We’ve established that values and first principles should be the primary roots of all you do. Establishing, or rather, recognizing what those values and principles are is essential to organizing and executing a successful vision for your company, or whatever it is you’re looking to improve. Playing the long game is a first principle that is universally effective. It helps anchor analysis in goals and avoids emotional decisions. It keeps one’s focus on the roots rather than the flowers.
We’ve also touched on how in general, people stink at communicating. Technology has revolutionized the way we interact with one another but it has evolved around ease and convenience at the expense of effectiveness. Gaps like these are exactly where you can separate yourself from others. There’s ample room to provide superior value that will help strengthen relationships. So let’s explore.
MEET JIM COLLINS
Jim Collins is a researcher and consultant around business management, sustainability, and company growth. He’s authored or coauthored 8 books including Good to Great, Built to Last, and most recently Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. In addition to decades of success and a reputation built upon thorough research, people genuinely like Jim. He’s curious, he’s humble, he’s grateful, he’s an effective listener and communicator. He’s a very likable person, and that’s not just by chance. When it comes to values, Collins and his team hold “relationships” at the center of what they do.
Collins is likable because he believes in people. Believing in people is key to establishing and growing strong relationships. In a world of uncertainty where the only constant we can count on is change, Collins expresses the importance of “your people” in the following way:
“It’s not where you’re driving the bus, it’s who you have on the bus with you.”
And you’re only going to have the people on the bus that you want, if you work at relationships. He recommends that leaders obsess about building and cultivating the right team.
PRIME DIRECTIVE: THE GRACIOUS DECLINE
But you can’t just say that you value people and relationships and magically it all falls into place. Your actions and policies will play out to reveal what is truly important to your company or to you as a landlord. As then Vice President Joe Biden put it in 2008, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value”. If you claim to value the lives and comfort of your tenants, it should show in terms of maintenance requests responded to and overall investment on maintaining and improving the places they live. If you claim to value relationships, what can you rely on to show you’re staying true to that compass point?
Under Collins’ leadership, his teams follow a prime directive that they refer to as “the gracious decline”. The idea is simple: You don’t want to hurt relationships, you want to build them, so regardless of what answer you have to give someone, work toward that goal.
“No matter what answer someone gets (for most it’s a no)… they need to come back with a closer connection to our team (the work and the ideas).”
Focusing on the “closer connection” is dedicating oneself to relationships (not to mention, thinking about the long game). Collins explains that often it’s arrogance that leads to failure in this area. People become successful and they act like it, losing that gratitude and appreciation for the fact people are asking for their services. “Nothing is a transaction. People need to feel better about approaching us after approaching us than they did before approaching us [in the first place].”
MY EXPERIENCES
As I’ve alluded to in the past, I wear and have worn many hats. As a younger person, baseball and sports were a huge part of my life and the coaches that made a major impact succeeded in building those closer connections while managing a team of competing egos. Those who didn’t have our respect never tried (or found a way) to connect (their own egos often the problem). As an educator, I’ve seen expert teachers hold relationships at the center of what they offer students…and I’ve seen others struggle to deliver content and become highly frustrated because of their transactional approach. As a union leader, I’ve worked with superintendents who have valued having partners on that bus and countless others who have driven that bus with an iron-fist, hell bent on seeing their vision through without building a coalition to foster increased buy-in, universal systemization, and successful implementation. As an executive in a property management company, I’ve witnessed firsthand a leadership team that values people and mindset above expertise and experience (see Collin’s discussion of arrogance above). I’ve helped write and codify policy built on establishing, maintaining, and growing relationships to ensure a win-win scenario for all parties.
YOUR EXPERIENCES?
Prior to wherever you find yourself today, who were the people who actively fostered relationships? Who in your life is stuck in a transactional model of the world? What successful models can you borrow from and whose poor examples can you learn to improve on?
As a leader, or property owner, or decision maker in general, what value do relationships hold in what you do and how do you know it? What feedback informs your successes, failures, and future decisions?
When we talked about “easy wins”, we’d said,
“a big variable in one’s ability to be successful often lies in whether or not they’re able to take advantage of the easy win…the opportunity that is just out there for the taking, but for one reason or another, is commonly missed.”
Building and fostering strong relationships is not “easy”. There is plenty of friction and conflict inherent in our interactions with other parties, but for that reason, the opportunity to separate yourself from others is that much greater. And while we’re revisiting that post, it seems appropriate to reiterate, “people don’t sue doctors they like and this rule is certainly not limited to the medical profession”.
CLOSING THE BOOK
Whether or not you hold relationships as a focus and value, there is no doubt that extra effort toward building, maintaining, and growing relationships will bear fruit in the long run. We live in the era of social media and now more than ever we need to be conscious of the way consumers, tenants, and partners view us. The best way to do this is to dedicate efforts to building those strong roots that are anchored by your core values and first principles. According to Jim Collins, when it comes to relationships, it’s all about creating closer connections, especially when your response to someone is not what they were hoping for. At Nexus, we’d square this as needing a solution-focused response: deliver the news accurately and factually but in a way that presents clear options and a path forward that builds trust.
Regardless of the language you use, the message is clear and perhaps best captured by Maya Angelou. “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel”.
If you don’t already, consider prioritizing relationships as one of your core values.
Notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/us/politics/15text-biden.html
https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts.html
Photo Credit:
https://pooh-clipart.com/rabbit.html