Page 98 - Make Work Great

Growing Your Crystal

Is This Networking?
Much has been written about the importance of professional net-
working, and supportive human networks are critical in a variety of
circumstances. Whether you require a piece of important informa-
tion, a lead on a new job, or the name of a good potential employee,
your professional network is where you look.
Culture building is complementary to effective networking, but it
is not the same thing. In traditional networking, the goal is to make
contact with someone who might be “good to know,” establish a
relationship, and then keep an active connection should either of you
be able to help the other in the future. You reach far from your estab-
lished circle—past the limits of Figure 4.1—and build connections
in new areas. Then, through conversations geared toward mutual
benefi t, you and your new contact explore how you might link your
two crystalline structures, now or in the future, by learning about
each others’ work and helping each other. In networking, you begin
with someone who is metaphorically distant, and then build a bridge
of mutual benefi t back to where you are.
Crystal building, on the other hand, starts locally. You choose some-
one you know well and work with most often. You enhance that com-
munication link fi rst, with an eye toward building outward from there.
The end goal is the same: to create a growing list of trusted contacts.
But in crystal building, the fi rst thing you add is trust, not contacts.
You’re not reaching past the limits of Figure 4.1. You’re working within
it, improving and changing your relationships with those around you
one at a time, until you have re-created the patterns of work that all of
you together use to do your jobs. That’s why the fi rst person you select
should be someone with whom you already work closely.

Teach by Example and Only by Example
How exactly are you supposed to encourage that chosen colleague
to adopt your new patterns of workplace behavior? How do you get
someone else to start practicing overtness about tasks and clarity
within relationships? The answer to this question will depend on spe-

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