Build Stronger Relationships
SUMMARY
Relationships are the key to everything that we do in the workplace. Whether it's working with people in our own organisation, with our suppliers, vendors, clients, or the community, it will always have that element of being able to work with people.
This week, we want to move into the fourth quadrant of Social and Emotional Intelligence, Relationship Management.
Relationship management is becoming effective at being able to work with other people. There are ten key competencies that I work on with people all around the world in this particular area. Unfortunately, there are a few roadblocks in the way, and I wanted to spell those out this week before we start going through each of those next week.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that the technical aspect of what you do for a living is way less exhausting and difficult than working with people?
Well, that's what most people experience because humans are very complex, and we all work together with our own uncertainties and challenges. And it takes a unique set of skills to be able to get on well with others.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around Social Intelligence by helping you to build stronger relationships.
Relationships are the key to everything that we do in the workplace. Whether it's working with people in our own organisation, with our suppliers, vendors, clients, or the community, it will always have that element of being able to work with people.
Over the last few weeks, we've been talking about this amazing thing called Social Intelligence which is different from your Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence is all about you and the relationship that you have with yourself and the ability to navigate your emotions in the moment. However, Social Intelligence is about working with others. It's being able to understand them and look through the lens that they're looking through so that you can avoid all that misunderstanding and conflict.
Over the last couple of episodes, we've talked about the competencies in the first quadrant of Social Intelligence which is social awareness. We also talked about empathy being a critical component of anything that we do working with people.
We talked about situational awareness and service orientation, which is about serving others to get what we want.
Today, we want to move into the fourth quadrant of Social and Emotional Intelligence, Relationship Management.
Relationship management is becoming effective at being able to work with other people. There are ten key competencies that I work on with people all around the world in this particular area. Unfortunately, there are a few roadblocks in the way, and I wanted to spell those out this week before we start going through each of those next week.
The first thing is that: “These are ‘soft skills’.”
That's a myth.
These are not warm and fuzzy skills that are nice to have. These are critical that you and I need to be able to utilise our technical ability and the expertise that we have.
When you think about any conflicts that you've had over the last 30 days, I guarantee that it would be through a relationship you have with another human being and not because of your technical skill.
Organisations will contact me and our company, and they’ll ask us to come and work on these particular skills that I'm going to be talking about over the next few weeks. And I’ll say to them every time:
"Yes, I could do that. However, what have you done to build the foundation of the individuals before we move to teach them these skills?"
You see, the work that we've been doing is sequential:
Working on yourself and your ability to navigate your emotions in a healthy way.
Building that strong personal power.
Having empathy for others.
All these things are the foundation that needs to be built so that you will utilise these relationship management skills.
If you have two individuals that are working together or a group of people that all are navigating life through their lens with their emotions and experiences, coming together with uncertainties and those three universal fears (all that stuff putting together), no wonder there is a lot of confusion and conflict that goes on around the world.
Relationship management competencies are essential for every leader to develop in themselves and to create a culture of these skills in their own organisation.
There are ten competencies in this area that we will be working on. Some of these are:
Communication.
Inspirational Leadership.
Coaching and Mentoring.
Teamwork and collaboration.
Building Trust.
Over the coming weeks, I will help you shift your mindset around some of these skills to see their value and importance and to look at them through a different lens.
A lot of people talk about performance management. I believe having a coaching methodology as a leader brings you a far different result. So, we're going to unpack those.
Come with me as we go on this journey over the next ten weeks (starting next week), where we talk about communication and how you can go to mutually beneficial exchanges of information without all that conflict.
You and I will always be relying on our relationships, and so are the people that work with you.
You've heard it said: “People don't leave organisations; they leave relationships; they leave people."
As you develop these skills in yourself, you model them to your team and help them develop them. We're going to remove a lot of that conflict, miscommunication and misunderstanding that leads to people leaving and going to find different relationships that are better suited for them.
Attraction and retention of great people is the number one challenge in the world right now in the workplace. Getting people to come and stay so that you can be strong in your culture and move forward with momentum, rather than stopping and starting all the time to bring new people in, train them and embed them in your culture.
Relationships are the key.
So, come with me, join me in this conversation over the next few weeks (starting next week) as we talk about how we can communicate differently.
I'll see you then.
