If you are fortunate enough to be in the same industry for a lengthy period of time you see trends come and go as quickly as some of the people. Whether you’re an attorney, accountant, teacher or even a professional commercial real estate advisor you’ll see people at conferences and conventions.  After years of this if you’re lucky you develop a relationship and a friendship that will last long after your professional connection is changed.

This isn’t always the case.  People come and people go.  Company’s come and company’s go but business friendships can go on forever even though you may be carrying different cards.  It’s always hard to hear that a colleague is leaving to pursue other endeavors.  The conscious mind appreciates the opportunity they have been given and you see all the positives it will afford that person, but the unconscious mind wonders and sometimes wanders to that place where if you’re not very careful your relationship, that friendship could be altered.

This was evident in my dealing with the corporate world in the 1990’s.  If he or she was on our team that was great, but if they left and went to work for the competition then they had crossed over to the dark side and were amongst the Evil Empire.  It’s the same person doing the same job for someone else.

We are very lucky in our organization because we truly have become a professional family.  From the very top of the enterprise, since 1978 it was a given that if you believed in the mission and shared the vision that it would become clear what your path to success would look like.  Sure every family has that strange Uncle that no one wants to talk about, but he’s still our Uncle and you’d better be careful what you may think of him.

We talk about being different from the competition.  What are your differentiators?  You can search your soul and rack your brain but what I’ve observed is that no matter what differentiator you might come up with, I’ve found that the most important differences, if you’re going to succeed, are that you know each other, you like each other and you look for reasons to work together.  Coming to every opportunity as a servant is always a rewarding position and one that is never a disappointment.

When a valued colleague leaves your organization or industry or and entire company decides to follow a different path, while it gives you pause, you have to realize it’s nothing personal, it’s just business…..Really!