The Company You Keep
The company you keep is your inner circle.
Alicia L. Wilson, Esquire, VP for Economic Development, Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System
Corporations, communities, and individuals rise or fall, succeed or fail, advance or decline based on the people they hold as their closest advisers. The company one keeps often determines if a crisis is created or averted or whether profits-economic, political, or social — are realized or lost, or whether a desired outcome has any chance of being achieved. As a result, the tools and strategies corporations, communities or individuals use to build their inner circle are critical. Whether it is the employment of executive recruitment firms, nominating committees, or skilled human resource executives at the corporate level or campaign organizations, community organizers, and engaged residents at the community level, or social clubs, alumni and business associations, or curated events at the individual level, it is evident that composing the “right company” takes effort.
While there is no quick fix, panacea, or silver bullet to achieving the “right company.” Corporations, communities, and individuals who adhere to these five fundamental principles of thoughtful engagement can maximize the probability of getting it right:
- Consistency is key. Consistency yields results. It is important to avoid the impulse to network, connect, or, ostensibly, build relationships only when the “need” to do so arises. If you delay attracting the best to your inner circle until you “need” to do so, you may entice what appears to be the right person for the wrong reasons or vise-versa.
- Connect Across Generations. A wise and forward-thinking entity or individual engages and creates opportunities to network, connect, and build across generations. Quite often, latent talent is not cultivated until it is realized and apparent to everyone. It is important to develop techniques to mentor, guide, and advise latent talent to prepare them to occupy inner circles of power, influence, and leadership.
- Associate with Those Who Deliver. Your priorities should be reinforced by and delivered upon by those in your inner circle. For instance, if diversity is a priority, your inner circle should deliver on that priority. To illustrate this point, you would immediately disassociate from a financial advisor that refused to or made excuses for why they could not deliver a diversified financial portfolio to mitigate risks. In like manner, a corporation, community, or individual should not employ an entity or technique that makes excuses for not delivering on diversity priorities or fails to do so.
- Single Transaction ≠ Relationship. Transactions are clear, cut, and dry. Relationships, on the other hand, are opaque, sticky, overflowing. An inner circle that is invested in the relationship rather than the transaction will always look beyond the present and try to achieve the best long-term result. Transactions are a given, but the cultivation of relationships is not. It is important to prepare to move as quickly as possible from a transaction to a relationship to ensure that your inner circle is advising to achieve relevant long-term, sustainable, and systemic outcomes.
- Re-evaluate whether your inner circle recruitment criteria
is mission critical. Experience has taught us that strict and inflexible adherence to recruiting based on a set criteria may yield duplication, but not innovation and certainly not the best team. It is imperative to evaluate whether our inner circle recruitment criteria is mission critical. Specifically, evaluate whether it is critical for an individual to have a particular set of experiences or have exclusively worked in a certain industry or even worked for a certain number of years before becoming a part of the inner circle. It is important to not miss recruiting brilliant individuals to your inner circle whose background may not strictly align with your recruitment criteria.
In short, no corporation, community, or individual succeeds on their own. It is usually a byproduct of critical moments that arise because of the company we keep. Therefore, we do well to give due consideration to how we compose our inner circles.