On a recent afternoon of listening to sports talk in the car, I heard another recounting of the pedigree of a coach based upon their “coaching tree.” This time it was the Dallas Cowboys‘ hiring of Monte Kiffen and the where-he-came-from-and-who-he-knew history that justified his hiring.
It got me to thinking that we can create a hierarchy of our own relationships and networks. Like a family tree, it might help you uncover a long-lost uncle.
It can be done by industry, by company or by association. For example, in my dealings with the exhibit industry, I can map out a “who begat what” for several exhibit houses here in Dallas dating back to the late 1980s. It also ties into the “tree” I could create for the same industry in Minnesota, where I spent my years prior to coming to Dallas. And that is only because of one guy who chose to establish a business partnership between the two states to support a common client.
I also did a similar tree for a presentation not long ago to make the point of where job seekers should look for relationships that could work for them. In that case I used the retail technology segment and tied HP, Retalix, Fujitsu and a number of others together with a series of common threads.
My point here is that you can do the same thing to help you understand the relationships in your life who you could help and they, in turn, could help you. We all joke about “the circle is small” and “be careful, you could be standing on the bridge you burn.” But do you actually realize what those relationships are, who knows who in your circles and the potential impact you have on them and vice versa?
Maybe you should take a minute and map out your family tree of business associates.
Relentless
