Newcomers to Adelaide immediately notice that everyone seems to know everyone, and they are right. We live in a city that blows the usual six degrees of separation out of the water and reduces it to one.

There are many fascinating ramifications of this one degree of separation dynamic, and one of these interesting facts is that when someone is behaving without integrity, people find out quickly.

I personally think this is a good thing.

However, given our tendency to focus on bad news first, when someone is behaving well, people still find out, but it takes a while longer.

So, my advice for working and doing business in Adelaide is pretty simple:

Behave and be patient.

Do good deeds without immediate personal benefit and wait for people to notice.

Pay it forward. Collaborate.

Be kind, ethical, helpful, gracious, courteous and positive and keep your ego in check.

Praise honestly in public and challenge constructively in private.

Recognise and acknowledge your limitations and mistakes.

When utilising platforms such as LinkedIn, be mindful of the tone of your message and assemble quality not quantity of mutual connections.

Welcome, embrace and empower the newcomers so the South Australia benefits from their experience, global insight, diversity and skill.

Derive the value from trusted associates to do your homework and thoroughly research and assess the sliding doors that you might step through.

Return every call and respond to every email.

Take every chance to be a connecter – introduce people, join the dots, facilitate personal connections and interactions.

Treat every interaction as though the person is a potential referee.

Know your stuff but never use the phrase “Don’t you know who I am?”

Be extremely careful with private information as you never know who else you might really be telling. For example, we have seen husband and wife on the same shortlist. One knew and the other did not. We have also seen this with identical twins.

And most importantly, remember that, contrary to common views, it is not actually about who you know but more how you behave.

Let’s all have the courage to call out conflicts of interest and poor behaviour and let’s use the one degree of separation for good. Otherwise, we should have the privilege to live and work in this great city confiscated.