The Value of Relationships

At the heart of all our professional and personal achievements are relationships. It's an old saying, but it's true: none of us achieves anything by ourselves. Our lives are not carried out in a vacuum. Our achievements, our thrills, our disappointments, our fulfillment comes about in relationships with other people. This issue focuses on the importance of relationships both in terms of our organizations and our personal lives.

Corporate Catalyst

Recently, I ran into several big bumps in the road with a long-time client. Suddenly my candor was not so refreshing. Suddenly my approach of collaborating together to develop best solutions was not so effective. Suddenly something was going very wrong very quickly. This had been one of those magical relationships where we could be completely honest with each other and drive results together. However, a myriad of small changes in our lives had compelled together like compound interest and was suddenly getting in our way of communicating effectively. As you might imagine, that is not a good thing in a consulting relationship.

After two months of dancing around the issues, we finally laid all of the cards on the table, became very frank with one another, identified the root causes to our problems and began to address them on the spot. Slowly, the magic began to reappear and we began to become very effective again.

The most important turning point for me was when my client said, "Right now, the most important thing is the integrity of our relationship. Everything else is secondary." Gosh, I love that phrase, "the integrity of the relationship." It means if both parties don't have the other person's interests at heart then they truly can't build a great business relationship. Once we shifted off of worrying about ourselves and shifted back to caring about each other we were able to resolve our differences in less than thirty minutes. Of course, all of this reminded of that great maxim:

All businesses are relationship businesses.

Regardless of your industry, product or service, you are in a relationship business. You don't have to have a one-to-one relationship with every client like I do in order to have relationships at the core of your business. Here are some examples of what I mean:

McDonald's rekindled their relationships with moms who have small children by completely revamping their salads.

Direct Satellite, apparently a company that sells a Direct TV service, has ruined any relationship they could have had with me by leaving annoying messages more than two dozen times on my business phone promoting their services. When I called back to complain and remove my name, they kept on doing it.

Disney hurt their relationship with many viewers by promoting television shows and films that clearly do not support their mantra of providing quality family entertainment.

Southwest Airlines continues to strengthen relationships with customers by continuing their humorous approach to air travel and by stepping in and providing low-cost fares in more cities.

The builder of our home damaged a good relationship with me by fixing a hole in the front yard of a display home while ignoring the same hole they dug on the same day in my yard.

QuikTrip continues to build great relationships with their customers by fulfilling their commitment to providing quick service.

See, you don't need to run a professional services firm to be in the relationship business. Just the fact that you are in business means you are in the relationship business. Find out what turns your customers on and do your best everyday to strengthen that relationship.

Career Catalyst

We work to live, not the other way around. I've written about this many times, but the point is even more relevant at this time of the year. Yes, get your work done and do it well. But more importantly use the last 35 days of the year to reconnect with the people in your life: your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings, your cousins, your neighbors and your friends.

Take a stack of personal note cards out and write a note to 25 people in your life who have made a difference for you. Even if it's been ten years since you saw them let them know that you appreciate what they did for you.

At the core of your life is you: your character, your happiness, your fulfillment, your sense of purpose. Around that core are people: your family, your friends, your colleagues. Around that core is your career, the way in which you make your living. Around that core is the organization you work for and the people you serve. This holiday season take care of yourself and take care of the relationships in your personal life. Trust me, the stronger these areas become the more you will be in a position to accelerate your career. When you neglect yourself and the people closest to you, you will soon find yourself unable to add value in your career.

Value your relationships. They are life's greatest assets.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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