Likeability and Real Relationships

Thoughts on how likeability can make us successful and how building real relationships in business can be tricky (but not impossible)!

Back in 1998, producer Jerry Weintraub decided to create a new version of the old Frank Sinatra film Ocean’s Eleven. His idea was to convince the top movie A-listers of Hollywood to accept a role in his film — without having to pay a crazy fortune for it.

No film could afford to pay millions of dollars to a cast of actors who all were used to being in a leading role. Yet, he managed to convince a cast of Hollywoods most famous megastars, to star in the movie.

How did he do that?

To start with, he got his good friends George Clooney and Stephen Soderbergh to buy into the idea. This famous duo managed to influence the other cast members to join, and one by one, they accepted the project.

At one point Clooney event sent a personal note to Julia Roberts and a twenty-dollar bill attached to the script saying “We know you get 20 for a movie, but you will have to work for a little less on this one.”

Imagine the level of influencing that went on here. She agreed to do the film, and of course, it became a blockbuster hit.

Understanding Likeonomics

Before we go on talking about creating relationships, let’s look into the subject of likeability.

The theory of Likeonomics is closely related to the theory of behavioural economics and focuses on how psychological principles and economic theory are intertwined.

Shortly described, it focuses on the correlation between how us “liking someone” affects the way we make decisions.

As the Alfred Nobel Prize winner Dr. Daniel Kahneman proved in his scientific research, we often choose teammates, friends, employees or clients based on likeability.

Nothing new about that, right? But what does it really mean when we try to establish genuine relationships that lead to likeability?

Building real relationships

The story about Oceans Eleven is also described in the book “Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action” by the author Rohit Bhargava. He talks about likeonomics from an economic and social perspective. It’s also important to highlight that likeability is about building genuine relationships, and not having fake interactions.

“This is not about creating an awful product and trying to use likeability to sell it. It is also not about trying to fake likeability to support some sort of sinister ulterior motive,” writes Bhargava.

What Bhargava explains in his book is that there is a scientific link between economy and genuine likeability between humans. This can (if nursed in the right way) have a positive effect on many aspects of a person’s life and especially in business.

Where it goes wrong

Unfortunately, we are often limiting ourselves when we try to create new business relationships and use our likeability.

We’re often too little too late. We fail to create real connections with people and the level of likeability drops. We feel like we are wasting our time or that networking is too difficult.

Look at the model described and try to figure out how you create new business relationships.

What box do you belong to when you are networking?

How often do you find yourself trying to establish relevant and urgent relationships?

During a lecture with Mark Patterson, the founder of Network Academy and an expert on the topic, I had the chance to discuss this specific dilemma. Here is what he had to say about it.

“What you want to do, is creating non-urgent and relevant relationships. These have the potential to evolve into real and genuine relationships. Anything else is simply a matter of transactions,” Mark explained.

This leaves us with a very important key take-away. We need to change our approach to how we network and build relationships, if we want to achieve likeability. The act of networking must be seen as a gateway into building genuine, personal relationships (that live on after you quit your job). And this investment takes time and energy. Are you ready to invest time and enery in making real relationships?

Also, one might argue that if you find yourself looking for quick transactions at a networking event, you are there for the wrong reason.

So, think about it. What does being likeable mean to you and what non-urgent and relevant (future) relationships are you building today, that can benefit you and those around you tomorrow? Who is your George Clooney?

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