What The Best Relationship Builders Do Differently: Part 1 🤝

In an age where AI can do the transactional work, what does real relationship-building \ require of us? Part 1 of a 3-part series.

“It is the time that you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Earlier this month, the wonderful Katherine Westgate invited me to speak on a panel for New York City’s Dalton School’s faculty on the topic of GenAI in education. It was a breath of fresh air to hear diverse perspectives on the role of AI, different from what I hear in Silicon Valley. You could feel the emotion of the moment we’re in: AI will damage kids brains. Upend the entry level job market. Disrupt learning in fundamental ways. But there was also feedback that this moment brings opportunity for the next generation. Opportunity to explore what makes us uniquely human. And to invest in skills we will need in even greater abundance in the years ahead.

Uniquely Human: Relationships

Relationship building is on shaky ground in the chronically online era. c/o Gemini

One skill that came up, and is very personal to me, was building and cultivating relationships. Perhaps the most fundamental skill that has enabled human survival and growth. In the AI and social media era, we’re already seeing this skill diminish. A small business owner told me the other day that she finds many younger customers are far more distracted (looking at their phones ofc), and reluctant conversationalists than they used to be. This shift is mirrored in the workplace: a 2024 Forbes Advisor survey found that 53% of Gen Z professionals report a decline in their face-to-face communication skills. A few minutes on LinkedIn reading cold outreach messages highlights just how much is now automated and impersonal.

There’s something about writing about relationship building that itself feels impersonal. Shouldn’t relationships be organic? If we need to define and measure whether we are “following the steps”, doesn’t that make them transactional? However, just because something is organic doesn’t mean it’s not deliberate, hard work. Saint Exupéry talks about “wasted” time intentionally. If it feels productive, it is likely skin deep.

So how do we know if we’re investing in the skills to build strong relationships?

The Invisible, High Bar We Hold Ourselves To

I remember when I was about 2 years into working on partnerships at Google, my dream job, I got an email from the CEO of the startup I used to work at. He was checking in on how I was doing. I was so happy to hear from him. I had thought about reaching out to him many times, but I felt like I had nothing meaningful to share with him. We agreed to meet up for lunch, I shared how much positive impact our time working together had on me. How he helped me communicate more clearly, and get right to the heart of a topic. I also shared how much I was learning at Google. How we sourced user feedback, made decisions, worked across the globe etc. He shared that he was surprised that I didn’t reach out to him earlier. I told him I didn’t feel like it would have been worth his time. He shared: “It’s not for you to decide what’s worth my time. Don’t undervalue yourself.” That hit me hard. And made me realize what a high, fictional bar, I had been holding myself to when it came to reconnecting with professional relationships. Especially with those who were senior to me. I had been making assumptions that they didn’t want to hear from me. When here was a former manager, who was eager to hear more about what was going on in my life.

What The Best Do Differently

Professional relationships, much like romantic ones, are complex. And they take time to build. There is no “quick 10 step guide”. Having worked in partnerships for 15+ years, and now as an executive coach, I’ve had a front row to some of the most effective relationship builders in the world. I asked for their insights on how they do it. In this 3-part series, I’ll share their observations, including what they would recommend to the next generation (Part 3).

Today, we’ll start with the single most important lesson on relationship building from current and former business leaders at Google, The Atlantic, Disney, PayJoy, Paramount, Samsung, ServiceNow, and Amazon.

What’s the single most important lesson you learnt about building professional relationships?

#1: Know What You Bring To The Table

The fictional bar I held myself to with my former CEO wasn’t unique to me. Purnima Kochikar, VP of partnerships at Google, learned this lesson early in her career: “Know your audience: connect as humans by identifying what truly drives the other person and how you can fuel their success. This does not mean you give up on your core values or goals. It means you find a path towards your goals by first understanding and addressing theirs. And in cases, where there is value mismatch, you find others who are more aligned.”

Robert Teed, Leadership Coach and former VP at ServiceNow, put it clearly: “Care about the person, not the persona.” We often restrict our view of a professional relationship to the version of them that shows up in a meeting. Or their title / role. And we fail to see and hear the full version of them as a human. That distinction sounds simple. But it’s hard to put into practice. And makes a world of difference; we all want to be seen.

Jaideep Mirchandani, SVP at PayJoy and former product leader at Samsung and Google, found out that knowing yourself also means knowing when to push back. “Strong relationships require a critical mass of intensive work and difficult disagreements.. In one important instance, I was too compliant and did not push back adequately, which made the other side lose respect for me.” Being present in a relationship isn’t the same as being agreeable all the time. In fact, the people who build the most durable professional relationships bring their full perspective, including the inconvenient parts.

Before your next professional outreach, ask yourself:

• What do I actually bring to this relationship?

