Relationships should not be bankrupt at work!
Do a Google search on “the new currency” and come up with ideas as the new currency; love as the new currency; relationships as the new currency; and even currency is the new currency! A newly designed $100 bill came out October 8, 2013 with added security elements.
Currency is generally meant to be expended. Once you break that hundred it gets spent very quickly. But you could also have a collection of hundreds, typically called savings in view of life’s rainy days.
It’s easy to understand how ideas can be collected and spent at appropriate moments. Love isn’t yours until you give it away. But not to worry. The supply is an endless currency to spend. But relationships? Are all the people you meet plastered with Ben’s face? Do you collect friends so that you can use them at appropriate moments? Appropriate to you, of course. Is that all relationships mean?
These expressions gain currency – pun intended – as a means of expressing an old idea in a new way. The expression, “relationships are the new currency,” evidently began with Ted Rubin in 2012 speaking to a group of marketing strategists. As you can imagine they loved it. A new way to think of the marketing audience. Relationships!
But far from using people for personal gain, Rubin had in mind the danger of overlooking people. We value $100 bills. Do we value people with at least the same amount of eager fervency? “Short and simple: if you are only focused on the money, you risk completely overlooking the people,” Rubin said. Relationships do matter. Even in business marketing.
Think how one sided TV is. You sit and listen to the commercial hoping it is funny or cute or even nostalgically sad. You want to connect. All content media – whether inked or digital – is one way. You read and hear no voice asking for your opinion. You simply move to the next bit of content hoping for something that captures your interest or is of benefit to you. Hardly the basis of good relationships.
Well, wait. There’s social media. The big attraction of social media, whether Tweeting or blogging or FaceBook posting, is that those receiving the content have opportunity to respond. Relationships emerge from this activity. You are provided a voice so that your opinion is heard in the large din of voices clamoring to be heard.
Am I simply telling you something you already know? That it is important to listen? That it is necessary to engage? That people are not a spendable resource? That they are a precious treasure to value above diamonds? That they are your relationships. Listen. Engage. Develop trust. Yes, I know. That sounds like marketing propaganda. It can be. But that doesn’t mean you must hear it that way.
Real people – the people we work with – need to be heard. Real people seek meaningful engagement with those around them. Relationships. Real people want to be trusted and they want to know whom to trust, who is reliable.
It’s not about being social. Or broadcasting your ideas. While these behaviors are helpful at times, the real nugget of human relationships is the starting point of human value. Valuing the people we are near, leads to engagement with them. In order to truly engage I must listen so that relationships of trust develop.
Treating others as I wish to be treated is a golden rule for all people at all times. And there you have it! The golden currency of relationships is the ability to value that one person above yourself.
Now go and spend some of this new currency.
