Jennifer Colosimo, Chief Learning Officer of Franklin Covey Publishing, has an interesting story to share. A couple of years ago, she interviewed Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, at a leadership event in front of several thousand people. The next week, she received a handwritten note from him expressing his pleasure in meeting her and thanking her for the experience.
Colosimo says she has no doubt that Welch has an extensive network and didn’t need anything from her. He was just doing what he has always done to build connections in his career.
Such experiences have prompted Colosimo to co-author a book titled Great Work Great Career along with management guru Stephen R Covey. The 156-page book, released in the US this month, seeks to overturn the ordinary ways people seek and acquire jobs. Like the authors of a diet book, they ask you to make healthy choices to shape your work’s waistline.
The authors encourage the reader to define what a “great career” means to him or her — to reflect on the level of loyalty, trust, and contribution one currently experiences in the workplace. They cite some profound examples of individuals who have achieved an obvious level of greatness.
Some of the advice in the book is conventional wisdom: Learn to create your own career opportunities; build relationships with key support people; improve your resume writing; and never suffer through a job interview again. But Covey and Colosimo’s brand of storytelling draws the reader in and makes the message more relatable and interesting.
One of the most interesting insights is when the authors advise you to “Build Your Own Village.” This is important given that one of the most common bits of advice for a job seeker is to “network”. But in some respects, networking is a relic of the Industrial Age. Too often, networking comes down to having a lot of contacts on your iPhone or Blackberry — a big list of names you will never know what to do with. Or you have a drawer full of business cards from people you can’t even place any more.
Great Work ... says this won’t work anymore in the Knowledge Age when “authentic” relationships with co-workers, customers and suppliers are becoming essential. A Gallup study has found that one of the top indicators of great performance in the workplace is having a best friend at work. So the best networkers from a Knowledge Age mindset are building a village of people who value one another for more than just what they can do for one another.
Covey and Colosimo give four suggestions on how to build your village: 1) identify the members of your village, 2) create an Emotional Bank Account with each member of your village, 3) carve out your own space on the Internet, and 4) practise synergy.
The best way to start is to list the people you serve and support, and those who serve and support you. They might be a major client, boss, co-worker, an agent, or even an old school friend. There is no ideal number of people who belong to your village — it may be just 10 or even 10,000 depending on the job you are in.
An Emotional Bank Account (EBA), however, is the most important thing. You know what a financial bank account is. You make deposits into it and build up a reserve from which you can make withdrawals when you need to. An EBA is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust and confidence in a relationship. This is important since it helps avoid investing in relationships only when you need them and that may backfire big time.
Here’s how to build your EBA with people. When you plan your time, deliberately schedule activities to build your relationship with the members of your village. You’ll have lunch; you’ll send thank-you messages; you will write blog entries celebrating them; you will set aside time to help with their project; or you’ll forward an article you read that will help them with their work.
That’s what makes you a trusted colleague who is valued by the ecosystem you work in. The last two suggestions are essentially the familiar steps in 21st century networking by addressing the need for individuals to create professional blogs, participate in online social networking, and to carve out one’s space on the Internet. The bottom line is that in the age of social media, “building your own village” helps you establish and control your own personal brand across the world. It does your career little good to have a unique ability to contribute if no one knows about it beyond those you meet face to face.
If you’re tired of the patterns in your professional path, Covey and Colosimo’s new career-seeking terminology might be just the jolt you need.
