1. Teaching Your Students the Power of Relationships
PwC-KWHS Seminar for High School Educators
Sachin Rekhi

2. 1. My Story
2. Why Relationships Matter
3. The Power of Social Networks
4. Bringing Relationships to Your Classroom
5. Q & A
Agenda

3. My Story

4. 1983
1997 2001

5. LinkedIn Contacts
2005 2007 2010

6. My Real Story

7. 7

8. 8
“Your ideas don’t matter unless you can effectively
socialize them.”
Stephanie Saad, Microsoft manager & mentor

9. Gus Tai, Partner, Trinity Ventures
My investor, advisor, mentor, and…

10. 10
My Real Story

11. Why Relationships Matter

12. Of all jobs are found
through networking
Of people trust
recommendations from
people they know
70% 90%

13. 13
The Importance of Weak Ties
“We are most often hiring, getting hired by, and
closing deals not with our best friends and family
members, but with acquaintances, friends of friends,
and people we have just met.”

14. 14
The Power of the 2nd Degree
Your network is larger than you think
because of your friends of friends

15. The Power of Social Networks

16. 2K
Connections
1.3M
People

17. Bringing Relationships to Your Classroom

19. 1. How to leverage relationships to make today’s decisions
2. How to invest in building relationships
3. Overcoming the fear
Bringing Relationships to Your Classroom

20. Have your students pick a question they may be grappling with:
1. I’m trying to decide which college to go to that is the best fit for
my aspirations
2. I think I might be interested in a certain career, but I’m not
exactly sure what that looks like
3. I want to find a way to contribute to this cause I care deeply
about, but I’m not sure where to get started
Classroom Exercise: Leveraging Relationships

21. Then have your students answer each of these questions:
1. What resources would you leverage today to help answer this
question?
2. How could you instead use your network to get better
answers?
3. How could you also leverage social networks?
Classroom Exercise: Leveraging Relationships

22. 1. Existing resources?
– Search online about the career
– Go to the library to find resources
– Talk to my guidance counselor & teachers about career options
2. Leverage your network?
– Ask my parents who they know in the profession for advice
– Ask my friend’s parents who are in the profession for advice
– Ask my counselor for alumni of my school that may be in the profession
3. Leverage social networks?
– Find friends of friends I can get an introduction to who are in my desired
career
Classroom Exercise: Leveraging Relationships

23. 23
Classroom Exercise: Leveraging Relationships

24. Have your students draw their personal network:
1. Identify distinct groups of people where you know 5 or more
people
2. Detail how frequently you interact with each group
3. Determine how you could stay in touch better with the least
frequent groups
4. Think about how you could expand your network to new
groups
Classroom Exercise: Investing in Relationships

26. Overcoming the Fear

27. The Reality

28. Q & A

29. http://www.sachinrekhi.com
@sachinrekhi