The Connector’s Advantage

by Michelle Tillis Lederman

The majority of respondents, at nearly 83%, were from the U.S., though I received responses from 75% of the regions in the world. Women made up 65% of the respondents, and 80% had a college degree. The greatest diversity was in job title and field with respondents representing every job title option provided and 37 different industries.

  The survey results were both expected and surprising at the same time and I will share specific findings throughout the book. While there was an increase in tendency toward certain characteristics in Connectors—such as high self-esteem and emotional intelligence—the overall differentiation was not huge. It was exciting to see that these characteristics were malleable. The good news is it is not just the way we are wired. Nurture can override nature and anyone can be a Connector! That is the point, connecting is accessible to all. My goals in writing this book are threefold. I want to demonstrate that:

  Relationships and connecting are critical to your results, success, and your happiness.

  Connectors have a way of thinking and acting that enables stronger relationships.

  Anyone can infuse these mindsets and behaviors into their interactions and see the impact.

  In working on this book, I talked about it. I told people my goals and my hope that anyone could adopt the mindset and infuse the actions of a Connector into their everyday to see the impact. When I shared, I also listened—and the responses were abundant! Friends and colleagues shared what they would want included, tools they would use, and tools they wanted to know more about. Then the light bulb turned on.

  I started this book to share a perspective on connecting, and then it occurred to me: I am connected to a ton of people with expertise in building different types of relationships with different types of people and for different reasons. So I began to curate my connections to bring you broader expertise. Throughout the book, you will hear from many of my friends and expert colleagues whose perspective and knowledge enhances the thinking in and usefulness of this book.

  I wrote this book for you. If you are already networking, but all that effort is not translating into results. If you are just as smart, but everyone else is getting further ahead. If you are looking for a new job or are up for a promotion. If you have great ideas, but no one seems to be listening to them. If you see yourself in any of these situations, this book is for you! And even if you are already a Connector, this book will help you take it up a level.

  I

  What Is a Connector?: Why Connecting Matters

  Connecting matters. Your relationships make the difference in the results you achieve, the impact you have, and the speed with which you make things happen. On top of all that, connections make you happier and healthier. The first section of this book backs up those claims. I present the concept of a Connector as a type of person. Almost everyone embodies some attributes of a Connector. Learn where you fall on the spectrum and determine where you strive to be.

  Connections Are Critical to Success

  “Just be nice, take genuine interest in the people you meet, and keep in touch with people you like. This will create a group of people who are invested in helping you because they know you and appreciate you.”

  Guy Kawasaki

  Real Relationships, Real Results

  Real relationships, real results. That has been my motto and tagline since I started my business. I chose it because I wanted that to be the way I conducted and directed my business, not because I had any concrete knowledge that my way would work. It was simply my preference. And my business grew.

  Regardless of your goal—a job, a promotion, a new business, or a referral—relationships lead to opportunities. And yet most of us let relationships fall into our lap. We rely on serendipity to meet the right people, and as a result, we miss out on an enormous amount of opportunities.

  I think of it like this: in the agricultural age, the greatest asset was land. In the industrial age, it was the machine. In the information age, it became data and technology. We are moving into the network age and our greatest assets are our relationships. And it is not just the relationships we have as individuals. It is also the relationships we have with organizations—brands we love and trust and return to again and again.

  The bottom line is that having connections helps you makes things happen. In this chapter, I’ll share why the relationships we have and the connections we make matter so much to you—and to the organizations we work for and frequent.

  My first book, The 11 Laws of Likability, was an attempt to explain my approach to starting my company, Executive Essentials, and to answer the frequently asked question, “How did I build my business?” I studied the drivers of likability and what enables connections to form. In this book, I am explaining the mindset of a Connector—a person who is people- and relationship-focused. I want you to know what I now know, the benefits of being a Connector. Beyond that, I want you to realize that anyone can infuse the mindsets and behaviors into their interactions and reap those same rewards.

  What rewards am I talking about? Simply put, connecting and relationships will get you what you are working toward faster and more easily and often with an even better outcome. This book is an example of that. From one conversation with a connection, an introduction was made and a spark was lit. And this book became a curation of my connections and their expertise which, in my opinion, is a far better result than with only my perspective.

  Faster, Easier, Better

  My client, Cindy, has only been working for her current employer and in the New York area for six years. She told me that she had been living in the South, not far from where she grew up, and was ready to move. She reached out to a former manager and said, “I am looking for a new position—what have you got?” Within a week, he helped her line up several interviews within his bank and she had offers from multiple departments. Which did she take? The one working for her former boss, of course!

