I’ve found that when I want something that is relationship and organization based, it is ofter wise to do some pathfinding and expand horizontally instead of simply working with the most powerful person in the organization.
Heavy Cream
Recently I’ve been working at a coffee shop that a friend owns and I have been putting heavy cream in my coffee. The restaurant doesn’t stock heavy cream so I bring my own some days but usually just use their half and half. I’ve thought about asking my friend if they can add a quart of heavy cream to the kitchen order but instead, I spent the last six months getting to know the servers, the manager, and the kitchen staff. I let go of achieving a specific outcome. Yesterday, chef came up to me and told me he is going to start ordering a small heavy cream for me. Today they said they can’t break up heavy cream into small enough sizes but the manager told me that he’ll just go grab some heavy cream for me.
This is an example of horizontal relationships. I may have been successful just asking the owner for heavy cream but by building relationships with everyone across the organization, a better outcome was ultimately secured.
School Photos
Another recent example is my kid’s school. The classrooms use an app to upload pictures from the parents and when my daughter moved up to Junior Kindergarten the pictures significantly dropped off. My son is now in the same class room that my daughter was in last year and pictures continue to flow out of his room like last year. I am part of a small group of room parents for my daughter and have become the go to person for random school matters like the quality of hot lunch and pictures. I initially spoke to the teachers in my daughter’s class and was met with resistance. I spoke to the teachers in my son’s class to ask if they can influence the Junior K teachers but after a couple weeks no more pictures came out of her room. I spoke with the teaching assistants, they take a lot of photos and funnel them to the teachers to upload. This again did not bear fruit. Finally I spoke to the lower school director and learned that they had intentionally made a decision to reduce the amount of photos this year. My son’s teachers just didn’t comply and the parents love this. I spoke with him and explained that I have fielded an outpouring of requests for more pictures. I told him that the parents just want to see their kids and don’t need elaborate explanations attached to the pictures. Halloween was last night and so far I have 1,425 photos of my son’s class and 280 photos from my daughter’s class. The difference is even more stark when I look at how many photos I have with my children included. I would estimate I have close to 250 photos of my son and less than 20 of my daughter.
This is another example of an outcome I would desire but do not need. I could be aggressive and spend a lot of energy and time beating down the door to get more pictures but I have found that it is a lot more effective to get to know people horizontally at the school and the coffee shop and making my needs and wants known. I do not control these situations and I cannot control what happens but if I show up as a king compassionate human and make my desires known, I find that others genuinely want to help and the outcome is ofter better than I could have planned if I could magically pull the strings. Another benefit is a get to know people for who they are and expand my quality of life and experience deeper connection to the institutions I am apart of. So it goes.