I’m a bit behind for this August post, but hey, it happens…
I’m thinking I’ll just write on developing professional relationships.
This topic came to mind for a couple of reasons.
The first reason has to do with my monthly leadership development sessions. The topic was “Interpersonal Relationships” and focused on developing relationships for professional development.
The second reason has to do with my year group participating in the recent development team “vectoring” process.’
To elaborate slightly, a few year groups and categorical selections are asked to submit their intended career paths or desires to the development team for our career field. Those submissions are boarded – given a cursory review – by a set of colonels and colonel equivalents for their projected viability and given feedback to facilitate those individuals making good moves toward their career goals.
…I think that captures the essence of the point of the vectoring process.
I suppose there is a third reason that comes to mind as I write this out:
I graduated from an MBA program back in 2020. Part of my time in that program included a course – “Leadership Development II” – in which our primary focus was to interact with a given mentor on a flexible basis.
While my own time with my mentor was merely acceptable – we had discussions but I’m not sure the gentleman functioned well as a mentor nor a sponsor – I’ve since become a repeat mentor in the program, myself.
This Fall 2022 semester will be the fifth time I have been asked to mentor a group of MBA students. I really enjoy it and I often get very positive feedback about my engagement with the students from the students. I’d like to continue improving my capabilities as a mentor, and writing these posts is an effort toward that purpose.
Anyway:
My purpose in this writing is to consider a couple of questions:
[1] Why should you care about developing professional relationships?
[2] How should you go about developing relationships intentionally?
[1] Why should you care?
Perhaps it sounds straightforward.
“Obviously, it’s important to develop professional relationships,” you may say.
You even have some clear, good reasons:
- Working with others is easier if you know the people you are working with slightly better than their duty titles and some of their accomplishments.
- Obtaining new opportunities – whether through job transitions, promotions, lateral shifts, whatever it may be – tends to be easier when you know people and they know you.
- Interacting with others you’ve gotten to know a little bit may be more pleasant than working with Other Intelligent Life Forms #5-8 on yet another Tuesday.
And I’m not here to say this is complicated stuff. If these simple reasons are enough, or perhaps you’re already convinced of the importance of developing professional relationships: great!
This article could go on with good reasons, but I’ll just touch on a few hot items.
- Amplifying your social currency.
As you improve your technical skills, your opportunities will only expand as much as you or others you know can expose you to them.
The better your relationship building is, the more likely you are to find yourself in a place that suits you based on your relationships.
- Meritocracy is simply less valuable/ real than it’s chalked up to be.
Developing your technical skill is valuable in getting your foot in the door of an opportunity, but being good at your job does not do as much work to get you to the next or a better job as developing your relationships.
- Diversity.
It’s not just a buzzword! Focused less on the sheer individual benefits (or is it?), intentionally developing relationships with other people expands your intellectual space and makes you a better problem solver.
- Confidence.
When you develop good relationships with others, you afford yourself an audience that roots for you to succeed in challenging efforts. In the same vein, you are more likely to attempt challenging activities when you develop good relationships because the consequences of failure tend to be minimized in light of that support. The value of having such support cannot be understated.
Maybe I should start regularly adding references and sources to really beef up the quality or credibility of these posts, huh? But for right now, I’m just going to take the approach that you’re convinced that it’s beneficial to develop good professional relationships.
Now, we look at [2] How should you develop good professional relationships?
This, too, can be fairly straightforward, but let’s consider a loose flowchart before considering the execution itself.
It’s one thing to have and build a relationship, but it’s another thing to choose whom to have and build a relationship with.
Especially if we are trying to be intentional, you should target your professional relationship development.
- For your current work, consider who your key relationships are.
Questions you may ask yourself when considering key relationships include but are not limited to:
Whose blessings do I need to take the majority of my actions?
Who provides or gate keeps the resources I need to take actions?
Who is most likely able to facilitate the successful execution of my actions?
What relationships are my supervisors/ peers/ subordinates trying to build?
Who will challenge my approach with constructive criticism?
- For the sake of your future career:
What people have interesting challenges that you could attempt to support?
Who currently does what you wish you were doing?
Who knows people that know the people asked about in these previous questions?
- Besides that, you just never know, so while I would not say to spread your energy too thinly across possible relationships, it’s a good idea to maintain healthy and positive relationships as you can without necessarily investing too much into too many people.
While that speaks to targeting, what about actually approaching those relationships?
Honestly, it’s not much more complicated than approaching any other relationship.
I recognize that may be much more difficult for some than others, but the principles remain similar.
- Interact with individuals with an emphasis on shared interests or goals.
Hobbies, professional interests, podcasts, sports, and so on… good old earthling human stuff.
- Be kind. Recognize we all have different perspectives and backgrounds.
- Be willing to support others; they’ll be more likely to support you.
72 Airman's Writings 