mutuality in business relationships
The other day, a new blogger sent a form e-mail asking me to check out his site and link to him from here. He didn’t discuss his blog’s relevance to legal sanity. Nor did he convey any intention of discussing my blog in his space. He said he would add my blog to his blog roll if I agreed to add his to mine. Needless to say, I declined his offer. But, I did send him a reply outlining the reasons why.
In Never Eat Alone, his popular book on achieving business success through relationships, consultant Keith Ferrazzi notes: In the world of relationship-building, it’s “better to give before you receive. And never keep score.” Networking expert Thom Singer shares similar advice in his book on business relationships, Some Assembly Required. He says: “Your goal in any business relationship is to give more than you take.”
I agree. You can’t forge any kind of sincere, lasting relationship on an expectation of quid pro quo (I give to you if – and only to the same degree that – you give to me). We have to be willing to freely give to the other person without expectation of return.
But, there is a limit to the give. There needs to be at least some take. If a relationship is devoid of reciprocity – or mutuality – it’s going to quickly deplete us. We’ll inevitably want to shout, “Hey, enough about you, what about me!”
That’s why, although willing to take the lead in cultivating business relationships, I’m very vigilant about the prospect of mutuality. If I glean that there’s little hope of it, I won’t invest any more time and energy into making the connection.
For more insight into creating mutually-fulfilling business relationships, tune in to David Maister’s new podcast episode on Relationships and Romance.
I agree and I think David Maister’s podcast is worth listening to (as always.) These concepts have been understood for a long time in business. You can go back to Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” for starters. So why is it so difficult for many of us to grasp these concepts or apply them in practice?
I can suggest a lot of answers to this question but for starters, I think e-mail has been one of the culprits. When we rely too much on e-mail as an easy and efficient way to communicate, we lose the important nuance and interaction that we get when we speak on the phone or meet face to face.
In the name of efficiency, people rely too much on electronic communication to adress what might be better discussed in person.
While e-mail, like any tool, can be used in a good way or in a bad way, I believe that when we use e-mail, we run the risk of minimizing the mutuality of our relationships.
The blogger should have called you to discuss the reasons why he thought your readers might be interested in his blog.
I agree that email is a great tool, but I am sure that like many others when I receive an email that I do not recognize the person or the name of the company I am very skeptical… I like the personal interaction I feel it creates a comradre and trusting partnership especially in a business enviremets..