Are you undervaluing building connection and relationships in your job?
I had a mentoring conversation yesterday with somebody a couple years out of college who was worried that he was falling behind. I told him the first decade of his career was for exploring; instead of maximizing title or compensation, the long-term assets he should be building in each job are relationships and skills. He should be learning new transferable skills that he can add to his toolbox, and he should be building connections with talented people who can help him for the rest of his career.
I had a separate conversation yesterday with a talented executive about his 360 assessment. He had earned his current role through execution and operation, and everybody raved about his skills there. His area for development, though, was in working _with_ other people; instead of telling them what to do, working side by side with them in a collaborative way. Cross-functional collaboration is the greatest challenge for executives according to a recent leadership survey – people know how to manage up, they know how to manage their teams, but working with peers who have different agendas and incentives is hard.
In both cases, trust is what is needed. For the early career individual, future opportunities will come from building trust with people today that you are dependable and capable. For the executive, building trust with cross-functional peers is critical to finding productive ways to collaborate to deliver company results. And trust doesn’t come from just doing your job – it takes a commitment to listening and understanding the other person.
I significantly undervalued the importance of building trusting relationships in my career, and it held me back. I thought that doing the work was enough, and it was up to other people to figure out the value of my work. Now I know that trust builds faster when I make it easy for others to see how my work can help them succeed at their goals.
What are your tips on building trust and relationships? What one thing do you wish you’d known early in your career?