I came across this entry and article which seemed to chime quite nicely with some of our thinking at Four Groups. The article starts off with a great opener…
One secret to the success of many professional service firms is treating their business relationships the way that investors treat their stock portfolios. Successful investors look at the investments in their portfolio and decide which ones to buy more of, which ones to hold, and which ones to sell. You should do the same with your business relationships.
This chimes in with our own thinking around the central idea of the importance of understanding the nature of relationships in the workplace. The key issue here is how to place a value on relationships. Share prices are easy, as they are highly transparent, can be quickly compared and valued, This is far harder when it comes to business relationships. This is primarily because:
• There is no common currency to describe the nature or value of relationships
• Relationships are inherently subjective and different people will have different perceptions of the same relationship
This also reminded me of another post by Johnnie Moore, entitled Relationships before Ideas.
I’ve witnessed quite a few businesses doing brainstorming and other creativity sessions on awaydays/offsites. If they’re lucky, they have an exciting day… then they return to their offices, the adrenalin rush long past, and revert to their normal, much less inspired, ways of working together. Sure, they went somewhere and had a few ideas. But they haven’t really changed the way they relate to each other.
Both of these articles hit the spot but leave you with the question - how? How do I act on this? It’s these sorts of situations that allow 4G to excel and really make a difference. Because 4G makes it possible to predict the nature and type of relationship that two people will have, more valuable interventions and approaches are possible.
Keywords: Social Relationships, Business Relationships, 4G
By Kaleem Aziz February 21, 2005 - 8:38 pm
Very valuable thoughts, and I also liked the fact that you see value in relationships and people types.
“The key issue here is how to place a value on relationships. Share prices are easy, as they are highly transparent, can be quickly compared and valued, This is far harder when it comes to business relationships. This is primarily because:
• There is no common currency to describe the nature or value of relationships
• Relationships are inherently subjective and different people will have different perceptions of the same relationship”
I agree with all of that, and go further to say that even share prices, investors’ evaluations are deterministically based on “people and relationship” types and value from it. Only it requires you to “aggregate” the individuals values of the all people in the equation.
For instance, in a stock dealing, it would be the values of everyone involved in running the company as well as those buying from the company — recursively. Ditto in the case of investor scenario — one would need to recursively aggregate all people involved. One must use people as the primary criteria (even if recursively), and use resources involve as the secondary criteria — to be successful in both stocks and investments (and in everything in life, including barter exchange).
I write more about this Economics on my blog. I’ll appreciate your feedback.
Best regards,
Kaleem.