Have you helped someone lose weight by passing on a good diet? Have you found a particular vitamin or supplement that has helped you and passed it on to others? These may seem like little things. But with these three issues, health and diet included, the little things mean everything.
When it came to wealth, I thought of the many men and women whom I've helped find jobs. While it's not the same as making someone millions through innovative financing instruments, as Mike had done for many people, a job significantly altered these friends' economic situation. If someone I know is looking for a job, I reach out through my network for leads. If they've already found a job they're interested in, I call the decision maker. Sometimes I'll simply help someone revise his or her resume, or act as a reference. Whatever I can do. And I do the same for businesses. For the restaurants I frequent, for example, I make it my mission to send as much business their way as possible. I work hard to funnel customers to all my contacts who are consultants, vendors, and suppliers of all stripes. I know they are good, I trust them, and I want others to benefit from their expertise as well.
People's children mean everything to them. I take it upon myself to mentor kids. It's fun, it's helpful, and teaching is the finest method I know for learning. The loyalty I've gained from placing a person's child in an internship, whether at my company or a friend's company, is immeasurable.
Take my experience with Jack Valenti, the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association. Texas born, Harvard educated, Valenti has led several lives: a wartime bomber pilot, advertising agency founder, political consultant, White House Special Assistant, and movie industry leader. He knows everyone; more important, every one who knows him has loads of respect for the man (in an industry not keen on doling out respect to anyone).
Valenti had been an aspirational contact of mine for some time. I never sought him out, but he was somebody I knew would be very interesting, a hardworking Italian guy who worked his way up from nothing. I figured we had plenty in common.
Our first encounter was pure serendipity. I attended a luncheon for cabinet members at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles during President Clinton's last year of office. I spotted Jack among the attendees. When we all sat down for lunch, I made sure he and I were sitting next to each other.
Our conversation that afternoon was good, entertaining, and polite. I had no mission or purpose. I hoped it might, someday, form the basis for something more substantive.
Not long after, a friend called me, knowing I was passionate about mentoring. "You know, Jack Valenti's son is looking for work in your industry. You might want to meet with him and give him some advice."
Jack's son is a very bright chip off the old block, both charming and smart. I gave him some advice, introduced him to some people within the industry that he should know, and that was it.
Several months later, at the Yale CEO conference, I saw Jack again.
"Jack," I said, "I'm sure you don't remember me. There's no reason you should. We sat together for lunch once at a Democratic convention. But I met with your son a few months ago to give him some career advice. I was wondering how he is doing?"
Jack dropped everything he was doing and couldn't have been more interested. He peppered me with questions about his son and what the best tack was to enter my industry.
I followed up our encounter a day later with a dinner invitation, along with an array of political and entertainment honchos he could meet.
"Sure, I'd love to come to dinner if my schedule allows," he told me. "But more important, I'd like to get together for lunch with you, me, and my son."
Jack probably wasn't that interested in my dinner invitation. Who knows? But he was interested in the welfare of his son. Jack regards my dinner invitations with a lot more excitement than he would have if I had not had the chance to give his son some simple and sound advice.
Too many people think an invitation alone is enough to engender loyalty. Back in my days at Deloitte, and I see it today in my consulting practice, a lot of people felt that taking clients and prospects out to a fancy dinner, a ballgame, or a show was the way to build loyalty. I've fallen into that trap myself. In the beginning of a relationship, those kinds of outings are merely forums that allow you to connect strongly enough with the other person to help them address the issues that matter to them most. However, we've encouraged some of our biggest Fortune 100 clients to begin to invite their clients and prospects into their executives' homes to have dinner, meet the family, and understand how they can really help their clients as individuals.
But remember, if you're going to deal with people's most important issues, give those issues the commitment that they deserve. If not, your best intentions will backfire. Hell hath no fury like a person for whom you've promised the most intimate of help and delivered none.
Can you walk the talk? It's easy for someone to say, "I care about people. I believe in helping and being helped. I believe that helping people become healthy or make money or raise successful children is paramount in life." Many people say those things—but then you see their actions, you hear about them from their own networks, and you discover they really don't believe any of it. You can be sure your network will broadcast your true colors very quickly and with lasting effects to all its members.
Where do you start? You start with the philosophy, the worldview, that every human is an opportunity to help and be helped. The rest—whether it means helping with someone's health, wealth, children, or any other unsatisfied desires—follows from that.
19. Social Arbitrage
Some people become power brokers through sheer intimidation and force of will; others, generally with far better results, learn to become indispensable to the people around them.
I still remember the advice that made me aware of these two routes to power. Greg Seal pulled me into his office one day not long after I had been hired at Deloitte, sat me down, and said, "Stop driving yourself—and everyone else—crazy thinking about how to make yourself successful. Start thinking about how you're going to make everyone around you successful."
From the moment I had arrived at Deloitte, I was a man on a mission. I wanted to work more hours, meet more partners, be on the biggest projects solving the biggest problems—and I wanted to do it all now, because I was desperate to make a name for myself. In the wake of my ambition, a whole lot of people didn't like me. And at Deloitte, as in all organizations, it isn't easy getting things done when your peers dislike you.
That you'd anger and abuse some people on your way to the top used to be accepted practice. Michael Korda's 1975 book on the secrets to becoming a corporate chieftain, Power! How to Get It, How to Use It, advised that "master players... attempt to channel as much information as they can into their own hands, then withhold it from as many people as possible." But if thirty years ago power was attained through a monopoly of information (and a whole lot of angry people), today the system is more akin to social arbitrage: a constant and open exchange of favors and intelligence, as Greg had so wisely advised.