Most people prioritise improving the quality of a relationship when a problem hits them in the face.
This is the most difficult time of all to build trust and openness, because the guard is up, and perhaps, so are the heckles. On the other hand, hard as it may be, this could be exactly what the two of you needed, a big wake up call!
And, if you’re diligent, tenacious and careful, the prospects are good that the relationship after things have been resolved will be much better than it was before.
Wherever you are in an important relationship, take a few moments to reflect on what’s working well, what’s not working so well, and make decision s about what you can do to improve things.
In some work we did several years ago, we identified three key themes that are essential is all great relationships, and these are incremental. Use this as stimulation for ideas on what you can do, and then check out the additional ideas further down.
Trust and Credibility (read more)
leads to
Communication and Influence (read more)
and ultimately, to
Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution
Review Ideas
- Make sure to prioritise where to invest your relationship building time. Consider the impact each has on your goal.
- Consider also the risks that the relationship could deteriorate and what impact that would have.
- When looking at a number of different relationships, give each stakeholder a total score, and also each item a total score. This way you can see who to focus on, and what aspects of relationships you need to get better at. For Victor, the item in his set of 8 that scored lowest was the one about these people consulting with him.
- As you move on down through the course, you’ll also pick up on the criticality of getting to know their agenda(s).
Hopefully this will enrich your learning and focus your activity on where it will give the biggest return.