Design Better Work Relationships

All relationships, whether they are work, intimate or family, they are based on one single truth. The ability to add value to each other's lives. But when it comes to work relationships, this is so very difficult to do. 

Why is that? Well, the way I see it is because we have to juggle with three variables. The first one is the ability to add value to the company’s profit, that means meeting your KPIs, the second is the ability to add value to your end years bonus, and the third one is the ability to add value to your colleagues, not only professionally but to also to pay attention to them as human beings. 

In other words, we have a triad design, and as with all triad designs, it is tough to find the sweet spot in the center. Think about it. You are in a meeting, and people argue over something. In which area of the triad are they most likely to be? Are they caring about promoting themselves and the business? Are they caring about other people and the business? Or are they caring about themselves and other people? Well, it’s easy to know where the majority falls because companies hire people with the primary purpose for the people to drive the company’s growth. They don’t hire people with a primary goal to care about others, even though that would be a great add-on to have. But the main objective of a business is to create profit, not to care about your feelings. 

The point that almost all relationships start to break down is the point where winning an argument becomes more important than solving a problem. These are two very different things.

Wanting to win means that the person is trying to maintain their self-identity at the cost of failing to include others. Solving a problem, on the other hand, might be done by including everyone in finding the solution. And this can be achieved when there’s no judgment in the sense of any form of rejection. This concept of collaboration is something compelling for companies who look into the future. That’s why we have so many global organizations investing heavily in employees leadership development. Because leaders, don’t look for recognition from others, they look for others to recognize. 164 billion dollars a year were spent on training and development by US companies. And the majority of those funds goes to leadership programs. In other words, it goes to programs that teach people how to behave with each other. 

So what is the one simple thing one might do, to create better work relationships? 

First step. You have to identify the pattern of behavior you want to be transformed. And you have to be very specific about it. Whether this behavior is yours or for another person’s. You have to specify it and articulate in detail to them. So for example: Maybe a particular action of a colleague of yours is blocking your confidence and development. You have to communicate the exact behavior you want to be changed.

Second, you have to introduce to yourself or suggest to the other person, the minimum necessary change over those patterns, which will give you some satisfaction. Take the previous example; you can come up with some suggestion on how this person might react that will provide you with the confidence to be more productive and help them out a lot more. 

And by the way, people will not learn things that are not relevant to them. So your job is to make it relevant by rewarding their behavior one way or another. 
 
And that leads us to the third step which is that you have to stop responding only to negative things and start responding to positive things too. That’s important for managerial positions. When people do something nice, reward them by saying or doing something nice also! What people like the most is to get rewarded one way or another, and they are very responsive to reward. So, back on the example, if the person responds to your suggestions and they act on it, find a nice reward for them! For the managers' case, if let’s say an employee of yours has done a great analysis but made a serious mistake somewhere, don’t focus on that mistake. Mention it, but keep the focus on the great work instead and reward them for that. It’s like shouting at your kid because they forgot to clean their desk while they cleaned their entire room! If you focus on what has not been done instead on what has been done, then you slowly kill any motivation they have to do it again! 

Things could be better than they are and you can make them that way! Take the responsibility and act on creating better work relationships, because leaders dare to go first, and open a path for others to follow. Unless you have a sociopath or an extremely narcissistic person in front of you, people will follow your lead because all people feel the need to become better one way or another! All you need is patience and judiciousness. And remember the triad design of work relationships when you want to know where a person is focusing on the most. 

So, who’s the first colleague of yours that crossed your mind?