THE RELATIONSHIP ENGINE
Ed Wallace, Brilliance Audio, $19.99 (5.25 hours), 978-1-5318-6777-5 This valuable recording reminds leaders that relationships are a key to business success.
Businesspeople on the go will value listening to The Relationship Engine: Connecting with the People Who Power Your Business, by Ed Wallace. Through the masterful reading by Tom Parks, this professional recording precisely communicates the author’s tips for building strong business relationships. Divided into thirty-eight tracks, the MP3 includes a glossary and a PDF with diagrams and charts, visually conveying concepts such as relational leadership and credibility.
Without faltering, Parks consistently reads the text clearly but sometimes at a clip. Listeners may need to replay rapidly delivered lists and cross-referenced items so they can process and digest the in-depth material. The five foundational principles are rattled off without skipping a beat. As listeners are thinking about displaying worthy intent and caring about people’s goals, passions, and struggles, their minds are forced to race forward and grasp points about making every interaction matter, valuing people before processes, and connecting performance to a purpose.
A lengthy opening anecdote describing the author’s panic after learning about his son’s accident may leave some people wondering about any possible business connection. However, Parks’s expressive storytelling skills will carry them forward until they learn about a hospital employee who helped Wallace find his son quickly. After his son’s recovery, the author applies this memorable moment—about making others’ interests a priority—to his business model.
Those who are accustomed to reading business books in print may also find the audio format challenging. Without the ability to flip back and forth easily to review interconnected and repeatedly referenced principles and strategies, some listeners may feel frustrated trying to relocate specific points.
However, with a wealth of case stories, nomenclature, and tools to absorb, any of the points that stick will remind leaders that relationships are a key to business success.