Keith Ferrazzi - Never Eat Alone

I'm embarrassed by the way I learned this lesson. I had always heard that sending out holiday/New Year's greeting cards was a good idea. So I began a practice when I graduated from Yale to send a holiday card to everyone in my contact database. By the time I was at Deloitte, that list was thousands of people long and I was hiring temp help to address and even sign the cards at year's end. Well, we all can see this coming. The intention was good enough until a college roommate noted (actually gibed) how appreciative he was to get not one but actually three cards one year . . . all with different signatures. It's not about mass, it's about a real connection.

If you're not making friends while connecting, best to resign yourself to dealing with people who don't care much about what happens to you. Being disliked will kill your connecting efforts before they begin. Alternatively, being liked can be the most potent, constructive force for getting business done.

CONNECTORS' HALL OF FAME PROFILE Katharine Graham (1917-2001) "Cultivate trust in everyone."

Tragedy transformed Katharine Graham from wife to publisher overnight. She took over the Washington Post in 1 9 6 3 after the death of her husband, Philip Graham. Her shy and quiet demeanor seemed unfit to deal with the demands of one of the most important newspapers in the country. Graham proved everyone w r o n g . She helped to build one of the great newspapers and most successful businesses in America. During her era, the Post published the Pentagon Papers, took President Nixon head-on over Watergate, and ruled Washington's political and media scene in a style that was inimitably her o w n .

In fact, it was this style that is her most lasting legacy. Running the Post with compassion, kindness, and sincerity, Graham became a powerful figure. Graham's influence gave her an ability to empower others—from the highest echelons of society to its lowest—with a sense of dignity and respect.

Richard Cohen, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote the following a few days after Graham's funeral:

On a beastly July Sunday some years a g o , I returned to Washington from the beach and took a taxi to the parking garage across the street from the Washington Post where I kept my car. A tent had been erected on the Post's own parking lot. It was for a company party, given for people whose names you never hear—those un-bylined, non-TV-appearing types who take the ads or deliver the paper or maybe just clean the building. In the heat, I saw Katharine Graham plodding toward the party.

She was old by then, and walking was difficult for her. She pushed her w a y up the ramp, moving in a laborious fashion. She had a farm in Virginia, a house in Georgetown, an apartment in N e w York a n d , most significantly that hideously hot day, a place on the water in Martha's Vineyard. Yet here she was—incredibly, I thought—doing the sort of thing vice presidents-for-smiling do in other companies.

Analyze the life of Katharine Graham, and one inescapable theme emerges: Despite a lifetime free from financial worry, and a social status bordering on royalty, she made friends with everyone —not just those w h o could assist her newspaper or augment her position within the Beltway.

Most reports on her funeral mentioned celebrity names like Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Tom Brokaw. But you don't have to do much heavy lifting before you find an extensive list of non-celebrity attendees. Here's a sampling:

• Irvin Kalugdan, a Fairfax County special-education teacher who founded a student break-dancing team with a $ 3 5 0 Washington Post grant

• Rosalind Styles, from the Frederick Douglass Early Childhood and Family Support Center, for which Graham had helped raise money

• Henrietta Barbier of Bethesda, a woman retired from the Foreign Service, belonged to a weekly bridge club of about sixty women at the Chevy Chase Women's Club. She said Graham never missed a session: "She was bright about the game, and she took lessons, and she was serious."

All of which reveals an inner truth about the skill of reaching out to others: Those w h o are best at it don't network—they make friends. They gain admirers and w i n trust precisely because their amicable overtures extend to everyone. A widening circle of influence is an unintended result, not a calculated aim.

Graham's relationship with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, more than anyone, highlighted her flare for friendship qua friendship, as opposed to friendship for ulterior purposes.

On the surface, the two seemed the unlikeliest of pals: After all, the crucial moments of Graham's career were stunning blows to Kissinger's. First, in 1 9 7 1 , there was Graham's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, confidential documents detailing the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A year later the Post, at Graham's behest, began its Watergate investigations. Both led to the embarrassment of the Nixon administration in which Kissinger served.

Yet there was Kissinger, the first speaker to eulogize Graham at her funeral. He and Graham frequently attended movies together.

How did Graham form such an alliance, such a friendship? How did she create connections with everyone from anonymous teachers to the world's most famous and powerful? By knowing her boundaries and cultivating trust in others; by being discreet; by the sincerity of her intentions; by letting the other person know she had his or her best interests at heart.

In an interview with C N N , Kissinger remarked: "It was a strange relationship in the sense that her paper was on the opposite side from my views very often, but she never attempted to use our friendship for any benefit for her newspaper. She never asked me for special interviews or anything of that k i n d . "

Whom you meet, how you meet them, and what they think of you afterward should not be left to chance. As Winston Churchill would tell us, preparation is — if not the key to genius — then at least the key to sounding like a genius.

Before I meet with any new people I've been thinking of introducing myself to, I research who they are and what their business is. I find out what's important to them: their hobbies, challenges, goals—inside their business and out. Before the meeting, I generally prepare, or have my assistant prepare, a one-page synopsis on the person I'm about to meet. The only criterion for what should be included is that I want to know what this person is like as a human being, what he or she feels strongly about, and what his or her proudest achievements are.

Sure, you should also be up-to-date on what's happening within the company of a person you want to establish a relationship with. Did the person have a good or bad quarter? Do they have a new product? Trust me, all people naturally care, generally above and beyond anything else, about what it is they do. If you are informed enough to step comfortably into their world and talk knowledgeably, their appreciation will be tangible. As William James wrote: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."

These days, doing such research is easy. Here are a few places to start:

• The Internet. Be sure to check out the company's Web site. Use search engines, like Google, to check a person's affiliations. Going to a meeting without Googling someone is unacceptable.

• The public library, where you'll find books, periodicals, magazines, trade journals, etc. Check for articles written by or about the people you intend to meet. If there aren't any, read up on the person's industry or type of job. Most of this can be found online, too.