raj, for bringing to light the similarities between them....I now realize there is an element of 'Trust' in professional networking, just like there is an element of 'credibility' in personal relationships.
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