Power of Relationships

Power of Relationships   

Relationships - haven for growth and companionship          
in good and tough times
Photo: EJP Photo   

Shakespeare’s words, “No man is an island” can be paraphrased as: “man was made to live as a community”. With community support, people individually and jointly thrive and grow to their highest productivity. Networking through Facebook and Twitter is a start, but solid relationships are built beyond cyberspace. After all, in prosperity, your friends know you; and in adversity, you know your friends.”

Joint Capacity in the New Normal

Forging new relationships and cultivating existing ones are key in today’s “new normal” of turbulence. Many challenges exceed our individual capacities. Collective vision, joint problem solving and pooled resources increase resilience to deal with issues in personal, work, community or national spheres. When challenges are faced on a collective front, we are more secure, confident and astute, and stamina increases. We begin to see problems as enablers in our journey towards destiny. A workaholic with no friends has little to fall back on when things go wrong.

The universe is held together by complex
relationships between planetary systems
Image: xenuth.com 

Our world is held together by natural laws eg. of physics, chemistry, biology. These laws embody relationships. The law of gravity specifies the relationship between bodies on earth and the earth. Such tightly woven laws give creation its resilience.

Brains and Ecology

Our minds are designed with a bias for relationships. Alzheimer’s disease is generally a serious degeneration of brain cells and neural connections among the elderly. Normal brain functioning is impeded with the slowing and breaking down of connection between thought, action and behaviour. Research has shown that when Alzheimer’s patients make friends and build relationships, new neural connections are formed! The patient then shows some (albeit small) signs of recovery. Even Alzheimer’s patients become more resilient with friends.  

Ecology in its natural state,
has balanced resilience
and ample fruitfulness  

Ecology is one complex web of relationships between flora, fauna, humans, and the earth. Violate the relationship and ecological imbalances occur. Sustain the imbalance and disasters like global warming take place. Innate and symbiotic resilience manifest when interlocking relationships in nature are upheld. The same holds true in business or economics.

The elite SEALS give and receive help from
one another in the most extreme circumstances
Photo: www.sharegoodstuffs.com  

                          

Quality Control for Relationships

The quality of relationships is determined by our level of openness, interaction and commitment. It thrives when there is:

-                   Reciprocity

-                   Accountability

-                   Emotional Support

-                   Balance

For one reason or another, many are better at giving than receiving help. Where do you stand? Does ego get in the way? Giving and taking within a context of commitment, calls for honest self examination. What have I done or not done? Have I been fair?  Should I have done more? What should I have done less?

Foundations and Social Networking

Such in-depth relationships can only be maintained with select and trusted friends in personal, work and community life. Big Tweet followings or record Facebook “likes” do not equate with deep quality relationships. They however, give us a viral span of reach for varying degrees of engagement, predicated on the foundation of deeper, well-cultivated relationships. The wider the reach, the stronger the foundational pillars need to be.  

Stakeholders and Self Protection

For companies, investing time to engage key stakeholders, (not just shareholders) builds strong brands and protect the right to operate. Pepsi built relationships with the people of Kerala in India by drilling borehole wells during pressing water shortages. They later went on to recharge ground water by pumping water into the water table, to address dropping ground water levels.  Pepsi twice survived political pressure for their plant to be shut down as a result of water shortages. The second time, the community spoke up in Pepsi's defense on account of the goodwill and relationship it had built with the people…because they looked beyond corporate interests.

Likewise, when nations go beyond solus national interest, adopting the rules of reciprocity, accountability, emotional support and balance (fairness), will we see more resilient economies and a better world? Just as global epidemics need concerted joint action, and re-examination of health systems at all levels, is it not time to look at the economic ecology to see if there have been excesses and deficiencies, imposed or inherent? How has that hurt less visible and weaker players? What can be done to address that? Correcting economic relationship problems will herald global economic resilience and recovery – is that not what we all hope for?

Well, enough has been said, what will we do about it? What will we do with our friends? 

Fair trade sustains the global economy 
Photo: AP 

I would love to hear your comments and views….do drop a line or two. 

Join me for the next week’s blog on “Money and Relationships”