When was the last time you took a moment to invest in building a relationship with someone at your organization?
Throughout my career, I have always found it invaluable to invest in people both in and outside my organization. Dale Carnegie, writes about investing in people in his best selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. By investing in people, one is able to learn from others’ experiences and grow business relationships.
The Agile Manifesto is written as,
“We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more”
As one may see, the Manifesto is built around people. I bolded areas that I saw as directly related to people and their value in an organization.
Something I have done in my career is to have formal and informal mentoring sessions. This greatly helps me learn and grow in an organization. If you are interested in a specific area of an organization, try reaching out to a leader in that area; ask to have 15 – 30 minutes of their time to learn more about what they do and start building a relationship.
What things have you done to invest in people? Is your organization being agile and putting greater value on their people?