IN THIS ISSUE
Welcome
Feature Article - It's a Small World
Words to Inspire
Guest Column - You Bet It's Personal-It's Business
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WELCOME

Greetings and welcome to all of you. We are delighted to send you another issue of KEYS TO SUCCESS. Thank you for joining us.

We are spending this week in Vail. I plan on hiking but Mother Nature may have other ideas. Seems it is still cold in the Rockies with a little snow on the ground and rain is in the forecast! Reading by a cozy fire sounds pretty inviting too.

The premise of the feature article this month is all about the "small world phenomenon." Our social network systems are how we build a business and develop relationships. We become interconnected as our networks grow and we create our own "small world". How small is your world?

Our commitment is to give you practical information and inspirational ideas to benefit your business and personal life. We are committed to "bringing out your best"! We welcome feedback so we can improve and offer real value to you.

Keys to Success is written and published by Carol Gegner. Are you ready to excel? Check out http://www.coachexecs.com. We are ready to help you.

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It's A Small World

How often are you amazed when you encounter someone far away from home who is a friend of one of your friends? You shake your head in disbelief and say, "Wow, isn't it a small world." Those experiences certainly add credence to the theory of six degrees of separation. The theory states that we are all connected to any other person on this planet through a chain of acquaintances no more than six people long. There may be six billion people in the world but it is a small world!

Several studies have been done to test the theory. The most famous was done at Harvard University by Stanley Milgram in 1967. To test the small world phenomenon, he randomly selected people in Kansas and Nebraska to get a letter to his friend in Boston. They were instructed to send the letter to someone they thought might know the person in Boston. The chain of passing on the letter was to continue until it reached its final destination. Milgram discovered the average number of steps to get the letter delivered was only about six. The experiment became known as "six degrees of separation" in our pop culture. We often refer to it using the clich* "it's a small world."

Recently I joined a new networking group. During the meeting each member states who would be a good power partner for our business. A power partner for me is a therapist. Jeff, a member in the group gave me the name of a therapist he knows. I set up a coffee with her and as we are talking I find out she lives next door to a dear friend of mine. She also rents office space from another friend of mine. We quickly formed a great connection based on the small world phenomenon.

Last week Al and I were in Carmel for a couple of days. Carmel is a lovely town a couple of hours away from our home. At dinner our waiter asked where we were from and the man behind us heard our conversation. Turns out he lived in our home town nearly twenty years ago. We started sharing names of different people and lo and behold we had mutual acquaintances. Two minutes after he left one of those mutual acquaintances walked by our table! He had been dining in a different part of the restaurant. It was so ironic because we had just been chatting about him. It truly is a small world!

The small world theme was used by Walt Disney as a major attraction at all the Disney locations. The colorful, animated, spinning, singing dolls represent peoples of the world and reminds us that we all live on the same universe we just occupy different spaces in it.

So think about your social network system and how it has helped you grow and develop your business. As associates and friends have connected you to others you have also connected them to others. We've become interconnected through the chain of links of six degrees of separation.

We all know that it's not only what you know but who you know that counts. You never know when you'll meet someone who knows someone who knows someone else and so forth. And you never know where that will lead you. The more your networks grow the smaller your world becomes. It really is a small, small world!
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WORDS TO INSPIRE

"When you meet anyone, treat that event as a holy encounter."
Wayne Dyer

"I am a part of all that I have met."
Alfred Tennyson

"Hate and force cannot be in just part of the world without having an effect in the rest of it."
Eleanor Roosevelt
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GEST ARTICLE

You Bet it's Personal--It's Business! by Michael Angier

Recently, I heard the president of a company say, "It's not
personal, it's just business." The phrase had about the same
warmth and comfort as when it was uttered in "The
Godfather"--right after someone was killed.

Business is all about relationships and relationships ARE
personal. To dismiss the importance of personal relationships
with the excuse that it's "just business" is usually a cop-out.
It's old-school and it lacks integrity.

Of course, there are times when we have to make difficult
business decisions which adversely affect people. But we're far
better off to acknowledge that it's personal.

A World Class Business demands close working relationships. They
don't have to be super-intimate, but they do have to be honest
and open.

Some people are reluctant to have close relationships with
subordinates or supervisors in order to avoid uncomfortable
and/or painful situations. But I think a world class company is
one that makes the tough decisions fully cognizant of how
business decisions affect people. It's ALL personal.

When I heard that CEO say "It's not personal, it's just
business," it was a good indicator of how little she valued good
relationships. She may have believed she could separate business
from friendship, but I don't think most people can--or should.

A company's bottom line is determined by its FRONT line. People
are the most valuable assets, and good stewardship requires that
we treat every single person as just that--a PERSON. They're not
a commodity, regardless of the fact that many companies treat
them as such.

Yes, it IS personal--it's business. And in my opinion, it should
be.

Action Point
Commit to developing and nurturing good relationships with
everyone in your company. Take a genuine interest in them, and
you'll find them doing likewise. Enemies never help you--friends
do. Don't let your judgments of anyone stand in the way of your
own, or your organization's success.

And remember, people don't care how much you know unless they
know how much you care.