I’ve had an opportunity to take away a lot of ideas from my first week in the IAL program. I’m going to call them my foundational nuggets; the ideas and concepts that I want to take away from this week that I hope will continue to help me grow over the next year in this program.
The first nugget comes from the quote, “While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a company, a relationship or a life – any single conversation can.” For me this was a very strong reminder that you never know which of the conversations you’re having is going to be the one that greatly impacts your life or the lives of those you’re speaking with. The key to remember about it is that it doesn’t have to be the most demanding topic of discussion to have an impact. It could be an impressive, formal conversation about the research you completed last year, or it could be discovering a shared affinity for hiking the Green Mountains in Vermont. The fact that you don’t know which of these conversations is going to be the one that might get you in the door reinforces the concept of being present in each conversation you have so that you can make an impression in either situation that will enrich your relationship with your conversation partner and potentially change your life. I plan to take this concept with me into every conversation I have while I complete this program. By entering each conversation with the idea that it could be the one that changes my life, I will remember to stay engaged in each one and make the most of the relationships they form.
My second nugget is based in the concept of “Smart + Heart.” You could be the most intelligent person in your organization, but if you don’t have the interpersonal skills to form relationships with the people you work with you will not go very far. It links back to the golden rule we were all taught when we were younger: “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” In this instance it gets changed just slightly to the concept of interacting with people the way you want to be interacted with. For me this was another great reminder that regardless of how good you are at what you do or how smart you are, without other people there to help you, you will not be nearly as successful as you could be if you had them there to stand beside you. I’ve heard many employers say they would rather hire someone with a 3.5 who’s got a great personality, than a jerk with a 4.0. I plan to take this with me into every interaction I have because if you interact with people in a way that gains trust and challenges them in a good way, you also gain loyalty which is always a great thing to have in an industry as small as the one we’ve chosen to work in.
These two concepts are great guiding principles for the way you act and react not only in the business world, but also in life in general and I plan to use them frequently as I progress through this program.
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