Where is your career headed?

Traveling down the road of life I’ve found people that would have my back. People that would see me big no matter what. When doubt and fear had taken all my hours, when no one else believed in me: they saw me big, they saw my power. 

 Think about that big result you achieved and of which you feel so proud.While you connect with your achievement and remember everything you had to do to achieve it, I'd also like you to think of one, two or three people who have been key to your success.

It may have been that friend, who remembered you, and recommended you for your current job. Maybe it's your partner who supported you when you were doubting, and reminded you of your dream. It may have been a grandparent who listened carefully to your project, while their eyes were telling you: I believe in whatever you undertake. Or that work colleague who voted in favor of your proposal in a difficult meeting; or maybe the key relationship was with yourself that time you chose to be patient and give yourself another chance.

If this phrase were true, where would your life be going at this very moment? If you like the direction you're taking, excellent! But if you don't like it or if it doesn't inspire you: With who do you need to start building a much better relationship?

There is no doubt in my mind that the best advice I can give you to strengthen your career has nothing to do with which specific path to follow. My advice is:

And don't wait to need them. Start building them now. Become an expert in cultivating trusting relationships. You won't just achieve unexpected things, you'll also enjoy the journey more, with a community of people who support you and rely on your support.

Everything that we achieve depends on the size of our relationships. Greater relationships produce better conversations, better agreements, better experiences and, ultimately, better lives.

To explain it in a graphic way: relationships are like tubes that connect us with other people. The greater the tube, the more we will be able to exchange and create together. Choosing not to build new and bigger relationships is choosing to limit our life to the size of the relationships we already have. In other words: when we only have small relationships with other people we are preventing great things from happening in our lives.

We're not usually aware of this, but if you look closely you'll see that relationships always go before results. And I'm talking about both relationships with people and relationships with things, because a relationship is basically what we think and feel about a person or thing.

There are ways of thinking that open possibilities, and others that close them. Therefore, instead of reacting to the first thing our thoughts tell us, building relationships consists of owning our way of labeling the world and the people around us. It's about choosing to add, taking a chance on someone, believing and building instead of reacting by simply obeying our automatic judgments.

Every time we prejudge we do not see the other. My prejudice of you does not let me see you, much less get to know you. And since I do not allow myself to know you that allows me to continue to prejudge you. Yes, when we prejudge we are really saying: I do not see you.

But if we try to suspend our judgment and we encourage ourselves to get to know people and things, we can go beyond appearances and build new relationships where before our minds only held prejudice.

Precisely, in the Zulu language there is an expression, sawubona, which is used as a greeting and means I see you (my ancestors and I see you). When two people cross one another one says Sawubona, to which the other responds: Ye bo sawubona (my ancestors and I also see you).

In my team we were looking for a new way to mutually recognize each other's work and it occurred to us to start saying Sawubona for having recruited extraordinary candidates in that conference! Sawubona for having gone that extra mile so we could achieve that result!

For us, Sawubona, means: we see your work, we see your effort. But it also means: we see and celebrate the different dimensions of your person. We see that you have many more aspects than simply work and we invite you to find ways to integrate them into your job in a way that helps, even a little, to turn this work place into a dream place for everyone.

Today I want to say Sawubona to each one of the Microsoft's interns and ! In the University Recruiting team we want to get to know you better, see and celebrate each of the colors and dimensions that make who you are.

Four tips to start building bigger relationships:

1. Listen to people and encourage them to be what they want to be, and not what you think is best for them.
2. Be impeccable with your word, fulfilling your promises or repairing what is needed.
3. Be brave and learn to speak straightforwardly with respect. Do not feed rumors about other people.
4. Be interested in people by seeking not only coincidences, but celebrating and learning from the differences.

Written by Diego Rejtman and Guillermo Echevarria