Issue 23 January/Februaury 2010
Identify Your Vital Relationships
Recognize and nurture those relationships that are central to your success. Pay special attention to your base of support.
Vital relationships are those that are strategic to your success. Because of this, they need special attention. When you assess these relationships, you expand your awareness of the complex network of influences in your life and work, and can pick out the ones that are most pivotal to what you are trying to achieve. As you manage and nurture the relationships that are most important, you can build support for your goals.
The relationship may be with someone you like or it could be with someone you find distasteful. If it has the power to affect you in significant ways, even a relationship with an adversary could be a vital relationship.
Vital relationships need extra attention and care. This means staying connected, centered and attentive. This will ensure that each point of contact is as productive and beneficial as possible. Giving regular attention to your vital relationships will help you to keep you finger on the pulse of what is going on around you. It will keep you in the loop politically and more able to spot opportunities as they arise.
One of the big benefits of identifying your vital relationships is being able to recognize your base of support: your fans. These are the people you like and respect you. They’re often very loyal and will go out of their way to back you up. Be sure to acknowledge them. Don’t take them for granted. They deserve to be treated with special care.
Action Steps
1. Take a few minutes to think about those relationships that are vital to your success, personally and professionally.
2. Consider the following PERSONAL relationships and write down the names of the people who are especially vital for your success.
- Spouse or lover
- Ex-spouse, especially if you are co-parenting
- Kids and step-kids
- Parents and in-laws
- Siblings, step and half siblings
- Friends and neighbors
- Spiritual community
3. Now consider your relationships AT WORK and write down the names of those most important for your success.
- Executives above you, both within your department and outside it
- Direct manager and those you report to indirectly
- Direct reports and those you manage indirectly
- Support staff
- Peers, team members, and colleagues
- Clients and customers
- Competitors
- Professional organizations
- Media connections
4. Review the names written above and then highlight or circle those that are the most important.
5. Is there one person you identified from the above exercise that you need to tend to right away?
6. What might you gain (or not lose) by taking action?
7. Work with a friend, colleague or contact me for coaching to create a map of your vital relationships. This should list all of your vital relationships and highlight important lines of influence, as well as where you want to focus in the coming months. If you’re going through a significant transition, are in a leadership position, are in an unstable organizational environment or are working toward a promotion, this is one of the most rewarding activities you could do to start the new year.
