Liaison Management –simply connect people to what they need
Sorry für ENGLISH - aber mir war danach ... :) Everybody talks about networking, social intelligence and people oriented communication. Henry Mintzberg identifie
d nine different management roles. These roles were then sorted into decisional, informational, and interpersonal roles. Liaison is one of the three roles in the interpersonal part, which is focussing on relations/connections between leaders/managers and all kind of stakeholders around them. These roles cover a manager's connections within organizations and social hierarchies, no matter the relationships are up, down, or across relative statuses.
Everybody can act or is acting as a “liaison manager” everyday at work or in private life. And liaison management is by far more than just professional networking and adding contacts to your LinkedIn profile. At the end a liaison manager is somebody who can link resources (data, information, money, goods, money, equipment or even influence and power) in a sufficient, smart and empowering way.
Connecting resources and empower people to use those resources wisely, time efficient and create added value is the key role of a creative liaison manager.
Some industries have already understood how important it is to hire people, who are able to create liaisons within professional hierarchies, organizations and communities. In the pharmaceutical market liaison managers are often hired to establish better relationships with Key Opionion Leaders (KOL) without being to pushy on the sales side. There are some rumours that in the US some pharmaceutical companies fired their sales teams and hired liaison managers instead – liaison managers are not relying on sales – their job is to build a stable relationships and trust withion the medical community and the KOL-network. In politics it would be called lobbying as it tries to influence future decisions, actions and policies.
Liaison management is all about communicating and creating (planting) ideas, creating added value and bringing the right resources together at the right time by connecting the best experts in an intelligent way.
Global companies, NGOs and SMBs are facing the same challenges – an overload of data and information, ongoing changes in their business models and a lack of internal & external communication to their stakeholders, which leads to demotivated and disloyal employees, faithless suppliers and unhappy customers.
From my perspective liaison management itself or the role as liaison manager will be one of the fastest growing job areas globally. Connection the right people at the right time globally, creating valuable and reliable relationships with the future KOL´s, decision makers and leaders is one of main challenges for organizations and companies worldwide. Also for start-up the right liaison management can bring additional funds, networks and relationships to succeed.
Start creating LIAISONS today - they survive, they bring added value and they help you to survive the changes in the future.
