Magnetic Relationships

Dr Miguel Lopes, a Portugese academic, has developed the concept of 'magnetic relationships'. His research focused on how entrepreneurs attract resources for new ventures, in particular the way in which the individual entrepreneur sells ideas and builds networks.

Successful entrepreneurs sell ideas through a mix of an engaging and persuasive style and the pure force of their personality.

Building a network involves two key strategies. The first is to develop 'legitimacy', in other words, building trust and authentic relationships with people. People who act in line with their values automatically attract other people.

The second is positioning oneself in the market. This involves three strategies:

1. Broaden the scope of the relationship with people with whom resources are exchanged. This allows a broader range of options should a particular type of resource be required in the future, whether it be physical or information.
2. Increase strong ties with important resource providers. Such people could be staff members, colleagues, suppliers etc. The aim here is to develop the relationship with a person that is based on more than just one topic or transaction.
3. Increase weak ties to as many people as possible. This is the traditional definition of networking. Meet as many people as you can. Such meetings generate opportunities through 'chance' encounters.

The concept of 'magnetic relationships' has immediate applicability to careers. We all know the importance of networking, but for most of us it is a difficult thing to do. The power of 'magnetic relationships' is that people will be attracted to you, making your networking easier. However, you still have to maintain your magnetism using the three strategies above:

1. Keep regularly in touch with those who you deal with. Try and meet other people around those you already deal with
2. Setup a system to stay in touch with those people that are important to you. They may play a number of different roles (eg mentor, information provider, networker etc) but the key is to remain visible.
3. Keep up the traditional networking. Yes, its hard work but its importance to your career cannot be overestimated. Make a goal to attend 1 networking function each month.

Remember that even magnets need to be re-magnetised, so keep at it!

Crafting Your Job

A job never remains the same. We constantly alter the tasks and activities we do as well as change the people with whom we interact with on a daily basis. Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton, Professors of Management call this 'crafting a job' and define it as 'the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work'.

Take our office cleaner for example. Over the past 9 years that he has cleaned our offices he has come to know us well and vice versa. Without fail he will take the time to have a chat and our relationship has moved from contractual to friendship.

He is a superb example of job crafting. The 'relational boundaries' of his job has changed as he spends more time in our offices than on other floors so that he can have a yarn with whoever is in the office. His tasks have also changed as he comes to our floor as close as possible to 5pm to say hello to staff. He'll also go over and above the call of duty to keep our offices clean. He takes coffee spills personally. He'll dry-clean parts of our carpet without charging. And don't get him started on fingerprints on our glass door.

As a result of this job crafting, his identity and the meaning of his work has changed. For him, it's not just about emptying the bins and vacuuming the carpet each day. He sees himself as an integral part of our business and takes pride in the cleanliness of our office. By altering who he interacts with and subtly changing the tasks and activities undertaken, he has crafted work that is more meaningful and fulfiling.

Job crafting exists whether we are conscious of it or not. It may occur more visibly in some workplaces than others depending on whether employees perceive that there is opportunity to job craft as well as individuals' perceptions toward their work.

Job crafting is neither good nor bad. If job crafting results in work patterns that are aligned with organisational objectives then there may be a benefit to the organisation.

Ultimately, we all strive to increase the satisfaction we derive from work. One way in which we do this is by actively crafting our jobs through task changes and altering our relationships at work. We spend such a significant amount of our life at work, why not enjoy it?

Further Reading
Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. 2001. Crafting a Job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review, 26(2): 179.

How much we miss

The story below is copied verbatim from an email that has recently been circulated. If you haven't read this, do so. It's a beautiful story of what is important.

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Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:
the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. = Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.... How many other things are we missing?

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Shifting professions mid-career

Making a significant shift of professions mid-career has always been difficult. Becoming an expert in one field (eg as a doctor, engineer etc) requires a significant amount of learning, time and experience.

So what happens when you want a change?

There are two things you need to do: (1) gain experience; and (2) further education.

The first step is to start to build experience in the industry to which you want to transition. Taking the example of a doctor wanting to become an engineer, think through where the medical and engineering fields overlap (eg biomedical, design engineer, etc). Then find ways to build experiences such as through a secondment, special project, involvement in the industry association or volunteer work.

The second step is further education. The one profession which has pioneered mid-career professional transitions is Management. The origins of the MBA is from the need to equip technical experts in management skills as they move up vertical career ladders.

But, other professions have cottoned on. Today's Australian Financial Review reports on a new 2-year Master of Professional Engineering (from University of Sydney) designed to train engineers from non-traditional backgrounds or help existing engineers move into another discipline.

Shifting professions can be done. It is the road less travelled, but the road most enjoyed.

(Postscript: Don't forget Monday's AFR has a weekly liftout called "Education" with the latest trends and offerings from the education sector.)

What will motivate you: money or development?

A recent survey reported in the Financial Review again found that people are more interested in long-term career development than remuneration. In fact, with the economic woes, career development is even more important than a year ago. 45% of employees left their employer because of a lack of career development.

Interestingly, nearly half of the 3000 employees surveyed said they were seeking a new job.

This hints that people are resigned to their current situation but will move if a better opportunity comes along. I wonder though, how many people are being proactive about seeking opportunities? Are they just looking outside their organisation? Do they see the opportunities within their current workplace that are created during times of change?

Remember that 'career development' is your responsibility. Don't just rely on your organisation to come forward with opportunities - they may well be overly occupied just keeping the ship afloat. Be proactive, explore, have conversations. Something interesting might just turn up....

The grass isn't always greener

I was speaking last night with a good friend of mine who is currently living and working in Edinburgh. Well, at least has been working up until recently when her contract with a financial institution wasn't extended. The GFC and all that. Now she's looking for work in a tough labour market.

In reflection on our conversation I made the assumption that just because she is living overseas she must be having a fun, grand time. It wasn't until she told me her situation that it brought back memories for me of job hunting in London and Vancouver. Of the loneliness and guilt of not enjoying the daily grind, but, feeling that one "should" be enjoying it simply because you are living overseas.

The grass isn't greener in the other paddock.

It always looks amazing, but don't forget there is a day to day reality. Whether the paddock you see is another job, occupation, organisation, city or country. Be wary of the green-tinted glasses. Don't squash the emotion - that excitement is what life is about - but keep a balanced perspective.

Work experiences you need

Developing and growing your career requires experience. It is through our successes and failures that we learn the most.

We tend to think about work experience as one-dimensional, in other words, that it is about experience in general. There are, however, different experience sets that we need to go through in order to develop our career. This depends first and foremost on our preferred career direction. The aim is to gather experiences that lead us toward our future direction.

Lets take an example. Ellen Goldman interviewed 36 CEO's to identify different types of work experiences that were important to develop the ability to think strategically. She identified 9 types, including for example:

• General work experience: a wide ranging variety of experiences that are significant in scope and are autonomous.
  
• Being mentored: particularly early on in one‘s career with have frequent contact and immediate feedback on performance.
  
• Being challenged one-on-one by a key colleague about one‘s thinking.
  
• Dealing with the threat of organisational survival by an external entity: for example a takeover threat or the loss of a key customer.

Think outside the box when it comes to what sets of experiences you may need.
Then, write down one action you will take to get one of these experiences in the next 14 days. Experiences won't happen unless you start somewhere!

Further reading: Goldman, Ellen F. (2008). The power of work experience: Characteristics critical to developing expertise in strategic thinking. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 19 (3): 217-239.