Did you catch the post on Time.com about how important relationships become in a down economy? Josh Quittner reports that 30% of LinkedIn's revenue is coming from job seekers and professional recruiters. And that can only become more important as the bad economic trends continue. He wrote, "Job hunting [is] a good business these days as the economy sinks deeper into the tank and more people turn to their social networks to find jobs. In fact, job searches on LinkedIn increased 19% from August to September alone... With unemployment expected to reach double digits next year, you can expect those numbers to continue their sorry increase."

I remember clearly the first time I understood that relationships in the workplace were important: difficult to be sure, but also more valuable, and more tangible than I first realized. I discovered somewhat accidentally how to visualize their contours – a kind of social graph – 25 years before Facebook. And I realized that I already had the skills I needed to engage people in that context simply by asking about their history, listening to their stories and then following up. It’s not hard. And it changed the way I visualized the workplace.

Relationships, especially business relationships, are a funny thing. When you try to think about them, something strange happens and everything gets weird. But if you leave something so important up to chance and instinct, is that good enough?

It’s like thinking about your tongue when you’re trying to speak: you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you think about the sounds of words and what you have to do with your tongue as you speak, you can’t begin to control your thoughts. And what’s even worse, EVERYTHING sounds strange. Yet, even though we know shouldn’t think about our tongues when we talk, they are obviously important. You can’t very well talk about much without your tongue….

That’s like relationships in business. So much has been written about self-interest, negotiation, and all the things we do to gain a competitive advantage, an edge over the competition. But who can accomplish anything solo any more? And who can you trust to be there when you need them? Genuine relationships are obviously important. Even essential. But if you think about your professional relationships and try to make them better, can they be genuine? Like your tongue, if you think about your relationships, won’t it all get weird?