{"id":44651,"date":"2014-12-09T17:39:48","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T23:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=44651"},"modified":"2021-09-25T19:42:10","modified_gmt":"2021-09-26T00:42:10","slug":"how-to-build-unscalable-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/people\/relationships\/how-to-build-unscalable-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Build Relationships That Don’t Scale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vintage<\/p>\n

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you spend hours upon hours on Facebook or some other social media platform, and yet you feel more lonely and disconnected than ever. You have thousands of \u201cfriends\u201d online, but you don\u2019t feel comfortable saying hello to one of them if you pass on the street. And even though you know intimate details about what some person you worked with 10 years ago had for dinner last night, you find it difficult making time to see your closest friends.<\/p>\n

Maybe some of this rings a bell with you. If it does, I want to share some information and advice which may resonate as well.<\/p>\n

Paul Graham, a legendary tech investor in Silicon Valley, published a piece last year titled Do Things That Don\u2019t Scale<\/a>. While the focus of that article was how tech startups operate, when I read it, I immediately thought the lessons also applied to building relationships today and a fundamental mistake that many people make when trying to do so.<\/p>\n

The article challenged the prevailing wisdom across the startup community that new businesses should focus their efforts on only those activities which can \u201cscale\u201d their business — growing while keeping costs steady (that is, not investing more in order to grow more). In the article, Graham wrote:<\/p>\n

“A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don’t. You build something, make it available, and if you’ve made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don’t, in which case the market must not exist. Actually startups take off because the founders make them take off. There may be a handful that just grew by themselves, but usually it takes some sort of push to get them going.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Graham also used the metaphor of an old car engine which had to be started using a hand crank, before engines came with electric starters. \u201cOnce the engine was going, it would keep going, but there was a separate and laborious process to get it going,\u201d writes Graham. The point is you need to put in the labor to get the crank going to begin with.<\/p>\n

What Scaling a Business and Scaling Relationships Have in Common<\/h3>\n

So what does it mean for a business to “scale”? Simply put, a business that scales can increase its revenues exponentially without an equal rise in costs. Think of software companies like Microsoft or Salesforce or Dropbox. These companies can scale quickly because it costs relatively little to add more customers by selling more digital products.<\/p>\n

Consulting companies like Deloitte are the opposite — adding revenues means adding more consultants, which cost a lot more.<\/p>\n

Now, what does this have to do with relationship-building? Today, you can use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to “scale” — or build — relationships faster than ever. Post something to your Facebook page or Twitter profile and you can reach hundreds or thousands of people in seconds. Just as a software company has the ability to acquire users quickly, social media allows you to add “friends” at warp speed.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the rub: in both cases — with startups and with relationships — there are costs to trying to scale too quickly.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to Graham\u2019s article. He took on what has become prevailing wisdom among startups, as well as among social media fans, that scaling is always good<\/em>. It\u2019s an attitude which says that much of the grunt work of building a company one user at a time can be bypassed by doing things that help the company scale — which usually means focusing on the masses at the expense of individuals.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s what that looks like in the world of social media: people spend hours upon hours on Facebook or Twitter thinking they are building connections when in fact they would build stronger, more genuine, and more sincere relationships if they were to focus on much more simple and fundamental activities that do not scale.<\/p>\n

These people are, effectively, hiding behind a wall. They are passing up more difficult work for the easy work — sharing or \u201cliking\u201d photos, retweeting, commenting on someone\u2019s wall. These are activities which can serve a purpose, but they are poor substitutes for the real thing. It\u2019s like saying Splenda is the same thing as sugar, tofu is the same thing as real meat, or Red Lobster is a good place for\u2026a red lobster. It\u2019s not the same thing. Not even close.<\/p>\n

Art of Manliness has long focused on the importance of building relationships one-to-one. In an article about how to make friends in a new city<\/a>, Jeremy wrote: \u201cWe can have hundreds of Facebook friends and yet not know the names of the people who physically live right next to us.\u201d Through hundreds of articles, AoM has sung the praises and virtues of slowing down and appreciating one another\u2019s company. (For more, go back and reread the 5 Types of Friends Every Man Needs<\/a>, How to Make Friends in a New City<\/a>, and How to Be a Good Neighbor: 9 Old-Fashioned Tips for Getting to Know the Folks Next Door<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In this article, I want to show you why and how to build relationships that don\u2019t scale<\/strong>. I think you will find that by building relationships the old-fashioned, non-scaleable, genuine way — one or two at a time, rather than devoting your energy to trying to get 10,000 friends on Facebook — you will develop stronger relationships and stronger bonds with the people in your life.<\/p>\n

Why We Avoid Building One-to-One Relationships<\/h3>\n

\"Vintage<\/p>\n

Why do we tend to avoid building relationships in a one-to-one way? There are a number of reasons. First and foremost, we live in an instant gratification society. Relationship-building takes time and does not offer an immediate reward. If you think about some of your most valued relationships, they probably took years to develop. In an age where you need to communicate in 140 characters or less, we tend to look down on things that go slow.<\/p>\n

Here are a few additional reasons why we avoid building one-to-one relationships:<\/p>\n