“The Leadership Perspective” is a series of articles designed to assist millennials and emerging leaders with navigating difficult situations. Each week, successful business leaders provide targeted, actionable advice to enhance your perspective and improve your leadership skills.
This week’s article features two leaders in the events and hospitality industries:
Stephanie Glanzer, Chief Sales Officer & Senior Vice President at MGM Resorts International
Cyndi Roppolo Rosenberg, Director of Business Development at Kehoe Designs
Relationships satisfy our natural desire for human connection and can create meaningful experiences. In fact, building a network that offers diverse perspectives is an essential tool for your professional growth and development. By effectively using your network, you can develop your talents, make better decisions, create opportunities, and take calculated risks. Simply stated, a successful career is anchored by your ability to build strong and meaningful relationships.
In order to recognize how interpersonal relationships can enhance your career, you must first understand your own network. I think of my professional network as a basketball team. It is a collection of diverse players who each contribute uniquely to my personal development while enriching my career as a whole. Based on my experience, I have identified four primary categories of relationships: the “starting five,” the “sixth man,” the “bench players,” and the “freshman.”
As Stephanie so perfectly says, “in order to build a strong network, you must use multiple channels to grow it.” This article will provide actionable strategies for each of the four relationships identified above to help you build and strengthen your network, thereby enhancing your career.
The Starting Five
Your starting five are the biggest assets in your professional network. These are the people you know best, including your colleagues, professional mentors, and sometimes even your friends. You interact with them regularly and are often comfortable exposing your deepest concerns and sharing your biggest aspirations. As your most reliable teammates, they provide you unwavering support in return.
In difficult situations such as the current pandemic, reinforcing your strongest relationships has never been more important. The weekly coffee chats, phone calls, and lunch meetings of the past shouldn’t stop just because we can’t meet in person. All of these meeting formats can transition to the virtual environment. Think about how you can work with your “starting five” differently. Instead of meeting exclusively to swap inspirations, updates, and goals, turn these conversations into opportunities to collaborate as a means to extend your relationships and build visibility for both parties.
The Sixth Man
In basketball, the “Sixth Man” is the name for a player who is the first substitute off the bench. This player is valuable in many different ways. Not only are they a sparkplug, providing energy in times of need, but they are also consistent, delivering sustained and reliable performance on the court. Within your professional network, your sixth men are people who you may not always reach out to, but when you do, they consistently come through for you.
When navigating unexpected change, these relationships offer invaluable support. During the pandemic, Cyndi turned to the reliable relationships that were established prior to the outbreak. Her focus has been “looking at the relationships that I have and asking them to make those connections for me. Tapping into someone who already knows who I am, who understands our product or feels comfortable with [us], and then asking that person to make the introduction.” These relationships are important connection points that ultimately lead to new business for her team.
The Bench
The bench players are not as strong as the starting five, don’t make on-court appearances as frequently as the sixth men, but are still completely capable of helping the team. They have an integral role because without these players, the rest of the team would never have a break from the action. These players can include old colleagues or classmates and former bosses who you have lost touch with over time but are still an important component in your network.
Widespread crises provide you with a unique opportunity to re-establish relationships with your bench players. You can email them out of the blue, send a LinkedIn message, or even a text message without an “ask” involved. Stephanie explains, “it’s the simple ‘check-ins’ that have the most meaning. I have tried to use this time to reach out to those in my network for no reason other than to say hello and that I am thinking about them.” Acting on an opportunity to replenish these strong connections and influential relationships from your past will differentiate you from others. After all, as Stephanie points out, “you never know when a relationship can help you in advancing your career or make you more successful”.
The Freshman
On any team, the freshman are the new players figuring out their roles and are eager to learn and be part of the team. It’s possible that a rookie may quickly turn into an all-star and end up with a shining role on the team. In business, these are the fresh contacts entering your professional network for the first time.
In the context of this worldwide pandemic, genuine connections are becoming increasingly necessary and meaningful. Communities have rallied to support recent college graduates who are starting their professional careers during a recession. Organizations have offered free resources and subscriptions. You can give back and build mutually beneficial relationships in the process. Choose to participate in industry or community activities. Volunteer to review resumes, edit cover letters, or assist with interview prep. Check in with the people around to see what they need. These generous efforts will expose you to an entirely new community of people that you otherwise would not have known. In fact, someone you help might just become the all-star that you didn’t realize you needed.
In essence, you can use this time to build an infrastructure for your future. Identify the people and/or organizations you want to know better. Develop an action plan so that you can meet your goals. Cyndi recommends, “do the research first…learn everything you can about the industry or person you’re meeting with.” She explains how you must not only understand what network you want to pursue but also why you want to pursue it. Taking these steps now will give you a head start when “normal” business resumes.
