What does motor oil have to do with professional relationships ?

What oil is to an engine, relationships are to collaboration in an enterprise.

The function of motor oil is to lubricate moving parts of an engine, reducing wear, providing heat transfer, avoiding corrosion and other related functions. If you’ve ever tried to run an engine without oil… you know what I’m talking about. Funny noises are the least of your worries, eventually the engine will seize up.

The equivalent of the motor oil in an enterprise are strong professional relationships. Understanding the inner workings, people truly collaborating with each other, individuals and teams being able to rely on working together all boils down to the strength of the relationships. Wether for a mundane task such as getting the right form filled and submitted to the right place or for a multi-year project involving dozens of people the better your relationships are the better collaboration is going to be. For the individual and the organization.