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T-Shaped People Skills
It’s not what you know, or who you know; there's a 3rd criteria
I grew up in the years where knowledge was still scarce. It was the pre-Internet years and if you wanted to learn something, about something you didn’t know, you had to go to the school library, or check the Encyclopedia Britannica which stood a special place of pride in the house after your parents saved a stack of money to afford it; it wasn’t cheap.
Then came the Internet and suddenly I could access Wikipedia, not only was free, it was more accuratethan the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the short years between my high school and university, I went from deferring to my teachers and elders for knowledge, to a screen or Siri, who is, in fact, dictating this article for me right now.
So as knowledge became less scarce are more accessible, the phrase ‘it's not what you know but who you know’ began to make more sense. It's that idea that it matters less what you know as the premium on information is gone, what’s more, important is how well you’re connected to get ahead in life and career.
The internet, however, didn’t just close the gap on knowledge, it closed the gap on connections. I’ve never felt so globally connected as I do today. Even if those connections are weak, I can follow through with them really quickly and easily. Say I want to do some work in Dubai where I am this week. I can hop onto LinkedIn, identify the right person, in the right job and reach out to them directly.
But therein lies the rub.
Sure I know my stuff about strategy, change and transformation really well, and I might know this person now through a telephone call or a face to face meeting. According to the formula, I’ve got both criteria checked off, I know something and I know someone, but that’s not enough to make magic. The magic sauce is not what you know, nor is it who you know, but what you know about how you know.
I’ll explain.
Knowing stuff is just your entry ticket to the game. In fact, you should know something about everything, and everything about something. HR people call this T-Shaped Skillsmeaning you have deep expertise in your area, plus enough knowledge to navigate the broader organisation. It’s the same with people, most of us have the horizontal part of the T, we know or are at least connected to, loads of people. Often we are missing the vertical part, the part that goes deep with people to truly understand what’s going on in their world, what they are doing and what keeps them up at night.
If you have T Shaped People Skills, then suddenly the ‘stuff’ you know can be positioned as the solution they are looking for. When you think about solution selling, that exactly what we are taught to do. Firstly know your widget inside-out, then get to know what the customer needs, and identify if and how the widget your selling fits the customer’s need, oh and trust me, regardless of the job you’re in, we’re all selling.
So if it’s 'what you know about how you know' that the magic sauce, then suddenly the value of your network can be more realistically determined. Nobody cares if you have 5 or 5,000 connections, what matters is how valuable those connections are. How many people in your network could you pick-up the phone, know exactly what’s going on for them, to be able to position what you know as a solution for their troubles. That number, is the value of your network, and if your network is equal to your net worth, you want to get that number up, stat.