Building Relationships: You Must Dig the Well Before You Need the Water

Six years ago, Fred had a friendship with a rep for a small brand. The brand’s contribution to our sales was insignificant, so going to a dinner with him during a shoe show, when there were hundreds of other brands there, didn’t make a lot of sense. But it was still something Fred prioritized, based on the friendship. A week after the dinner, Fred’s friend became president of a major brand we had been trying to get.


If you’re focused on friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it’s actually how a lot of stuff happens

That story was told by Tony Hsieh in an interview about his former co-worker Fred Mossler, who helped him start Zappos.

Focusing on friendship as its own reward is a very powerful statement, especially in this difficult economic climate. So many times we are befriended by people only because they know that we know someone they want to connect with. We have all gotten requests from friends through LinkedIn wanting help.


Are we building real relationships?

I have a contact that seems to only email or light up my phone when she is asking for a favor. It starts with the “how are yous?” and ends with “can you do XYZ?” It’s so sad.

Building relationships is not hard work, but more importantly, there is no shortcut. The process should be genuine.

LinkedIn has allowed all of us to take our relationships to a hyper level, but so many times, we don’t get a sense that folks are really interested in building a real relationship. Yes they want to connect, but in many cases, they do not think enough to even personalize the connection.

And then there are the ones who prize themselves on being open networkers, with thousands of connections, but who you would be hard pressed to get an email or phone called returned from most of them. So my question is, where is the strength of the connection?

We have all been thrust, whether willingly or unwillingly, into an economic climate that forces everyone somewhere along the line to reach out to someone. There was a post here TLNT.com that spoke to the power of referrals in hiring, however as a piece of advice, you need to stay close to people and your connections.

Organizations build relationship with all their customers. Imagine the success of a company that only connects with their customers when they are engaged in a sale, and other than that, they are not concerned and could care less. Today, a company like that would not be successful for long.

Organizations MUST connect with employees

Better still, imagine an organization that does not connect with their employees, one that is only concerned with your work output and that’s it. Imagine working in that one-sided environment.

This modern relationship model also takes place in our families. Imagine a family that only connects with each other when they need something? That is not a family that will last in the sense of being a family.

This past Friday, I sat in on the HR Rockstar Tour sponsored by Achievers. By the way, when this tour comes to your city, be sure and attend and hear excellent presentations by both China Gorman and Josh Bersin.

China told the story when she was CEO of a company, and any time she had an interaction with her group as she traveled the country she would always make sure to send personal notes to those she talked to. That may not sound like a herculean task but what she found was that as she visited those offices later, she saw the notes prominently placed on the recipient’s desk, pinned to walls, taped to doors. All of that happened because she built the personal relationship.

What can we learn from this? It’s simple: dig the well before you need the water.

The Key to Successful Mergers? It’s Usually About People and Culture

“I knew enough to allow them to handle their own culture, headquarters and management,” said Paul Murry, CEO of Calvin Klein, a PVH Corp. company.

In 2003, PVH bought Calvin Klein when sales were $2.8 billion. Last year, the numbers ended with sales at $7.6 billion.

That statement alone tells why M&A must have a people component. According to a KPMG research study, 83 percent of all mergers fail. Hell, even the divorce rate in the U.S. is about 50 percent and that has nowhere near the impact both financially and personally that failure a M&A will extract if not successful.

How Retention is Like Gardening: At Times, You Need to Change the Soil

“What time did you get in last night,” I asked my daughter.

“Around 3 am,” she answered. It was now 5:45 am and I was leaving the house. As I walked downstairs from her room, I shook my head in wonderment. My question was this: how can you continue working people all these hours?

Everyone has a breaking point.

Overlong shifts will eventually impact retention

When my daughter interviewed for the job, she was told that yes, there would be late hours. She assumed that a few nights would be OK.

Offering a Hand: Who in the Talent Pipeline Are You Helping to Pull Up?

"As she climbs up the ladder she has the other hand extended to bring someone else along."

I was watching Oprah’s Lifeclass the other day, and one of the things that resonated with me was that statement that one of her friends said about Oprah and why she was successful.

Who is next in your pipeline? Who do you have your other hand extended to?

Succession or replacement? You choose

I read with interest a few weeks back when it was announced that McDonalds will have Don Thompson as the new CEO after chief executive JIm Skinner retires.

Recruiting 3.0: Today, It’s All About “Making Meaningful Connections”

This is my tweet (see below) from Thursday afternoon after I got a glimpse of this campaign to find a new CTO.

Not only that, but the person that is eventually chosen can have $10,000 donated to his favorite charity.

“A CTO with heart” does not quite fit into my mind when I think of a CTO. I know numerous Chief Technical Officers, but I would be hard pressed to figure out which one had “heart” in this context.

How Would You Do If You Were Ranked By Your Former Employees?

I saw and interesting article this week about a Glassdoor survey  which shows that the highest rated CEO is Tim Cook of Apple.

His approval rating was a whopping 97 percent. That rating even beat out his former boss, Steve Jobs. And as so many have reported, Jobs was pretty challenging to work for.

That was not what surprised me, though.

I wondered about how we, as leaders and managers, would be rated by our former direct reports. How would we fare?

Staying connected with former colleagues

Transparency: Does Your Company “Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk?”

"I am sorry, but we have already identified someone for that role." The next question was, "how could that be, the job was just posted on the Internet?"

What my friend had just found out is a little dirty secret in some organizations. Sometimes when jobs are posted, and even when they are not, hiring managers already have someone lined up for the opportunity.

What message does that send?

My friend was beside himself; what he found out was that this is the norm within this company. There is not much movement so there is a thirst for advancement, but unless you are in the clique, your thirst will not be quenched

I remember back when I worked for IBM that we always pushed internal advancement in an open and transparent process. We posted open positions internally on Thursday’s. It became such a great initiative that we had everyone checking their computer as soon as they hit their desk on Thursday.

When You Ignore Culture, You Get Employees Resigning in the NY Times

“I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.”

That is the defining statement from Greg Smith, the now famous departing employee who resigned from Goldman Sachs last week via an article on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times.

As I read the various commentaries about Smith’s article, it seemed like reading the movie reviews before you see the film. That is, the movie being the actual resignation letter.

I would never get into the cause of this breakup because I have always said, in any situation, there are three sides: My side, your side and the truth. What intrigued me after I read the resignation was his statement about corporate culture.

Everyone Wins When You Help Get Employees Into the Value Zone

One of the things I love about being in HR is that everyone always bring you these rich stories that sometimes causes you to have an “a-ha” moment.

A major retail chain this past week did something that, for a retail company, needs to be lauded. In retail, you have a workforce that is largely made up of hourly employees. They are the people that face the customers each and every day. Good mood or bad mood, they must keep the stiff upper lip and remember that the “customer is always right.”

One of the challenges all retail companies face is the weekly schedule. Trying to place people in slots, or work around challenges in their lives, is an enormous uphill battle both for the manager as well as the employee. I owned a 7-Eleven convenience store for 10 years, so I am very familiar with this weekly challenge. I had 11 people on the payroll, and trust me, it is a challenge.