Influencing Good Works

Iron sharpens iron,

and one man sharpens another.

(Proverbs 27:17)

 

Have you ever taken a look at the people in your LinkedIn, civic, or other professional networks to evaluate whether or not you have mutually beneficial business synergies? We were developing a marketing campaign for our workforce training solutions  and this question began our brainstorming exercise.  Why would key decision makers give us an audience to discuss our vision for educating and training through workforce readiness initiatives?


In this development process, one roadblock was evident: wanting to be an advocate for young people about careers in manufacturing and influencing the parents and community leaders of the value of our program required more than wishful thinking. To achieve success, our approach had to include a clearly defined direction, a disciplined doctrine/process, and above all else, a divine determination. Still, we needed someone to lay hands on us, or as I learned in SETX, someone whose endorsement could open doors one could not open alone…an influencer.


In today’s social culture, “friending” is an action verb, not to be confused with the more traditionally understood term of friendship. Friending has reciprocity, the practice of exchanging ideas and information with others for mutual benefit, allowing access, and sometimes, special privilege. Realizing that some efforts require access to people outside of a typical network, it is wise to “friend up” with leaders, or people with great influence.


When we finalized our proposal, we identified an influential community leader with whom we had an established relationship and pitched it to him. His immediate response was simply, iron sharpens iron. After a moment of reflection, he explained the mutual benefits, or synergies, that emerge when two blades rub together. The edges of the blades become sharper and more effective for the good works to be performed. Our children need more real world exposure to jobs and career opportunities available and our approach provided a hands-on, vocational, and valuable solution.

http://www.latrobellc.com/industrial-people.php

I still prefer face-to-face fellowship and meetings. In today’s social climate, I still value relationships and friendships, and feel that regardless of the size of the professional or civic network, people do business with those that they know and trust. I am guilty of “friending” to gain access to ideas and information, but my journey has revealed that no one achieves such alone. Iron sharpens iron, which sharpens our ability to deliver real value and mutual benefits in our purposed work. Who are you influencing by your good works? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.