Relationships Are The Key to Results
SUMMARY
Do you find that interacting with other people is the biggest challenge that you face in your day-to-day or are you skillful in creating and maintaining healthy relationships?
In our previous episodes, you've worked on your Emotional Intelligence- the relationship with yourself building up your identity and Personal Power. We've looked at Social Awareness and then have empathy for others and understand them.
What we want to do now is we want to go into the skillsets of Relationship Management. Because here's what I know: You can significantly improve the environment in your home and your workplace by learning to manage your relationships.
So, what I want to do in this episode is (and you’re going to continue breaking it down into the various competencies of relationship management over the weeks to come) lay a foundation around five key principles that you need to understand so that you get in the right frame of mind ready to go on this journey.
Number one is you need to get rid of the soft-skills myth.
Number two is you need to face reality.
Number three is to have an empowering environment.
Number four is to make sure that you train before blaming.
Number five is to coach for culture.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we start to unpack the individual competencies of Relationship Management. Now that you understand what it is and why it's so important, I'm going to step you through the key competencies and skills that will help you grow your relationships.
I'll see you then.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that interacting with other people is the biggest challenge that you face in your day-to-day or are you skillful in creating and maintaining healthy relationships?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the year, and master Coach Trainer. Today, I want to continue our conversation around all things Social and Emotional Intelligence by helping you understand why Relationships are the Key to Results.
In our previous episodes, you've worked on your Emotional Intelligence- the relationship with yourself building up your identity and Personal Power. We've looked at Social Awareness and then have empathy for others and understand them.
What we want to do now is we want to go into the skillsets of Relationship Management. Because here's what I know: You can significantly improve the environment in your home and your workplace by learning to manage your relationships.
You see, here's the problem in our workplaces: There's a strong emphasis on technical ability. Whether or not you can get the job done. It's like a game of lawn bowls where the lawn bowl has a weight on one side, and when we ball that ball down towards the jack, depending on which side of the ball we present to the jack, will determine the path that it takes - and they call that a bias.
Unfortunately, in the workplace, there's a strong bias towards if you can get the skills; if you can have the MBA or the degree, you're going to be able to do the job.
But you know that's not the case. Unfortunately, with the bias on the wrong side (which I believe it is), it doesn't hit the mark at all if you ball that ball. It goes the other direction and ends up out of the court.
What you need to do is make sure that you shift that thinking.
There's also abrasive leadership, and that starts with every individual. It's not just the people at the top. Because they are working with people who have challenges (just like them), they can rub people the wrong way. Unfortunately, you end up with great people leaving the organization simply because they weren't getting on with people.
That means you have to invest more energy in replacing them, training them, and getting them embedded back into the team. And these things all cost time and money.
But, it doesn't have to be that way.
When you develop this skillset around Relationship Management, you become more balanced - where you’ve got that sweet integration between your technical ability and your ability to get things done by working in and around and with people. And leaders become empowered. Like a shot of nitrous on a drag car, when you hit the button, and it accelerates down to the finish line - that’s the power of an emotionally intelligent leader who has control over the way they work with others.
This creates a lot of stability because you have people who work together, collaborate in unity, and get more done. And you save all that wasted energy that you have been using to get more people to fill the roles for the ones you’ve lost.
So, what I want to do in this episode is (and you’re going to continue breaking it down into the various competencies of relationship management over the weeks to come) lay a foundation around five key principles that you need to understand so that you get in the right frame of mind ready to go on this journey.
Number one is you need to get rid of the soft-skills myth.
Unfortunately, the term “soft-skills” has been used for many years. It implies that these are the warm and fuzzy skills, like a cuddly bunny and a pussy cat cuddling up together in an image. It makes you feel good. Therefore, it has been relegated to a nice to have rather than a must-have.
Unfortunately, most challenges in the workplace, organisations, communities, and families happen because of the interaction of the people in it.
So, you need to get rid of this myth: that this is the “warm and fuzzies," and it'd be good to have - this needs to be a focus for you, for me, and for every organisation on the planet: building strong relationships and relational skills in their teams.
Number two is you need to face reality.
