Do you find inventive means to give attention and connect and build relationships with others? Do you know and recognize that a great relationship satisfies far more than the monetary or interest needs? Are you aware of the Attention currency?
Based on my global experience and developing the unique concept of ‘Attentional Networking’® here are the four sorts of attention, Relationship Masters use to build the most powerful and lucrative networks:
- Love Attention. Sound touchy-feely? But love simply means focused concern that is exclusively for that person’s good. Show your contacts you care about them and their futures. Pay real attention to them and their needs. Emails that begin, “I was just thinking about you. . .” and “I’d like to introduce you to someone I think could be a big help with. . .” should be mainstays of your pinging strategy.
- Growth Attention. No one wants to be exactly where they are forever. Provide the enthusiasm, resources, and contacts that allow your contacts to grow and expand. This sort of attention, I call “expand attention” or “growth attention”, and it is deeply respected by parties who receive them.
- Contribution Attention. To feel fulfilled, people need to know they are contributing to something larger than themselves. Sometimes all it takes is to show or remind someone the ways that their work matters to the world. Other times you can present direct opportunities for volunteering or charity.
- Meaning Attention. We are meaning-seeking creatures. Share a vision that demonstrates that what you do and what you want to accomplish serve a larger purpose, and find creative ways for your network to engage in that purpose.
So what does this mean for you and me? For most of us it means we need to increase the number of positive interactions/Attentional moments we have at home and at work and reduce our negative interactions.
We need to engage each other with more smiles, kind words, encouragement, gratitude, meaningful conversations, honest dialogues and sincere positive interactions. And to foster these actions we need to create personal and team rituals that help us interact more positively. If we make them part of our organizational process and individual habits they are more likely to happen. The ideas are infinite. The key is to intentionally cultivate more positive interactions to fuel success.
However, please know that this doesn’t mean we should never have negative attentional moments (interactions). Sometimes we need to confront a situation to move past it and, as we know, ignoring problems that stare us in the face doesn’t work. Negative interactions and paying specific attention to them, are necessary so long as they occur much less frequently than positive interactions.
Positive attentional moments are essential to a healthy life, positive work environment and individual and team success. In this spirit when you are finished reading this, I encourage you to go thank someone – a client, a co-worker or someone at home and let them know how they impacted your life in a positive way. Then make it a habit and pay with attention.
