Page 26 - engage workbook

Relationship Capital

Terms such as human capital, knowledge or intellectual capital and social capital have
become a part of the everyday corporate lexicon. Relationship Capital should be added to
that lexicon.
Relationship Capital is:
The value of all relationships that all people within an organization bring to that
organization.

Further, Relationship Capital is calculated as:
The sum of the strength of each individual’s relationships with other parties,
with respect to each other party’s degree of power and influence.

Weak Relationship Security Strong Relationship Security

These can be any relationships. With suppliers, partners, ex-employees, nodes (people
with high influence not necessarily associated with any organization), or other functions
within your organization.

Relationship Capital is easily confused with Social Capital, but it is not the same. When
Social Capital is mentioned, networking is never far away. People who build their social
capital take pride in the number of contacts they have. However, like the business cards
that are collected at face-to-face networking functions, the drawback with social capital is
that the quality of the connection is unclear. How many of us have accepted requests to
connect on Linked-In and similar sites only because to connect means little and to refuse
may cause offence?

While Social Capital is often characterized Relationship Social
by quantity, Relationship Capital focuses Capital Capital
on the quality of relationships.
Value ($) of High Low
relationship
When assessing Relationship Capital,
consider the following factors: Depth Deep Shallow
Time and $
• power and influence of the other party invested by both High Low
• type of relationship parties
• strength of relationship
• number of touch points on both sides Face-to-face Yes Often not
contact

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