Relationships: find someone to help you paddle
"Find someone to share your life with. Make as many friends as possible, and never forget that your success depends on others."
- William H. McRaven
Picture this in your mind: you're in a meeting, it's about a change thats taking place that requires a change of mindset or a significant amount of work.
Can you picture it? The large table, the fluorescent lights, the PowerPoint presentation.
Now imagine someone at the table is speaking. People are inwardly groaning, but keeping a blank face. You know the type, the type of person who tells you how it is, and ignores any suggestions. This person is seen as some sort of authority, but they do not lead by collaboration, they lead by being inflexible. If it's not their way it's wrong. The binary bros.
After the meeting where you were talked at for an hour you are expected to implement a change. Do you throw yourself into the task with gusto? No. Of course not. You aren't allied to the change, you don't like/understand the process, and to be quite honest you don't want an arrogant blowhard looking like they have achieved something off the back of your efforts. So you don't commit, you fudge, you deflect. Or, you wholly commit (if you see an inherent value in the change) but then are a bit annoyed that you don't get any praise at all (because doing the work was 'expected' of you).
Does this ring a bell with you at all?
I have seen this before, and friends in all sorts of industries from teaching, banking, government and research have all told me they share this experience.
I have never met a leader that has made it on their own. I have met leaders who were held up as special, and the worst ones believed in their own hype. THEY did it, THEY got the results, THEY won. Which is complete nonsense. No lasting and measurable impact has ever taken place on the back of one persons effort.
The best leaders in my opinion follow the lesson at the start of this blog - "never forget that your success depends on others". Great leaders recognise that an individual is weak, but a group of collaborators is strong. They recognise (to use a blatant alpha metaphor) that the strength of the wolf isnt in the teeth but in the pack. As a result it is imperative that, in order to meet our goals, we respect fully the people who support us, and dismiss those who don't.
Relationships matter. People are not a means to an end.
Some examples from the literature in this area:
- John Kotter explains that in order to make any change you need a 'guiding coalition'
- Michael Fullan says we need to build relationships and share knowledge to facilitate change and to lead effectively
- Jocko Willink says that troops need to understand the orders, because if they don't know the reasoning there could be a breakdown in execution
- Tim Ferriss says that "failure isnt failure if you ... develop relationships for future advancement" - building working relationships is always a positive step
- Jim Rohn says that people around you are so important that you BECOME the five that you associate with the most. So associate yourself with positive people that share your values
- Gary Vaynerchuck says that "if [someone] aspires to change their situation, it's imperative to audit the 7 to 10 people who are around [them]", are the voices around you making sense? Are they motivating you or holding you back? (Also see McCord, J. & McCord, W. (1959). “A follow-up report on the Cambridge-Somerville youth study.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 32, 89-96.)
- and Jordan B. Peterson has an entire chapter in his new bestselling book (12 Rules for Life) entitled 'Make friends with people who want the best for you'!
Obviously at this point it seems like im recommending that you go out and build yourself a supportive network. But hold on.
Building a network takes time and if you aren't sure about what sort of people you want around you, you could ruin potential opportunities down the line.
I'm recommending that you work on YOURSELF for a while, rather than trying to dive in, throwing business cards scatter-gun fashion at random people during warm-white-wine soaked networking events.
Be the person that you want to meet. Look after yourself as though you were caring for a friend.
If I can give you any advice to help you start focusing on you and your development it would be this:
1. Stop talking to people you don't like as if you do. Be professional and polite, but keep the chatter to a minimum. That way you can't be hard on yourself for acting like a hypocrite.
2. Stop suggesting to your boss extra jobs that you can do (in the short term). For two weeks when you're in work, churn it out and leave early.
3. Finally, and I cannot stress this enough. STOP APOLOGISING. I found that I apologised all the time as a method of politeness. It made me feel bad. So now I never apologise. (Unless I really mess up obviously...)
This should leave you feeling better about yourself, less stressed, and more empowered. Then you will have the confidence (and available time) to find people just like you.
I would like to recommend some networking events, but I guess they depend entirely on your area of work. For non-work friends I always suggest meetup.com as a great place to try new things and meet new people with no pressure.
So what do you think? Are you already in the process of building your network? Or like me are you making sure of yourself first?
