How to Grow Professional Relationships
Over my career, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know some of the world’s most incredible builders. This same career has also seen quite a significant amount of gatekeeping: various (m|b)illionaire boys clubs and cliques have made it quite clear that they’d prefer to keep their world small and exclusive, and that there’s no room at their table. To each their own, but this dynamic has led to some thinking and reflection around the nature of professional relationships, friendships, and identity—ultimately resulting in what I’m calling TJS (The Journey to Synergy) Collaboration Model.
This spectrum is how I measure professional relationships and where I stand in those relationships. It outlines seven states moving from a competitive, zero-sum mindset to one of shared identity (which is equally problematic).
Let’s briefly understand each state. One way we can make this information really practical is to understand it in context. A great illustrative context for this is my podcast, because it requires regularly interacting with people that inevitably reveals where we land on this spectrum.