A lot of times in my corporate career, I used to just put my head in the sand and go, “you know what, I'll just put my head down. I'll do my work. Hopefully, all those people challenges will go away.”
The problem was it never worked that way. In fact, what happened was the more I avoided interacting in those situations, the worst that they got.
So, you need to get your head out of the sand. You need to look at these challenges head-on and go, “who do I need to become so that I can get on with more people so that I can do what I can do to be at peace with all people, and to work with them so that we get the results that we want?”
So, where is it that you are right now, avoiding using those relationship management skills and creating more mutually beneficial relationships in your home, workplace, or anywhere in your life?
Number three is to have an empowering environment.
I like to think of it as growing a nice green lawn.
By the way, if you were able to see my lawn, it's green right now because we've had lots and lots of rain, and it needs mowing every other day. But if you stick with me here, I'm sure you'll understand what I'm saying in using this analogy.
When you want to build that perfect lawn, you lay a great foundation, you get rid of all the rubble, you make sure that you put in good soil, then you plant the seeds, you water it, you fertilize it, and you tend to it until it gets to where you want it to go. And that is the environment that you need to be able to get a great lawn.
In fact, it's that same process that you need to use in building great relationships.
You need to make sure that it's an environment where they can grow. Where it's okay if there's conflict, it’s okay if there are mistakes, and people forgive, move on, and work together. So, number three is to make sure that you do what you can do to create an environment where people can work with you and where it's okay to have a conversation with someone else and go, “Hey, I think there's some area for us to improve right here.”
Number four is to make sure that you train before blaming.
Because of the soft skill myth, many people in organisations have never had any of this type of personal leadership training. You’ve never had someone teach them how to have great relationships. You’ve just taught them how to get the skills done and get the work output that you need.
If you are beating yourself up because you don't have the relationships you need right now, rather than beating yourself up, get some help, get some training, and work on the specific skills.
I'm going to help you with that over the coming weeks.
I'm going to give you snippets of training over the coming weeks in the individual competencies of Relationship Management.
If you are a team leader in a team, then get someone in like me who can teach this stuff and can make sure that people actually have the skills, rather than just having a mandate that says:
“I want everyone to get on with each other.”
“I want you to have great relationships.”
The problem is, if they're not empowered with the how-to, it's not going to happen. In fact, it's going to create even more angst within your organisation because people are being forced into things that they don't have any clue. So, it creates even more uncertainty and self-doubt. So, let’s make sure that we train rather than blame.
Number five is to coach for culture.
Whenever you want to build new skills in your team, for yourself, you need to make sure that you create an environment that has two things:
1. Support to incrementally make the changes.
2. Accountability so that we are held accountable for the things that we say we're going to do.
The way you work with your brain is that you need to have time to incrementally change the things you’re doing so that you have new, more empowering neural pathways. So, when something happens, you now do something different from what you used to do. And that takes time to rewire the brain.
So, suppose you want to make sure that you develop a culture where relationships are essential for yourself or your team and organization. In that case, you need to have some internal or external structure that can help you to coach people through this.
Everyone comes in at their own level. Some people are great at this. Some people are still working on it. To be honest, this was my biggest challenge right throughout my corporate career, and my military career, before that. I was great at what I did, but I wasn't all that good at playing well with others.
Over the years, I've had to work on that, and I’ve been able to help many individuals and organisations to do the same thing.
Let's make sure that you find a way not just to get the first four of these principles; you need to actually embed them and make it a culture. Otherwise, you need to do it again over and over every single year.
What I find is when there is a culture that is driven by the people, not by you, then you have a greater level of success.
Relationships are the key to getting the results that you want.
The interactions that you have with people are vital.
I don't care how technology goes - how much we go online and all these things - it’s always going to be (in my humble opinion) working with people. And when you forget about that, whenever you work on the things rather than the relationships, you’re going to continue to have the problems you’re having in the world right now.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we start to unpack the individual competencies of Relationship Management. Now that you understand what it is and why it's so important, I'm going to step you through the key competencies and skills that will help you grow your relationships.
I'll see you then.
