Find out why they agreed to the meeting anyway and build on the positives. If it was a bad impression, you have two choices: cut the meeting short, or, my preference, grab the nettle as soon as you can by explaining to the other person that you are aware of the connection. If it was a good impression, you need to nurture and build on it, but subtly and carefully. So, if that impression has been made even before you meet, you need to take appropriate action. To use another well-known phrase, “you only get one chance to make a first impression”. This will be based on your past dealings with the individual or individuals. If everyone you meet as a prospective client or member of your company not only has a connection to you of two or three degrees, but also has taken the care to undertake ‘due diligence’ on you, then as soon as you meet them, there will already be a level of trust or distrust. In addition to the curiosity factor, our increasing connectivity is likely to have a profound impact on the workplace by potentially fostering a higher level of trust and a better understanding of limitations. They may even have been there all along but remained hidden as we did not have the means of uncovering them. The reason, I believe, is because of our modern way of connecting via social media and the like, together with a significant increase in social mobility. Furthermore, I have noticed such connections of limited degrees of separation are becoming more and more frequent. Now, I know these may seem like coincidences, but I believe there are very few, if any true coincidences. Having confirmed I was, she told me she had travelled down to the event from Chester in North West England, and was staying with her sister, whom she discovered was married to the man who drove the taxi I regularly hired to take me home from dinners in the City if they ended late. A lady, who I’d never seen before, approached me and asked if I was Graeme Gordon. The other was when I was waiting for a seminar to start. In one case, a couple who sat opposite me at a lunch, it transpired, lived in and owned the apartment directly opposite from where my eldest daughter lived until a few months ago.
This was demonstrated one day last week when, within the space of a few hours, I found otherwise total strangers were in fact only two degrees of separation from me. I have come to the conclusion that in today’s digital world, even six degrees are too many – and this has huge implications for the way we interact at work. This theory was apparently first set out by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy in 1929, but we are now living on a far more connected planet. Many of you will know of the saying that there are only six degrees of separation between you and any other individual on the planet.
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