In the spirit of this post I would love to hear your thoughts!
- William H. McRaven
Picture this in your mind: you're in a meeting, it's about a change thats taking place that requires a change of mindset or a significant amount of work.
Can you picture it? The large table, the fluorescent lights, the PowerPoint presentation.
Now imagine someone at the table is speaking. People are inwardly groaning, but keeping a blank face. You know the type, the type of person who tells you how it is, and ignores any suggestions. This person is seen as some sort of authority, but they do not lead by collaboration, they lead by being inflexible. If it's not their way it's wrong. The binary bros.
After the meeting where you were talked at for an hour you are expected to implement a change. Do you throw yourself into the task with gusto? No. Of course not. You aren't allied to the change, you don't like/understand the process, and to be quite honest you don't want an arrogant blowhard looking like they have achieved something off the back of your efforts. So you don't commit, you fudge, you deflect. Or, you wholly commit (if you see an inherent value in the change) but then are a bit annoyed that you don't get any praise at all (because doing the work was 'expected' of you).
Does this ring a bell with you at all?
I have seen this before, and friends in all sorts of industries from teaching, banking, government and research have all told me they share this experience.
I have never met a leader that has made it on their own. I have met leaders who were held up as special, and the worst ones believed in their own hype. THEY did it, THEY got the results, THEY won. Which is complete nonsense. No lasting and measurable impact has ever taken place on the back of one persons effort.
The best leaders in my opinion follow the lesson at the start of this blog - "never forget that your success depends on others". Great leaders recognise that an individual is weak, but a group of collaborators is strong. They recognise (to use a blatant alpha metaphor) that the strength of the wolf isnt in the teeth but in the pack. As a result it is imperative that, in order to meet our goals, we respect fully the people who support us, and dismiss those who don't.
Relationships matter. People are not a means to an end.
Some examples from the literature in this area:
- John Kotter explains that in order to make any change you need a 'guiding coalition'
- Michael Fullan says we need to build relationships and share knowledge to facilitate change and to lead effectively
- Jocko Willink says that troops need to understand the orders, because if they don't know the reasoning there could be a breakdown in execution
- Tim Ferriss says that "failure isnt failure if you ... develop relationships for future advancement" - building working relationships is always a positive step
- Jim Rohn says that people around you are so important that you BECOME the five that you associate with the most. So associate yourself with positive people that share your values
- Gary Vaynerchuck says that "if [someone] aspires to change their situation, it's imperative to audit the 7 to 10 people who are around [them]", are the voices around you making sense? Are they motivating you or holding you back? (Also see McCord, J. & McCord, W. (1959). “A follow-up report on the Cambridge-Somerville youth study.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 32, 89-96.)
- and Jordan B. Peterson has an entire chapter in his new bestselling book (12 Rules for Life) entitled 'Make friends with people who want the best for you'!
Obviously at this point it seems like im recommending that you go out and build yourself a supportive network. But hold on.
Building a network takes time and if you aren't sure about what sort of people you want around you, you could ruin potential opportunities down the line.
I'm recommending that you work on YOURSELF for a while, rather than trying to dive in, throwing business cards scatter-gun fashion at random people during warm-white-wine soaked networking events.
Be the person that you want to meet. Look after yourself as though you were caring for a friend.
If I can give you any advice to help you start focusing on you and your development it would be this:
1. Stop talking to people you don't like as if you do. Be professional and polite, but keep the chatter to a minimum. That way you can't be hard on yourself for acting like a hypocrite.
2. Stop suggesting to your boss extra jobs that you can do (in the short term). For two weeks when you're in work, churn it out and leave early.
3. Finally, and I cannot stress this enough. STOP APOLOGISING. I found that I apologised all the time as a method of politeness. It made me feel bad. So now I never apologise. (Unless I really mess up obviously...)
This should leave you feeling better about yourself, less stressed, and more empowered. Then you will have the confidence (and available time) to find people just like you.
I would like to recommend some networking events, but I guess they depend entirely on your area of work. For non-work friends I always suggest meetup.com as a great place to try new things and meet new people with no pressure.
So what do you think? Are you already in the process of building your network? Or like me are you making sure of yourself first?
In the spirit of this post I would love to hear your thoughts!
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