"...keeping you great"
HEADLINES:
Half-day Rockefeller Habits Workshop -- last-minute addition -- July 30 Atlanta, GA -- it's the last workshop I'll lead in the U.S. before heading to Barcelona for a year...Details
Who Are the 250 Most Important Relationships To Your Business? -- and who are the 50 most vital! This is a very powerful and strategic question -- the key question posed by Keith Ferrazzi on our Growth Series video webcast Tuesday. He's been sitting with CEOs of top companies around the world and working on this very question. We've started our list for Gazelles -- influencers, media-types, suppliers, global partners, inside staff, and of course a key list of customers. It forces you to examine your short and long term strategy, which must be clear if you're to decide the right 250! Excellent exercise for your next weekly, monthly, or quarterly meeting.
What Are You Doing to Deepen Those Relationships? -- Keith describes five levels of relationship one can have with a person ranging from no relationship to what he calls a "lifeline relationship" -- someone who truly has your back. Even most couples can't say that about each other. And many people have "chains" from childhood that prevent them from developing deep relationships i.e. issues of worthiness, self-esteem, intimacy, or openness.
Four Steps to a Deeper Relationship -- Keith described four steps one takes to deepen an existing or new business (or personal) relationship so it's more close, personal, and sincere: Generosity, Vulnerability, Candor, and Accountability. The first step aligns with Robert Cialdini's "Reciprocity" principle of Influence. You must first be generous and genuine in finding out what would be helpful to the other person and then helping them. Vulnerability is a willingness to discuss your own passions, struggles, and beliefs. Candor is caring enough about someone to be straightforward with them. And Accountability is holding each other to the promises and goals you make.
Five Minutes Is All it Takes -- notes Ferrazzi "Because of fears and insecurities, most people take a very long time to develop intimacy. With the right approach, in five minutes you can develop a level of intimacy with somebody you've never met before that is deeper than what you probably have with people who share cubicles and office space. It starts out very simply by being willing to share some of your passions in life and asking others to do the same. Then it goes to the next level: sharing some of your struggles and asking others to do the same." I experienced this in Bahrain -- one of the EO Members and I immediately delved into questions concerning Islam and Christianity leading to a deep and powerful conversation and relationship -- and it happened as quickly as Ferrazzi describes.
Read Who's Got Your Back First -- and then read Never Eat Alone. Ferrazzi suggests he wrote the books in reverse order. Or tune into the archived version of Tuesday's 90 minute webcast -- it's the soft stuff that delivers hard results to the business. Ferrazzi's presentation had a real impact on my thinking and actions, which I put into practice the very next day to deepen a relationship with a key thought leader -- powerful, yet simple, stuff.
Father -- Son Relationship -- speaking of relationships and social networking, Dave Davis, CEO of RDA Systems sent me this note in reaction to us hiring an intern to work our Facebook strategy "Wanted to let you know I also took David Meerman Scott's advice in Rave (World Wide Rave) and hired my 18 year old son to do the same thing you are doing with your intern. A win / win / win. Company, family & son." Doesn't get any better than that!
Americorps VISTA Volunteer -- and Steven Reames, Executive Director of Genesis World Missions, sent me a similar note "We procured an Americorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) for a year-long $10,000-stipend opportunity. She's helping us write and assemble our 3-5 year strategic plan, marketing plan, fund development plan etc. Part of her activity is updating the Facebook page 1-2 times a day: thanks to volunteers, thanks to donors, current needs list for our non-profit, etc. It keeps our activities at the top of everybody's news feed this way and is generating BUZZ. Then she recruited a volunteer who is heavily into Twitter and has trained her to generate material within her sphere. Great use of volunteers for non-profits!!"
The Youth Have Our Backs -- all across the globe, it's the youth that remain the future of our nations! May we be great role models in helping them build deeper and more lasting relationships than our generation.
