Smart Moves Are Always Timely

from the desk of Ron Sukenick

I like to keep a lot of variety in my reading; you just never know where you'll find a valuable lesson or tidbit of information. I ask my friends to send me articles they read for their own professions, or things they find online that I can use in training people to go beyond traditional networking. One lady who works in the human resources field sent a fascinating article out of Employee Benefit Advisor magazine, written by a George Lane. Lane was talking about our "tenuous economy" and all the significant business risks involved.

Lane pointed out that "reductions in force" (read layoffs) "put many employers in a position from which they will be unable to complete once the economy picks up again." He quoted a Mercer report about managing human capital during slow growth times. The report urges employers (this is one way in which this article is so relevant for my work) to "Communicate frequently and honestly to employees…to counter de-motivating messages." The report praised executives at the European company LaFarge, who, in the face of a corporate initiative to reduce overall costs by 340 million euros, decided to increase their investment in employee education. Another company, Dimension Date, used a series of conference calls and Webcasts to communicate their "Think Wellness" program to employees.

Here's what was so important to me about what these two companies did. They didn't just start doing these things when the economy turned south, and they didn't stop doing them using the downturn as an excuse. "Communicating often and retaining key talent are things that successful companies should be doing all the time", explains Gorge Lane.

That is precisely what I've been teaching and preaching about business connections.
From my own observations, as I explain in The Power Is In The Connection, my theory is that if you keep interacting with someone, and only if you keep doing it (I advise at least six times), you'll keep open the chance of building an incredible relationship. No matter what the economy is doing, no matter how you think your business is doing at any one point in time, staying in touch and making connections are smart moves.