Connectivity

New York, NY - Life is about relationships: building them, cultivating them, mending them, nurturing them. Relationships, it turns out, are the fundamentals of work.

In America, it seems work comes first, then relationships come after. Elsewhere, relationships come first—work follows suit. When I was a health educator with an international health organization, I worked in a small village in Mali promoting prevention practices like washing hands with soap in village conditions where soap was sometimes a luxury. My supervisors told me I had to first learn to be accepted as a member of the village. I had to be credible and ‘integrated’ in the village before the information I dispensed could be perceived as credible.

Throughout two years in Mali, I spent more time building trust and ‘street credibility’ through attendance at village weddings, funerals, births and tea conversations than I was ‘doing my job’ which was teaching prevention tips on malaria and malnutrition at the health centers. It turned out spending time at weddings and at tea was a part of the job of building trust. Being good at my work meant I couldn’t do it alone on the merit of the information I presented. I had to pay time and pay with relationship capital.

On this side of the Atlantic, a job search depends on paying relationships dues. It is best to build relationships all throughout one’s career(s) and not just now when one is looking for a job. When the relationship groundwork is laid out before a need or favor arises (for example, when you are requesting a contact to get you an informational interview) the chances are greater that the person in your relationship will come to assistance. The key is to be seen as the kind of person someone thinks of when a job opportunity comes to his mind. You come to mind because you are a relationship person.

To be a relationship person means attending to the events of life and honoring others with your time. Attending a wedding is one way. Saying hello and good-bye upon entering a social scene is another (showing good manners is priceless). Inquiring about the health of partners and remembering children’s name are others. Relationships may yield jobs or they may not. The point to be made is that they give evidence to how good you are at building and maintaining them.

Can the below testify to your Relationship Savvy?

- Your co-workers
- Your doorman or doorwoman of your building
- Your priest or pastor
- Your barista or whomever you go for coffee
- Your gym attendant or trainer

And so forth…


Photo by RaeA. Creative Commons License
http://flickr.com/photos/raeallen/

Cate - When We Were in Koutiala

Koutiala, Mali - The D train is great for the ride home in the evening. It rides over the Manhattan Bridge and you can see both Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges from south and north. The lulling of the train as it goes over the bridge and the archetypal views of the bridges send my thoughts to reflection and to far away places. Tonight the place is Koutiala (Mali) and the person I remember is Cate.

Cate was a woman of 40 or so. I was a man of 30 or so. We shared a house in Koutiala given to us by the organization that employed us. Cate advised local villagers on sustainable building projects where she worked. I advised others on preventing malaria and nutrition where I worked. We both escaped to Koutiala periodically when we couldn’t bear the scrutiny of living as near celebrities in our own villages.

We found each other’s company. And we grated on each other’s nerves. Cate, before this job, was an artist who saw beauty everywhere even in found objects like rusted metal. She was tirelessly optimistic. I, before this job, was a community educator who had perhaps attended too many trainings on ‘isms’: racism, sexism, classism, etc----I thought I heard it all. I was a pragmatist.

We clashed on so many things. There were at least two occasions: She didn’t believe in the notion of “falling in love” because corollary to that was “falling out of love”. She just loves and continues to love all her former partners even now, she says. She also didn’t believe in the value of consistency. I managed the house’s money matters and made sure the guardian of the house was paid on time—not after and not before. Cate was fine with giving him an advance even if we both agreed not to do it as a matter of policy. Sometimes our differences bordered the ideological.

Fast forward many years later after our work ended in Mali and after our return to the States and you’ll find me a little humbled for my black-and-white thinking and the many hard-lines and positions I took. Cate was a traditional knowledge kind of person; she was a free-spirit. I was a stick-by-the-book kind of person; I believed in rules. For the space of two years, we worked through our differences. I now miss her firebrand optimism. Then, we were archetypes to each other. Now, time has blurred lines and definitions.

Link to internet photos of Koutiala