The Keys to a Bigger Future: Do You Know the Right People?
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”
The most brilliant strategy, creative plan, or innovative product may still fail without the right people to support you to success. The people around you that you cultivate to help your career or business are the most important factor in achieving the results you want to see.
Yet, we are rarely strategic about the people we need to succeed in our plan. It is time to change that.
To get to where you want to be, there are two critical steps you need to take to set yourself up for success. First, be very clear about what you want to achieve. Start with the end in mind. Describe the specific results you want to achieve at the end of the next year. Then work back and identify the five critical activities that will create those results. You have clarity as to what you want and focus on what you have to do.
The old line, “Just Do It”, sounds great as a tagline but doesn’t work so well with following through on your plan. Jumping in can waste time, money, and resources as well as draining your energy. You need to think smarter.
We can leverage our results and success by complimenting our strengths with the strengths of others. We do not have to be great at everything, or do everything, to get results. The real strength is being clear on what parts of the strategy we will do and what parts will need to strengths of others.
The second critical step to achieving success in your plan is to identify the people you will need to compliment your strengths and help you be most effective at the five activities driving your plan. You may know them now, you may never have met them, but you know who you need.
Who do you need?
The people you need offer one of three things to you. A former mentor told me that the potential we bring to others is time, treasure, or talent. Each of them is valuable. In business terms, you are looking for people who can connect you to money, who can free up your time by providing their time, or bring a capability that would help you achieve your goals. The people you need in your network will resolve a challenge, capture an opportunity, or provide a capability.
You may be looking at cultivating relationships with a mentor, a coach, your boss, one or all of your reports, your connections, or all of the above.
The path to defining who you need to develop as your Bigger Future Circle is strategic.
- Review what you have clarified as the results you want to achieve and the five critical activities you need to focus on to realize your plan.
- In looking at the five critical activities, what are the strengths that you personally bring to the plan? Be clear and honest about where your energy and effort should be placed. Although we often try to do it all, or think we can do it all, we will never achieve our greatest success if we don’t capitalize on the strengths of others. We generally have three unique strengths that define us at our best – those activities we do that we have passion for, we excel at, and we can do for ever. Define your part of the equation by clarifying what specific activities you will do.
- Now, in three columns define what is between where you are and where you want to be. In the first column, write down the challenges, blocks, or obstacles that are, or may, be in your way. Next, identify the best opportunities that you will work towards to achieve your goals. Finally, in the last column, write down the capabilities that would support you to succeed in your plan by either resolving a challenge or capturing an opportunity. The supports you need to could be specific skills or strengths, networks, team members, technology, or any other component that would support your efforts to work smarter.
- Take your thinking in the third column and attach people to the supports you need. Who can bring you those capabilities? Again, you may have specific people in mind or you may not know them yet but can simply describe what you need from them. For example, if one of your results was to get a promotion to a new position in 2010, you may have identified a challenge as being to know what qualities are needed to be selected. The people who provide that support for you could be your boss, a mentor, or a senior colleague. You may have a product idea and you know it’s a winner but the market may not see it that way. A challenge could be to understand what words will speak best to grab your market’s attention. The people that may provide the strengths you need could be a marketing firm, a market research company, or a marketing consultant. Look at each challenge and opportunity and identify who (either a specific person, a group of people, a new alliance, etc.) will provide the strengths you need to achieve your results.
You now have a list of people you need to connect with to achieve your strategic plan. For each person that you have identified be very clear about what you need from them. What is the opportunity that they will bring to you? You need to be clear. The next part is to think about what you bring them. This may sound odd but the best relationships are reciprocal. You will gain the greatest results from a relationship when each side gains something in the equation. Again, you will bring them time, treasure, or talent. You may simply be providing them with money and compensation for their efforts, or you may be able to provide introductions for them to other people or business, or it may be something completely different. Before you approach the people you need, you must define clearly what you will need from them and what you will provide in return. Be honest – it saves so much time.
You have identified your Bigger Future Circle – the people who will help you achieve your goals. The next step is clear – contact them, meet with them, describe the opportunity, and build your connection.
If the person is already known to you, contact them and arrange a meeting to discuss the opportunity to work together. If you know the person but do not currently know them, look at who may be a connection through to them and ask for the introduction. If you have no specific person but know who you want, find them.
The best thing you can do to achieve your goals in 2010 is to be clear that you are not doing it alone. Define what you want to achieve, what you have to focus on to get there, and who you need to leverage your efforts to win.
The saying is really true, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, that is responsible for your success. Be strategic about the network you need to support your success. The real breakthrough is to know that success is not a solo sport and putting together the team that will leverage your strengths and help you achieve your best.
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The Keys to a Bigger Future: Do You Know the Right People?
