Building a Knowledge Network

As I transitioned from being a mediocre carpenter and operating a stamping pressing in a manufacturing facility to my first role with responsibility for getting results through people who have no reason to listen to me, I had no other option than to acknowledge my limits and begin identifying the key experts I’d need to study to have even the slightest chance of achieving the results necessary to remain employed. Prior to that, my work ethic had been the main thing that carried me - but I quickly found the ceiling for relying on work ethic alone.

Nearly every time Cindy and I teach the simplicity of recognizing and understanding communication styles in each person we interact with - based on the science behind the DISC Model of Human Behavior - I explain my communication style blend by joking that if I ran our business solo, I’d get a tremendous amount of work done. But Cindy is involved with me, there’s a chance that the work I do will be accurate and that the people we work with will actually like some of what I share. While that’s meant as a joke to help folks immediately see how different my approach is from Cindy’s, the point applies here as well. Although I’ve always viewed her as more of a partner (in life and in our business) than a mentor, her skill set and attention to detail has provided me with a level of expertise that I’ll never have personally for close to three decades. And since we’ve been in complete lockstep on our leadership journey, in our careers and in our marriage, the way she compliments me has been invaluable.

I’ve referenced Terry, Rod, and Kevin so many times here that you’re either tired of hearing about them or you feel like you know them, so I won’t do that again here. But each of them have absolutely provided remarkable expertise around the many limitations I had to navigate. Aside from them, though, every other expert I studied early on was through the pages of a book, a lesson on a cassette tape, or any type of leadership seminar we could get to.

As Cindy and I devoured every resource we could get our hands on, we did everything we possibly could to apply what we were learning in our respective roles; our jobs depended on it. Over time, our results opened new doors - to new job opportunities and to even more key experts to learn from. But as we grew in our roles, we were able to interact with more and more of those experts in person; in large groups at first, and one-on-one over time. 

I can’t remember any specific earth shattering moment; building our knowledge network was very gradual. I can point to several interactions that stand out, times that felt almost surreal because we were face to face with the people who had written the books we’d been reading or seen speaking from stage in front of thousands of people. I’ve already mentioned the first interaction I had with Mark Cole. Not long after that, we had the chance to interview Daniel Pink. Then in March 2020, we found ourselves meeting with Carly Fiorina.

Had I never been willing to acknowledge my limits and identify the people I could study so I could improve on or even eliminate those limits - in person or from a distance - the outstanding knowledge network I’m blessed with today would have never grown to what it is, if it would have ever been in place at all. But even the best network of professional and leadership resources offers little value unless we’re asking the right questions. We’ll look at that next. First though, I’ll challenge you to identify and reach out to one expert you’ve never interacted with personally before.