I know I am not alone in my evolving understanding of building meaningful relationships. Lee Silvestre, Director of Mission Innovation at Raytheon, spoke at a conference of maturing in her career to focus on building bridges, networks, communication channels and mentorships.

Building bridges and communications channels internally and externally has become more important not just over the course of a career, but as the nature of work itself is changing. Now, with high productivity expectations spread across ‘matrix management’ organizations, having those internal and external networks make you more effective. They are also a risk management plan if your job is eliminated or sent elsewhere.

To understand how to build social capital, we need to do a quick assessment of where it is today. Review the quick quiz below, courtesy of Dr. Baker.

1. Do most of your friends know each other?
2. What are the different groups are you involved with? This could be religious, athletic, civic or other groups.
3. Who do you:
• discuss important matters with?
• have work related discussions with?
• need support from?
• socialize with?
4. Is there diversity in gender, age, experience abroad, education and ethnicity?

Having friends that all know each other is actually not a good thing. Part of the value of social capital is linking diverse groups – or clumps, as Dr. Baker refers to it – together. In fact, diversity is more important than the size of the network. Studies have shown that from diverse connections comes more information, multiple perspectives, increased learning and creativity, and overall better performance. Even though you may be more comfortable with people just like you, getting out of your comfort zone is what makes you grow. Max DuPree, former CEO of Herman Miller, put it this way: “If you want the best things in corporate life, you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person.”

As a consultant that puts together Strategic Advisory Boards for companies, I can attest to the tremendous value in being with others that are different than you. When talking with a client about this recently, I asked him if he had outside advisors. He did, but they were all like him: older, white males. That, to me, is like talking to yourself! Whether we as consultants are putting derailed projects back on track or creating business strategies, it is imperative that we look outside the immediate and obvious choices. It is part of our methodology, and should be part of how you operate as well. How can we learn if we are only talking to ourselves?

So how then can you build your own social capital? We’ll review how we link our networking and business strategies in the next column, and are very interested in any success stories you may have. Please send an email to mcook@ageos1.com and lets continue the conversation!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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