It’s Not Who You Know…

February 23, 2010  | 

When it comes to getting things done, the old adage “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is deceptively over-simplified. OK, sure, it’s pithy and it captures why being connected to others is important, but there are a lot of assumptions built in to the expression that we have to implicitly accept to make the rule work broadly.

The thing is, it’s not really just who you know that makes the difference, is it? If you’re going to seek the help of others repeatedly to get things done, they’ve got to know you too, and like you and trust you and actually want to help you when you need them. Not so simple.

Building relationships with others that you can count on to go out of their way to help you when you need it most is hard work. It takes doing the right thing and treating people fairly and going out of your way for others and delivering what was expected of you over and over again that builds trust and gets you what you need in the long run. It’s almost never the single favor that makes the difference. Rather, it’s consistency where the people that matter most differentiate themselves.

Maybe we should change the adage to “It’s not who you know, it’s who wants to help you”

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  • Any who do you know that you want to help. Social networks make most relationships white noise... What unifies the people who pop up outside the irrelevant fodder of our new world?
  • Personal connections always make a difference in the noise online.
    That's just my opinion. If you're connecting with people and helping
    and teaching them consistently the noise dissapears and your community
    surfaces itself. If you're doing it right, you know who's listening
    and who's not.
  • I agree that it has to go both ways for the relationship to work. I think it is similar to a relationship bank account. As long as you are making some type of emotional or relationship deposits within in my account, I'll let you make withdraws. And depending upon the strength of our relationship and trust, I'll even let you over draw on the account from time to time. But if you continue to ask for help and don't give back in anyway, I question the value of the relationship. And, I begin to see the person asking for help as a energy sucker, there to suck the very life out of me. It's a delicate balance for sure.
  • This goes back to the discussion I was having with Fraser above. Have
    you read my post on The Cookie Jar Principal? It's exactly what you're
    saying here. Link to the post is above in the comments.
  • I particularly enjoyed this premise LIVE with you on Wednesday while you were in Palo Alto, it was a fun experiment by you that led to results in real time from across the continent! Kudos Sir!
  • Hahha. Twitter is great like that. I asked a simple question (where is
    the best place to get lunch) and within 5 minutes you sent me to a
    killer spot I never would have found on my own and it totally changed
    my day. So no, thank you.
  • Beautifully said.

    And I think the relationship needs to go both ways for it to be healthy. Once it shifts out of equilibrium it's probably worth maintaining other relationships that you know will continue to help.
  • That's a very good point. You've got to maintain a balance in your
    relationships. I think we had a similar chat here...
    http://blog.steffanantonas.com/the-cookie-jar-p...
  • :) that's still one of the best posts on the topic that I've read
  • The quality of the comments/discussion on that post are almost certainly the
    best on this blog. I think finding balance in relationships is something we
    all want, but that very few people are good at achieving.
  • do you think it's ironic that that post generated the best discussion ;)
    kidding.
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