  When you have someone to reach out to, or even the friend of a someone, the speed of your results is expedited. You are on the fast track. At Cindy’s level, a job search in good economic times typically takes six months; in tough economic times, a job search like hers, at higher levels, can take up to one year. For Cindy, it took six weeks. She didn’t need to go through online job boards, headhunters, or the human resources department. She went straight to the person who could make the decision to hire her. Her connection eliminated the gatekeepers and got her where she wanted to be, in New York, much faster and much more easily.

  Fast and easy are great. The real magic of being a Connector is when the result exceeds what you were trying to accomplish. Kristen Lamoreaux, now the CEO of her own search firm Lamoreaux Search, used to fulfill that function internally for large real estate organizations. While an employee, she helped hire the CIO at her firm. He later left and joined an even larger firm in a similar role.

  Kristen called him up to meet for lunch and told him, “I am thinking of going out on my own.” She recalled the next sentence out of his mouth was “I have 14 searches; I’ll give you all of them.” And Lamoreaux Search was founded. Better than she could have ever expected.

  Sounds too easy, right? The connection between them had already been established. Trust between them already existed, and trust expedites business. The connection continued, and so did the results for Kristen’s business. He used Lamoreaux Search nonexclusively when he was seeking to fill a role. One time when Kristen called him, all she had to say was, “I have the person you need to meet.” He said, “Great, don’t send me the résumé now; just put it on the calendar.” He ultimately hired that candidate.

  Sometimes connections just save time but may not generate a result. I had wanted LinkedIn to get involved in this book and was connected to someone pretty high up. As a result of her inquiry on my behalf, I quickly learned that LinkedIn does not collaborate on books. That one connection saved me hours of effort trying to make something happen that wasn’t going to
happen.

  Why Connections Matter to You

  Take a moment and think about what results you are looking to gain from reading this book. What do you wish for in your life right now? The five most common responses to this question are:

  “I want a promotion” or “I want to get the plum assignment.” Along with these are responses about making partner and increasing sales or clients.

  “I want to find a new job” or “I want to change careers.”

  “I’m starting a business.” Related responses include growing an existing business, getting more business, and getting a business funded.

  “I want to be happy” or “I want to be healthier.” This often coincides with being more influential, listened to, and engaged in your work. Health responses relate to reduced stress, feeling more energy day to day, and living longer.

  “I get it... I just want to expand my connections.”

  Is your goal on this list? Read on to learn how relationships can positively impact each one of these common responses and likely anything else you have on your wish list.

  Promotions and Plum Assignments

  A promotion is a goal of just about everyone at some point in their career. So how do you get promoted? The reality is, you get promoted when someone behind closed doors decides you deserve it. What you need is for someone at the table to be your champion. According to a recent study by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, men are 30% more likely than women to be promoted to management roles. 1 One reason is that men get more chances to interact with top leadership. They develop the connections. Another study proved that over a five-year period, people with mentors were five times more likely to receive promotions than people without them. 2 The same tactic works for receiving plum assignments. At my first job, I was unhappy with the lack of follow-through on recruiting promises. I mentioned being disappointed that I wasn’t working on the promised casino client to the senior manager who had recruited me. That was all it took. He made it happen and I was in the Bahamas working on a casino within a month.

  If you don’t have strong relationships with the higher-ups, develop them. Knock on the doors of your colleagues who have really interesting projects going on and ask if you can help them. If you simply let them know you’re eager and available, they may think of you the next time they can use extra hands.

  New Job

  I have been following the statistics on what percentage of jobs come from networking for more than a decade. In the early 2000s, it was just over half the jobs at any level in a company. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported double-digit growth over the years. The most recent study done in conjunction with LinkedIn revealed 85% of jobs come from who you know. 3 For those in executive-level positions, that number is likely even higher.

  The numbers speak for themselves as to why relationships make getting a job faster and easier, and sometimes better too. I know people who have had jobs created for them because the people at the company wanted them, but there was no position that fit. You can’t get a new job unless you hear about the opportunity. Often by the time a job is posted online, an internal candidate or a referral is already lined up for it. If you are in the market, put your feelers out like my client Cindy did. Use social media to connect. According to Fast Company, 79% of job seekers use social media in their job search. For those in the first 10 years of their career, this figure jumps to 86%. 4 Companies are using social media too. The more people you are connected to, the more likely you will come up in the employer’s or recruiter’s search.

