Business as a System of Relationships: How to Grow in Career, Business and Life by Investing in People and Yourself

The book is devoted to how to create and maintain strong relationships that become a key asset and a source of growth in your career and business. The success of an entrepreneur and CEO is largely determined by the quality and maturity of their connections. That’s why the authors—Aleksey Goryachev and Aleksey Gureev—suggest starting with a foundation: build honest contact with yourself, understand the specifics of character and temperament, see and work on your “shadow” sides. The next step is building relationships on external levels: with family and close ones, with your team, managers and subordinates, as well as with partners, investors, and clients.

The book collects tools for diagnosing and “inventorying” your current relationships, and then offers practical methods for developing and strengthening them. The authors draw a clear parallel with investing: first you invest attention, time, and effort—then you get returns. This topic is often underestimated in business circles, and it is explored through applied approaches and understandable techniques for building strong bonds.

This is a detailed guide to relationship management, showing how to turn fragmented communications and random contacts into a working system. The structure is built around eight relationship “orbits”: me, family, partners, investors, managers, the team, colleagues, and clients. Each chapter is supplemented with tests, exercises, tools, expert commentary, real stories and case studies, as well as a list of recommended literature.

The book is aimed at entrepreneurs, top managers, middle management leaders, and specialists at the top-minus-1/top-minus-2 level—everyone who already is responsible for people and results and is preparing for the next career step.