What’s your view on meeting with people purely with a purpose of getting to know them and building a relationship?

Our reader poll today asks: What’s your view on meeting with people purely with a purpose of getting to know them and building a relationship?

• It’s extremely important and worthwhile 60.83%
• It’s important but only with select people 22.43%
• It’s of secondary importance to getting stuff done 9.79%
• It’s not important and is a “nice to have” if you have free time 4.38%
• It’s a waste of time 2.57%

Meeting for meeting’s sake. While it might be counterintuitive to meet with someone without a clear business “purpose” for the conversation, that’s exactly why you should do it. The vast majority of respondents agree that meeting with someone for the sole purpose of building a relationship has tremendous value. If you’re a non-believer, give it a try. Identify a few colleagues, suppliers, customers, or business partners you don’t know very well. Find time to meet with them on a semi-regular basis with no other purpose than to get to know one another better. Freeing yourself from a specific “purpose” or business agenda might yield surprising opportunities. At the very least, you’ll build relationships that can make your work more meaningful and pleasant.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.