How to Cultivate Excellent Professional Relationships is a blog post by guest author Patrick Sweet, P.Eng., MBA
Professional relationships are key to success in any profession. Engineering is no exception. Success is fueled as much by who you know as it is by what you know. While this may seem unfair, there’s a perfectly logical reason for this: people do business with people they know, like, and trust. And how do you get people to know, like, and trust you? Through relationships.
Today, I’m going to share five actions you can take to cultivate excellent professional relationships. All of these strategies are simple, and anyone can implement them, regardless of where you are in your career, or what industry you work in. All of them will help others to get to know, like, and trust you.
You’ve likely heard in the past that growing your network as an engineer is key to career success, and that getting ahead is as much about who you know and what you know.
I’ve worked with thousands of engineers throughout the world, and a common theme has emerged throughout that work: engineers want to see progress in their careers.
I recently presented a half-day leadership seminar to a group of engineers in Mississippi. The seminar covered the basics of the most important business skills engineers should have namely: communications, productivity, leadership, and professional development.
I was recently reminded of a parable I had heard many years ago. In the story, there are three bricklayers working on a wall for a church. Someone asks the first bricklayer what he’s doing. He says, “I’m building a wall.” The second bricklayer is asked the same question and replies, “I’m building a church.” Finally, the third bricklayer is asked what he’s doing, and he says, “I’m building the house of God.”
I was recently listening to an interview with Ben Brenton, the Chief Innovation Officer of Snap-on Tools on the 
When she was about one year old, my daughter, Charlotte, started mimicking what my wife and I did in a big way. If we did it, she wanted to do it. If I stirred my coffee, she wanted to stir her milk. If my wife went to play the piano, Charlotte wanted to play the piano. If I changed the channel on the TV, Charlotte wanted to try to do it, too. It was adorable, and I almost always got a chuckle out of it. Monkey see, monkey do.