The 50% Relationship Rule

Relationships matter a lot.

We live in an era that promotes volume. Volume of influence, volume of impact, volume of friends, contacts, and connections. The concept of “more is better” has flooded our understanding of relationships and the power that resides in having “social capital.”

Professionally, it is not challenging to garner new relationships. Joining associations, clubs, and business development organizations as well as attending professional events makes the “introductory” phase of meeting new people rather easy. The difficult part is sustaining those relationships to actually get the quality and depth we often hope for but rarely see.

There is a silent undertone that resides in the financial services industry of “always selling.” The idea that each person you meet either has something they want to sell you or you want to sell them. This concept of “selling” syncs with defensive perspectives of the other person and limits our ability to foster a genuine connection simply as two human beings. We create an immediate expectation of what it is we want out of the other person or perhaps what they are looking to get out of us.

Relationships and communities are built by communing, and communing happens best with authentic and sincere communication. This means that you are responsible for 50% of the success or failure of every relationship that you have, yet rarely do we take the idea of 50% responsibility seriously because we are always looking at what we can get out of others and nothing more. This is often how poor reputations begin and why professional relationships fail. Our ability to assume our 50% responsibility is challenged by what we want from the other person and when that is not met, we often ignore or write them off.

Expectations matter and the expectation that takes precedence is the expectation you should have of being a good, honest, and authentic human being. Under the blanket of modern marketing and sales tactics we have fostered dissentious interactions and approaches to relationships. We have forgotten that other people are simply not a number with a dollar value assigned to the opportunity of interacting with them. They are human beings with real problems who thirst for real connection. We all do, as that thirst has been engrained in our DNA through millions of years of dependency on one another for survival, community, and identity.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t a time to walk away from a relationship, this simply means before you walk away ask yourself if you been very clear and honest with yourself about the intentions you’ve had in that relationship. Did you put your best foot forward in carrying 50% of the relationship and did you connect with the other person at a human level to see if there is genuine alignment? Business is a whole lot more fluid when you connect as human beings as opposed to strictly transactions. With the rise of CRM softwares and “pay to play” opportunities we often forget that the relationships we are tracking are not on our projected timeline; they march to their own beat and require meaningful interactions to gain the depth we need to create real trust.

Keep your heart, mind and expectations rooted in sincere and genuine interactions with those you seek to serve and the 50% rule becomes easy to follow; there will be no tactic, ploy or strategy you are using, simply being a good human being for the sake of being a good human being. That’s how strong relationships are built and influential reputations are established.