April 21st, 2007
Relationships are important. Relationships make ALL the difference. I think that this is something that we have always known, but in recent years there has been a proliferation of research and writing focused on relationships, social capital, and the power of social networks. In addition to that there are numerous web sites focused on expanding, leveraging and managing your network, such as LinkedIn, VisiblePath, Facebook and MySpace (to name just a few). I use LinkedIn and am pretty happy with it, but you can make your own decisions.
Back to relationships. Relationships obviously impact many aspects of our lives, and certainly play a critical role in our professional success. In Achieving Success Through Social Capital, (which is excellent) Wayne Baker talks about how our personal and professional networks determine what information we have access to and how we feel about the information we do have. If you think about it, that can have a pretty substantial influence on the direction of our life. He also talks about the fact that in this country most people do not have any or much racial / ethinc diversity in their primary networks. I think that this is huge. If networks play a key role in the diffusion of information and our networks are fairly segregated along lines of race and ethnicity, it seems likely that different racial and ethnic groups are operating with different information and do not all have access to the same level of opportunity.
One of the most valuable things that we can do is to provide opportunities for people to add to the diversity in their networks and here are two great ways to do this in Omaha:
Leadership Omaha is a great program for any current or emerging leader in Omaha, and also an opportunity for that person to expand their network of contacts by interacting with other LO participants which may be of different race, gender, age, profession, etc. Applications are due May 11th. Great program
Heartland Blueprint, which is a United Way program, is a leadership development program which seeks to increase minority participation on not-for-profit boards and/or committees. This is another great investment in a current or emerging leader and an opportunity for them to expand their network of relationships.