Building Relationships

Originally published 7/8/2024

As social creatures, we thrive on relationships. With that said, the importance of relationships in business is too commonly underestimated.  Good relationships lead to stronger trust. This trust creates transparency that allows individuals to work together and resolve issues quicker and more efficiently.

They key to building relationships is to balance results with personal connection. Professionals who are excessively task focused risk burning-out and alienating their teams. Those who are too relationship focused risk being seen as a schmoozer who doesn’t deliver results. Here's just a few ways that in which you can do both effectively…

Be proactive

The first step is to be the one that actively builds relationships. It's tempting to sit back with the hope or expectation that others will seek you out, but many professionals get so lost in their work they don't think about things like building relationships. You'll stand out amongst your peers by taking the lead in showing an interest in others. The more you do this, the more comfortable it will become.  Start practicing today by reaching out to a colleague with whom you'd like to develop a stronger working relationship.

Get to know them

Creating a strong relationship means knowing the person both personally and professionally. We all have a life outside of the office and getting to know that side of people tends to make your interactions with them more interesting and fulfilling. As an added bonus, it will also provide you insights to motivators that will make your working relationship smoother.

Reoccurring one-on-ones are a great time and place to start learning more about your directs, peers and managers. Ask about their weekend, ask follow-up questions when they make small mentions of their family or hobbies. You might even consider inviting them to lunch or coffee to encourage a more personable dynamic.

Deliver results

This is worthy of its own topic, but part of building relationships is developing trust through your results. You can be the most personable individual in the office but if you are consistently missing deadlines or delivering sub-par work then your peers will learn that they can't always depend on you even if they really like you.  Be sure that you are meeting your obligations and exceeding expectations wherever possible.

Transparent communications

Consistent communication also helps to strengthen trust and therefore relationships. If you communicate frequently and with transparency, people will quickly learn to trust you.

Focus on things like staying positive, providing feedback (positive and negative), giving recognition and admitting your mistakes. Try to avoid participating in gossip or shifting blame.

Support Others

As your building these relationships, you'll naturally identify ways in which you can support others. Can you offer expertise or resources to a peer that would be beneficial to their priorities? Can you provide mentoring to a new or less experienced employee? Are you checking-in with internal customers to understand how you can better support them?

These opportunities will become more obvious as you build these relationships, which in turn allows you to strengthen the relationship even further. Just remember to deliver the results you've promised as we covered earlier.

Receptive and fair

There will eventually be a separate article on this; however, being receptive to the ideas and perspectives of others goes a long way towards demonstrating trust which helps to build relationships. Receptiveness and fairness go hand-in-hand. It’s not enough to be receptive to information if you are going to act unfairly once you get it. On the other end, if you are not receptive to feedback/questions/perspectives you are likely not going to be seen as a fair and democratic leader.