“Those are my contacts” — where company access to relationships ends

During a discussion about an important client, Anna realises that Nia privately knows someone on the client’s side.

— You’re seeing him on Saturday anyway. Ask when they’re making the decision.
— Privately. And then he’ll see that I brought company business to dinner.

Anna sees a valuable professional contact. Nia also sees her own reputation and a private relationship she does not want to hand over to the company automatically.

What really happened

Anna is looking at Nia’s network from the company’s perspective: Nia knows valuable people, so asking for an introduction, a recommendation or an opened door seems natural. Nia sees the other side of every contact. She spent years building the trust, her name will be attached to any introduction, and her relationship may suffer if the company behaves badly. To her, a contact is not simply an entry in an address book. It is part of her personal reputation, and the consequences of using it stay with her even after she leaves the company.

What the research says

Relationship networks have real professional value. Research shows that people who connect different parts of an organization or different communities gain access to information and collaboration that can improve performance—often discussed through social capital and boundary spanning (Tortoriello, Reagans & McEvily, 2012; Lee et al., 2018). At the same time, that value exists precisely because the relationships are grounded in personal trust and reputation. Research on interfirm relationships shows that personal ties held by organizational boundary spanners can affect trust between firms, but are not the same thing as interfirm trust itself (Cai et al., 2021). A company can benefit from an employee’s network without thereby owning it as if it were a database.

How to handle it

Ask to use the relationship rather than treating access as an obligation: “Would you feel comfortable introducing us?” Nia should be able to say no without having to explain the entire history of the relationship. If she says yes, she can decide how to make the introduction and what context to provide. The general rule: an employee’s contacts can be a major asset to the company, but their value comes from privately built trust. Using that trust requires the consent of the person whose own reputation is attached to the introduction.

How Empatyzer and Em can help

Empatyzer can help Anna understand that Nia’s contacts are relational capital, not automatically company property. A profile may reveal differences in needs around loyalty, independence, status or protecting relationships, but Em has no access to Nia’s private network and should not manage it. It can instead prepare Anna to ask a better question: “Would you feel comfortable introducing us? If not, we’ll find another route.” It can also help Nia explain when using a relationship feels safe and when it puts her personal reputation at risk. Micro-lessons teach leaders to request relational capital rather than treating it as a mandatory part of someone’s job. That lets the company benefit from people’s networks without damaging the very trust that made those networks valuable.