  My editor’s husband recently found his new job—in a brand-new city, in a brand-new field—by networking. He reached out to people at all the companies he wanted to work for and politely asked for informational interviews. Within two months, after flying to the new city to take a few meetings face-to-face and prove how serious he was about moving, he had two job offers. It wouldn’t have happened if he’d simply filled out an online job application and left it at that.

  Start a Business

  This dream I relate to—I have been there. To start a business, there are a variety of needs: funding, customers, referrals, and the basic knowledge of how to run your own business. All of these needs can be aided by your relationships. Funding is probably the highest hurdle, but the right relationships can at least get you the meeting. That’s what Ari Horie, the founder of Women’s Startup Lab (WomenStartupLab.com), intended to do for women entrepreneurs. According to PitchBook, female founders got only 2% of venture capital dollars in 2017. 5 Ari thought the reason women lose out is because they are not in a power circle and she wants to change that: “We become that platform to finally help them take off because what they were lacking is access to those networks.” No surprise that Ari’s approach is working. She has been able to help women entrepreneurs grow through the power of knowing the right people.

  Relationships can get your business off the ground. People trust who and what they know. People also trust consensus and the opinions of people in a similar position to them, other consumers of a product or service. That is the power behind referral sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Rotten Tomatoes. According to Nielsen, people are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. 6 In a survey done by BNI of more than 3,000 businesspeople, more than half of the respondents said that they got 70% or more of their customers through referrals. 7 Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has said that people would rather do business with a person they like and trust rather than someone they don’t. 8 At the end of the day, the relationship often wins over a lower price and even over higher quality. People choose who they want to work with.

  Happiness and Health

  This may not seem an obvious answer to the question, “What results are you looking for?” But I would venture to guess that you wouldn’t mind being a little happier and healthier, and connections can do that for you. This might not surprise you, especially if you’re familiar with the world’s longest study of adult life which began in 1938 at Harvard University, during the Great Depression. According to Dr. Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and director of the study, “Good Relationships Keep Us Happier and Healthier.” 9 Humans are by nature tribal people, and quality face-to-face interactions and relationships truly matter to our emotional state.

  Connection matters enormously to your overall health, even to your longevity. In a study of more than 3.4 million participants, Brigham Young University professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad found social isolation and loneliness to have a greater impact on mortality than obesity, and lacking social connections carries a risk similar to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. She found people with greater social connections were associated with a 50% lower risk of early death in contrast to people who were lonely. 10 The evidence tying your well-being to your connections is abundant. Research shows strong social connections strengthen your immune system, reduce stress hormones, and increase dopamine, which produces the sensation of pleasure. 11 Connections don’t just feel good—they are good for us.

  Relationships also impact our happiness on the job. According to the Journal of Applied Psychology, close work friendships boost employee satisfaction by 50% and predict happiness at work.12 In its State of the American Workplace report, Gallup found that people with a best friend at work are seven times more likely to engage fully in their work.13 Relationships even advance your impact and innovation. Research shows that the quantity and quality of your relationships predict how innovative you’ll be; it has to do with the way your ideas meet and are transformed by others.14 Per the Journal of the Academy of Marketing, when you are liked as an employee, you are seen as more trustworthy—and your ideas more credible. Happiness and engagement with your work is largely due to your relationship with your boss. A Towers Watson study revealed the number-one driver of employee engagement is the belief that management has an interest in your well-being.15 I always say that to be a relationship-driven leade
r you simply need to show your employees two things: you care about them as people, and you care about the things they care about. Who wouldn’t be happier with a boss like that?

  Take It Up a Level

  Many of you know this already. You have seen the power of relationships in your life and embrace the impact that being a Connector can have on your results. You don’t need convincing; you just need to know how to take it up a level. You want to continue to expand your connections, nurture and strengthen your relationships, and solidify your designation as a Connector. This book will do that for you. Read on.

  Mindset Mission

  Connection before Content

  Peter Block, an author and leader in organizational development, claims that, “We must establish a personal connection with each other. Connection before content. Without relatedness, no work can occur.” Will Wise, author of Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations that Matter (WeAnd.me), shares a practical exercise to test the impact of being deliberate in creating connection before diving into content at the start of your next meeting.

  Step 1: Formulate a single, powerful question to kick off the conversation. The question should connect people to each other and to the purpose of why you are there and create an opportunity for vulnerability.

  Use the questioning techniques from the Law of Curiosity in The 11 Laws of Likability. Use open-ended questions that start with “how” or “what” and not “why” to reduce defensiveness and get people talking. One of Will’s favorite questions is, “What are you intending to achieve and what about that is important?”