Performance Currency vs. Relationship Currency - What are you building?
Performance vs. Relationship Currency
Carla Harris, an inspirational leader and Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley, shares her experiences to help others reach their success. Her breakdown of performance currency vs. relationship currency has helped me and countless others reach their success by helping us see how to transition from "doing" to "leading".
Leveling Up
First off - if you have 15 minutes, watch this Carla Harris video as she shares her "pearls of wisdom" - it is inspiring, energizing, and offers really practical advice on how to succeed in your career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK-Bb3E8uM8
If you don't, read on for a quick summary of one of her pearls of wisdom: There are two types of currency in any environment, 1) performance currency and 2) relationship currency.
Performance currency is generated by you delivering what was asked of you and a little bit extra. It is valuable because:
It will get you noticed
Early on in your career it will get you paid and promoted
It will attract a sponsor for you
But over time, your performance currency has diminishing marginal returns. You create a new standard and everyone expects you to do a great job, to go above and beyond, therefore what was originally an advantage becomes the new baseline.
Relationship currency is the investment you make in the people in your environment. After you get to a certain level of any organization, your performance is assumed to be at a certain level, making your performance currency the same as others. At this point, your relationship currency is most valuable.
Carla explains that your ability to ascend is based on other people's judgments, and those judgments are directly influenced by relationships. It isn't that people won't promote you because they don't like you - they won't promote you because they don't know you.
After watching her video, this was one of my biggest AHA moments. And upon more reflection, I think this is why I was relatively successful in my corporate career. Yes, I could perform. I am also a people person, I naturally invest in people (sometimes over the work, which wasn't always a strength), and I like sharing about things I am doing.
Because of this, people knew who I was, what I stood for, what projects I was involved in, and what I wanted to do next. They knew me, which made it easier for them to talk about me when I wasn't in the room.
Remember - your promotion decision will always take place while you are not in the room, so you need those that are in the room to speak up for you.
When I was in the position of promoting others, not knowing what someone was about made it more difficult to consider them. Sure, performance was a portion of it, but anyone can learn skills. What I wanted to know was who the person was, what they brought to the table, their strengths, desires, and weaknesses - all of it.
As pointed out by Carla and as I saw first hand in every organization I worked in - your work does NOT speak for itself. For those of you who feel like it is unfair that relationships are needed in addition to hard work - I hear you. Maybe it is unfair.
But it is the world we live in. No one wants to lead with a group of strangers. Even if you don't particularly like someone, you still want to know who they are before you make them your peer or leader. And no one is going to stick their head out and fight for a promotion for someone they don't know, regardless of the things they heard about their performance.
You can choose to ignore this reality and keep working super hard hoping someone will magically see the merits of your work, or you can build relationships and have a say in the direction your career takes.
How do you build relationship currency?
Purposefully. You take the time to get to know people in your organization.
Not in a kiss-ass way. Not with a mindset that if I make this person my friend I will get promoted. Not in a fake way.
You start asking what is most important to them in their role, what their goals and dreams look like, and what they value. You share things about yourself including your interests, goals, and dreams. Share your strengths and the things you are looking forward to learning more about. Share your honest hesitations about building relationships and why it is sometimes uncomfortable/difficult for you.
The more honest you are, the more likely you will build real, authentic relationships with others who will want you to be part of their leadership.
As you share, be sure to focus on what you want more of, not only on what you are good at. For example, if you are really great at technical aspects but you want more customer-facing, people-oriented roles, then playing up your technical abilities isn't as important as highlighting your customer-facing skills.
Yes, you can highlight your performance, but you don't want to get pigeon-holed into the only skillset/role that others can imagine you in.
If you are having a 30-minute coffee with someone, don't spend 25 minutes on your technical accolades and a few minutes on what you want next. Instead, spend 15 minutes asking questions, really investing in the relationship and getting to know the other person. Spend a few minutes talking up your strengths and previous wins, and then spend the rest of your time sharing what you want more of.
Finish by understanding what you can do to help the other person because when you invest in someone, they are more likely to want to invest time and effort into you.
And remember, what got you here won't get you there.
Your performance got you to a certain level, but it won't solely get you to the next. Leveling up is about building your currency and knowing how much of each you need so that you can reach your desired goals and success.
Carla's message is in the context of an organizational role, but this applies to all aspects of life: children, family, clients, friends, and community members. What you do (your performance) will only get you so far. Where you end up will be based on how much you have invested in building the relationships with those around you.
So what kind of wealth are you building right now? Performance or relationship currency?
Cheers to being rich in relationship currency,
Sharon
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