Day 205 - Build Relationships Before They Are Needed

May 02, 2025

When people talk about "investing in people," they often think of employees—through training, compensation, and benefits. But investing in people goes beyond payroll. It also means choosing to spend time with others, cultivating relationships long before there’s an immediate need. These personal investments—quiet, slow, and often overlooked—are the foundation of trust, loyalty, and support when it matters most. The dividends of connection are not always immediate, but they are almost always significant.

Episode Transcript

Guy Reams (00:00.706)
This is day 205. Build relationships before they are needed.

Build relationships before they are needed. When we hear the phrase investing in people, most of us immediately think of employee development, things like training programs, better compensation, health benefits, or professional development. And rightly so. These are critical tools for building a stronger, more capable team. But there's another side of people investment that often gets overlooked.

the simple intentional act of investing our time and presence in the right relationships. Not because there is an immediate benefit, not because there is a clear return on investment on the horizon, but because healthy trusting relationships, whether in business or in life, are built well before they are ever needed. It's easy to miss this, especially in the fast-paced environment that we're in today.

where most relationships become simply transactional by default. We ask what someone can do for us. We evaluate people by their title, their resources, or their relevance to our current goals. But the most valuable connections in life are rarely the most obvious in the moment. Sometimes, the most powerful investment you make is not in a direct report, a client or a strategic partner,

But it's someone who simply is adjacent to your world. Someone you take the time to check in with, encourage, listen to, share a coffee or a conversation with. With no agenda really, other than just genuine interest. These quiet investments take time, but they build something actually pretty powerful. Relational equity.

Guy Reams (01:51.554)
And when the time comes when a door needs to open, when guidance is needed, when trust becomes the difference between success and failure, it's those relationships that make the difference. Not because you asked for anything, but because you invested when it mattered least and received when it mattered the most. So yes, invest in your team, pay them fairly, offer them growth, create opportunity.

But don't forget to invest in people outside the org chart too. Relationships are long-term assets, and often the ones with the highest return are the ones we nurtured without ever calculating the cost.