ManageEngine continues our weekly blog series called Talk to ME Tuesday. Each week we discuss interesting topics from the world of technology with you, the people that live and breathe it everyday.
“If you’re only dealing with people only when you have a problem, you’ve got a problem,” said Frank Trogus, retired IT leader at Shell Oil Company, at the IT Leadership Summit at the 2012 Interop conference in Las Vegas.
“Build relationships when nothing is at stake,” advised Trogus.
This is a critical part of relationship building in IT. You have to learn to work with people who are blockers in an organization that always say, “No” to your requests, said Trogus.
Decision making sometimes has nothing to do with data or education. Sometimes there are bigger issues in working in an organization and relationships are a foundational part of that.
If you don’t even know where to begin to start a relationship with key stakeholders, Trogus advised that you talk to them about business and health of customers. Understand what their views on the business are and build a relationship based on that. So when a crisis happens or when you want money for funding of a project you both have build equity in your relationship and it won’t be so easy, nor will they want to, reject your request.
