Thanks for signing up to all the new readers! Here are some nuggets about how networks shape your wellbeing, relationships and community to help you actively cultivate yours.
Wellbeing
When we connect with others for the first time, we often experience what’s called The “liking gap” – we tend to underestimate the positive first impression we make on strangers. In fact, this feeling can persist regardless of how long the interaction was or how many times you’ve spoken with that person. That article does a great job of explaining this unhelpful phenomenon.
“Conversation appears to be a domain in which people display uncharacteristic pessimism about their performance,” the researchers note.
If you’re interested in building up your conversational confidence, check out the 4 episode mini-season that Georgie Nightingall and I put together late last year:
Relationships
In Weak Ties & Strong Intros, Tom Critchlow explains how he thinks about generating client work from his network. More specifically, he focuses on the ‘cozy web’ and ‘dark leads’ that can be generated by these weak ties. This approach and perspective is valuable for business development regardless of whether you’re an independent consultant or work for an organisation.
“people gain social capital from making good intros. People only gain social capital from making an intro that’s a good fit, and you only gain clients when you get a good client/consultant fit. So you need to educate and explain your work in a way that even weak ties have a good enough understanding of the kind of leads you’d be a good fit for.”
Community
While this RSA report is over 5 years old, the finding ring true today. Community Capital: The value of connected communities highlights the importance of stitching communities together by facilitating one-to-one connections, creating spaces (virtual or physical) to gather, and harnessing the power of peer groups.
“We argue that investing in interventions which build and strengthen networks of social relationships will generate four kinds of social value or ‘dividend’ shared by people in the community:
A wellbeing dividend. Our research suggests that social connectedness correlates more strongly with wellbeing than social or economic characteristics such as long term illness, unemployment or being a single parent.
A citizenship dividend. There is latent power within local communities that lies in the potential of relationships between people, and it can be activated through the methods that we advocate in this paper.
A capacity dividend. Concentrating resources on networks and relationships, rather than on the ‘troubled’ individual as an end-user can have beneficial effects which ripple out through social networks, having positive effects on people’s children, partners, friends and others.
An economic dividend. There is evidence that investing in interventions which build social relationships can improve employability, improve health (which has positive economic impacts) and create savings in health and welfare expenditure.”
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About The Reliants Project
Reliant is my word for a person that someone depends on, an essential component of our social networks. With each edition, I’ll share useful nuggets about how networks shape your wellbeing, relationships and community to help you actively cultivate yours. Whether you want to cultivate your relationships, make better introductions, or activate networks to make an impact in the world, let me help you reach your goals.
You can find more about The Reliants Project here.