The Name of the Game

A couple of days ago, I returned from attending ERE's Spring Expo in San Diego. While I have been to the Left Coast many times, this was my first time to visit San Diego.

The fact that I came back at all was a major test of self-discipline and will power, and for those readers who have been to San Diego, you will know exactly what I mean, especially after living in the Northeast in January through March. Just kidding, I love it in New England, but I have to say, the weather out there was something to treasure for sure.

Anyway, back to the ERE experience. This was my first ERE Expo, although as a company we have been to several. At this particular event, in addition to exhibiting, ExecuNet was asked to help do a summary of the "learnings" that participants were exposed to over the two days that came from a variety of well-known experts such as:

Lou Adler, CEO of The Adler Group , Jeremy Eskenazi Managing Principal Riviera Advisors, John Leech Director of Recruitment at FedEx, Shally Steckerl, Founder of JobMachine, Dr. John Sullivan and Penelope Trunk Boston Globe Columnist aka The Brazen Careerist, and this is only a sampling.

Trying to cover all the of the workshops and tracks that were offered was a challenge to say the least, but there were five of us out there, and while it made for some longish days, we got to almost everything, and as this is written, are preparing a white paper executive summary that will be sent by ERE to all the those attending since one of the toughest things about attending a conference such as this is making the difficult choices regarding what tracks you are going to go to when there are always things going on at the same time that you want to hear.

The purpose of the closing summary that we were asked to sponsor was to try and quickly summarize what the key learnings were while things were still fresh in people's minds. So, with conference chair Trudy Knoepke-Campbell Director of National Recruitment for Minuteclinic we tried to lead the group through what we felt were the key points that came out of the conference.

At one point, there was a question asked that really helped me to focus and express what the most important takeaway was, at least for me. The question went something like this: "If you were to summarize in one word what you felt expressed the key headline message over the course of the conference, what would it be?"

I wasn't sure if this was asked to make sure that I didn't go on too long, or if it was asked to help the group focus. I elected to assume it was the latter, and my response was: TRUST.

Some very smart people had spent a lot of time talking about ways and means to recruit and retain in a market place that, despite an economy that was contracting, going to remain very competitive both home and away for some time to come.

As I thought about it, it really didn't make a lot of difference if an organization was recruiting or working to build a culture in which people would want to stay once the "selling" was over, if they did not fundamentally trust the organization’s leadership, the brand, their boss, or their colleagues the relationship was doomed.

A company can have the best technology going and all that good stuff, but if they do not have a culture and values that actually support all the "copy" of a mission statement or the letters to stockholders from the CEO will not stem the departure of people in search of something/someone in which to believe, and judging from where things stand at the moment (think sub-prime debacle for openers) we still have lots of work to do.

It's Not the What, It's the How

I really didn't look that hard to find the current guesstimated number of blogs and even if I had found one, I knew it would be out of date once I closed the page. All of which is enough to underscore what we all know already - there are millions of blogs and if you try and visualize all the combinations of how people can now connect with someone else, I am not sure there are enough commas for whatever that number would be.

Anyway, what got me thinking a bit about this was stumbling across a blog called MarketingProfs: Daily Fix authored by Ann Handley. In a recent post she was writing about what she thought was the best invitation she had ever received asking her to "link" with someone on LinkedIn. If you read it, I think you'll agree that it really is very creative and clever, but beyond the creativity of her friend's communication with her, I also read into her post another message, and one which we talk to our members about with great frequency - that is the process of building both reputations and relationships is always about quality, not quantity.

The point being that while each of us, be it on a personal or a professional level, know either intuitively or by experience that our connections and relationships with others is by far the most powerful business and/or career management tool we have. While in the electronic age, saying you have hundreds or even thousands of "connections" sounds impressive, it is a long way, to state the obvious, from measuring the quality or effectiveness of your network.

In my own experience I have always found that in terms of degrees of success or failure it isn't so much what I am trying to achieve so much as how I go about trying to achieve it that really makes the difference.

Ann's buddy Charlie clearly understands all of that and more.