Transactions?

During religious holidays, Christmas or Eid or Divali, our minds turn to giving - gifts, goodwill, peace, love... But giving also makes us think about receiving. After all, you give presents, you expect to get some back, right?

So this Christmas I've been thinking about the concept of transactions.

A.A. Gill, writing in Vanity Fair this month talks about the difference in humour between the Brits and the Americans. "In America, funny is a profession... in Britain, comedy is a craft, not a business". American humour is made by writers, often in groups, who do it for a lot of money. It has high value because it also has a message - humour is transacted. It is created for our enjoyment. Brits on the other hand, use humour all the time not just to make ourselves laugh but also to mask sadness, pain, disappointment. We call it banter and use it when we feel awkward about exposing our feelings, so humour runs through our interaction with each other. It is not a transaction, we all do it. The biggest insult in the Britain is being accused of not having a sense of humour.

Julia Hobsbawm, fast taking the mantle of networking queen said recently that Americans tend to treat networking as more 'transactional, business-card related', needing a much faster payback than the way networking really should be, which is about nurturing long term relationships and feelings and connections. I agree with this. I have spent many years working in the Middle East where the Arab culture of networking is lifelong. Relationships evolve over long periods and involve families. The line between professional and personal lives are blurred - actually it doesn't really exist. Wasta ("who you know') is the basis, even today, of conducting business. In my early days of working in the region, I would think it odd that I would have meetings in coffee bars (mostly Starbucks) rather than in offices. I have learnt over the years that Arab networking, building relationships, working together, doing business are all part of a single cluster of interactions. They're not separate actions. I have found that I like this much more than our own system of continuum networking which is a process with definite 'staging posts' starting with an introduction and ending with doing business together.

Carole Stone, our other networking queen always says that networking is fun because you make friends. I enjoy long lasting friendships with people I worked with, people I never worked with but had hoped I would, people I met at dinner parties... The great thing about friendships which are based on professional relationships is that you have a wider and wider circle of people you can share ideas with, stamp your feet with, debate issues with. Sometimes you get a chance to help each other - only if it makes sense. That's the bonus of lifelong networking.

Strong leadership teams appreciate the need to work more effectively with each other, and with a wide circle of stakeholders. The traditional way of managing stakeholder relationships is transactional. Each point of engagement or interaction is expected to deliver an outcome - which may be an improved perception, a commitment to support a corporate position, or agreement to help lobby government. This must change. Stakeholder engagement needs to be more of an evolving relationship between an organisation and individuals who have, or may have, a vested interest in the success of the organisation. This engagement needs to be done with integrity, it must be genuinely felt and expressed, it must be two-way, it must be a dialogue, it must be consistent and sustained. It needs to be conducted by individuals who have a real responsibility in decision- and policy-making within the organisation. This is not a 'delegated' action and cannot happen on an 'as needed' basis. Most of all, it must be long term - 'target outcomes' and timelines have no place in effective stakeholder engagement.

Stakeholder engagement is not about transacting content. The traditional term for corporate content is 'the message'. I much prefer the term 'narrative' - this suggests the core, the kernel of content which can be part of a dialogue. It is not simply communicated unilaterally.

But now I must go. A drinks party followed by a lunch party beckons. Hosted by people who have been to our house for drinks and for lunch. People we will invite back in a few months. Oh well, that's one sort of transaction I guess...