Relationship map

Have you ever been told the world doesn't revolve around you? In our opinion you should be at the centre of your own world, or else you are not living your own life.

A relationship map is a really useful exercise that you can do to highlight the stakeholders that you may need to spend more time on developing the relationship. This will also link to your long term outcome goals.

If you are trying to achieve a promotion in your work or what to move into a new team, you need to identify who are the stakeholders in that progression.

A sporting example.

A youth team football player wants to play in the first team by the end of the season. He completes his relationship map and identifies that he doesn't have a relationship with anyone from the first team. He does however map that the u16 coach is an ex first team pro and still good friends with the first team coaching team. The player does have a relationship with the u16 coach and although it's only small, he creates a plan to develop this relationship to form a relationship with first team coaches.

Although the youth team player doesn't have a direct link to the first team, they can influence the relationship indirectly by seeing who else has a relationship with the stakeholders.

To get started, find a 2 page spread in your journal.

The colours we have used are just guidelines. Change and add to these for your own preference.

Put yourself in the middle of the the page and start adding in the people who are in your environment.

Try to add people across 4 areas. These are you inner circle (Close and trusted) Daily Circle (People you work with daily) Outer Circle (People who are Important to your progress who you don't see everyday) Outsider of the circle (People who you may not know however could still be important or useful to your progression)

Now start adding in the lines to identify the relationship. Again use any system of colour or lines that work for you.

We are trying to see which relationships we need to develop or cut out. The context creates the plan. Who do we need to develop the relationship and how do we do this.

This relationship can be a process goal that we work on for a period of time. Keep logging and reflecting on the progress in your journal.