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Perpetual: Reads | Relationships at Work

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands.

Relationships at Work

Why Perpetual recommends it

Rachel B. Simon’s Relationships at Work is a practical guide to a skill most people assume they either have or don’t: authentically building a network within their own company. Simon reframes internal networking away from transactional schmoozing and toward genuine relationship-building, arguing that the strength of your internal relationships shapes your influence, visibility and career far more than most people realise.

The book is organised around concrete tactics rather than abstract advice: how to reach out to someone you admire without it feeling forced, how to maintain relationships across departments once the original project that connected you has ended, how to be genuinely useful to people before you ever need something from them.

Simon is particularly good on introverts and people who find self-promotion uncomfortable, offering approaches to relationship-building that don’t require being the loudest person in the room, which makes the book unusually accessible compared to more extroverted networking advice.

We often share this book with clients working through internal mobility or succession planning, because so much career growth quietly depends on relationships that were never built with any strategic intent.

  • Internal relationships shape influence and opportunity as much as performance does
  • Being genuinely useful to people before you need something builds trust that lasts
  • Relationships across departments need active maintenance once the original project ends
  • Authentic networking doesn’t require being the loudest person in the room

A simple starting habit is reaching out to one person outside your immediate team each month with a genuine, no-agenda question about their work.

We give this book three out of five stars.

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