• What am I assuming about what the other person wants? Have I ever tested that assumption?

• Where am I making myself smaller than I need to be?

#2: Show Up Before You Need Something. Stay When Things Get Hard.

Tim Palmer, SVP of Partnerships at Paramount, and former partnerships leader at Google and Disney, is direct about this: “if you’re building professional relationships just for business outcomes, you might be in the wrong role.” The no-agenda meeting, the coffee with no ask, the check-in with no agenda aren’t nice-to-have. They represent the valuable “wasted” time Saint Exupéry describes.

And the value of “wasted” time compounds more than we know. Raj Ajrawat, Head of Games GTM at Google and author of Dadpreneurial, shares that relationships that are paying off years later, started with no agenda and no expectation: “The long game beats the short game, and almost everyone underestimates how long the long game is. The relationships paying off for me now were started ten years ago with no agenda. That compounding is the whole mechanism.”

Showing up consistently also means showing up when things get uncomfortable. Jalil Chikhi, Managing Director of partnerships at Google EMEA, learned this at cost: “I thought misunderstanding could be resolved with time with no actions. This taught me the importance of addressing issues in the moment.” Distance doesn’t resolve itself. Unaddressed tension compounds quietly, and by the time it surfaces, the relationship has already paid the price.

Find out how effectively are you showing up at the right times by asking yourself:

• List the top 5 people who have had the biggest impact on your professional life. When was the last time you reached out them with no business agenda?

• When was the last time you had an uncomfortable conversation with a professional relationship (not a manager or report)?

#3: Listen to Understand. Not To Respond.

This is where most of us fall short. One anonymous leader named the trap precisely: “A mistake I’ve made is to assume you’re right about something and just blindly sticking to that position. Sometimes it works, particularly if you’re in a position of power, but often it doesn’t and the result is frustration, mistrust, and broken relationships. The opposite of this is to listen. Ask questions. Seek to understand where the other person is coming from. And do that first.”

Mary Liz McCurdy, SVP of Partnerships at The Atlantic, adds that real attention extends beyond the conversation you’re in: “How your counterparts treat other people, or handle sensitive information when they aren’t in the room, is a proxy for how they’ll treat you.” What people do when nothing meaningful is at stake tells you everything.

Raj named the potential mistake of confusing activity with attention: “Responsiveness is a transaction. Attentiveness is a relationship. The inbox is the receipt.”

Are you listening to respond or to understand? Ask yourself the following to find out:

• List the last 3 people you had a meaningful professional interaction with, outside of your immediate teammates. Journal what you know about their values, their families (kids names, where they grew up etc.), their favorite weekend pasttimes etc. If you’re struggling deeply with this, you are likely not listening clearly enough.

• When was the last time you learnt new information about the life or values of a professional relationship you’ve had for more than 5 years? If you don’t know, set a goal to find out new information this month.

Find The Joy In Relationships

Tim highlights that these relationships should feel like the primary reward of work, not a cost: “Building professional relationships can make your work fun and interesting. The positive business outcomes resulting from deep relationships come as a side benefit of that.”

I want you to think of a former boss, colleague, or professional relationship that you value. Someone with whom you haven’t interacted in the past 3 years, but from whom you learnt something that stuck with you. Take a few minutes to do the following:

• Send them a message letting them know what lesson they taught you.

• Thank them for that gift. No agenda. No follow up needed.

Not only will you make their day, you will make yours. If a meet up or outcome comes of it, that’s all well and good. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to show the rose that time wasted on it, is what makes it important 🌹.

Next week in Part 2, we’ll explore one of the richest teachers in professional relationships: mistakes made.

Huge thank you to Raj Ajrawat, Jalil Chikhi, Purnima Kochikar, Mary Liz McCurdy, Jaideep Mirchandani, Tim Palmer, Robert Teed, and an anonymous senior leader for sharing your insights with The Wake Up by Anbara’s Substack’s readers!

The Wake Up Top 5

What we’ve been loving this week

1. Listen: Has The New York Times Become a Games Company? Great listen from Freakonomics. Made me think of games differently.

2. Bond: Auditions have begun for the next James Bond. My money is on a new face & name.

3. Garden: There are real health benefits to tending your wild garden. I am trying to get better at keeping my plants alive, with mixed results.

4. Read: The mental health benefits of cleaning. “We sweep dust to remove worldly desires. We scrub dirt to free ourselves of attachments.” Wise words from a monk in Kyoto. Speaking of worldly desires ⬇️

5. Pack: Traveling this summer? Even a 24-hour trip feels more special with berry-patterned packing cubes.

If you’ve made it this far, know that I’m so grateful you spent your time reading The Wake Up when you could be scrolling on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram or doing 100 other things as a busy, wonderful person. Thank you 💛 and please consider sharing The Wake Up with a friend.