Strong, resilient relationships are as important at work as anywhere else in life. They've not only been proven to increase productivity but they also help people feel safe and happy.
Why do work relationships matter?
Human beings are naturally social creatures. And when you consider that we spend one-third of our lives at work, it's clear that good relationships with colleagues will make our jobs more enjoyable. The more comfortable co-workers are around one other, the more confident they'll feel voicing opinions, brainstorming, and going along with new ideas, for example. This level of teamwork is essential to embrace change, create, and innovate. And when people see the successes of working together in this way, group morale and productivity soars. Good work relationships also give you freedom. Instead of spending time and energy dealing with negative relationships, you can instead focus on opportunities – from winning new business to focusing on personal development. And having a strong professional circle will also help you to develop your career, opening up opportunities that otherwise might pass you by.
While good work relationships have significant benefits for your company (in terms of productivity/morale etc), the most important benefit it for you. They make work more enjoyable.
Considering how much energy we put into developing good relationships with our friends, partners, children and neighbors, it seems only sensible that we also put energy into developing relationships with our co-workers – with whom we spend a third of our time!
So what makes a good relationship?
- Trust - If you trust your coworkers, you can be open and honest in your thoughts and actions. And you don't have to waste time or energy "watching your back." It's very hard to have genuine relationships without trust.
- Respect - If you have mutual respect amongst people in a team, everyone will value one another's input and are likely to find solutions based on collective insight, wisdom, and creativity.
- Self-awareness - this means taking responsibility for your words and actions, and not letting your own negative emotions impact the people around you. It's hard to build (and feel) trust and mutual respect without self-awareness.
- Inclusion & Safety - Feeling safe and included is incredibly important. It's not enough everybody to have trust, mutual respect and self-awareness. We need to actively show this so that others feel safe and included.
- Open communication - All good relationships depend on open, honest communication. Whether you're sending emails, Slacking, or meeting face-to-face or on video calls – the more effectively you communicate with those around you, the better you'll connect.
Who should we build relationships with at work?
Here are some of the more obvious candidates...
- Your immediate team-mates - These are the people you'll work with every day. This is where most people start (and in some cases never look beyond this 😢 ).
- Anyone who reports to you - If you have direct reports, building a good relationship with them is a core part of your job. Far too many managers fail to do this well.
- Your line manager - While your manager should be trying to build a good, open and trusting relationship with you, it takes two to tango. You should be actively working to build a relationship with them, too.
Here are some candidates that are maybe less obvious...
- Anyone you need to work with - Most of us need to work with people outside of our immediate team (often when we need help from them!) The stronger your relationship the easier it is to get this work done.
- Your boss' boss - Providing you have a good relationship with your boss, building a relationship with their boss can be a great thing to do. More senior managers can often feel somewhat isolated from folks a few levels below them, so most will welcome a social call.
- Your peers in other areas of the business - Look for people who do a similar thing as you in other areas of the business. You can probably learn a lot from each other, and the more strong cross-department relationships there are in a company, the more open that company will be as a whole.
- Random folks in the company - Even in large companies, it can be a good idea to start building relationships with random folks in other areas of the business.
Openness & Trust
Now we've got an idea of what a good relationship looks like and who we might want to focus on building one with, let's focus in on two key ideas: Openness and Trust.
The absolute best way to build trust is to be totally open and honest with others. (Note: this means being open and honest with yourself first - self-awareness.)
The more open we are with others, the more trust we build. And the more trust we have, the more others can be open with us (and the easier it is to be open ourselves).
Trust → Openness → Trust → Openness → 🔁
So if there's one key message here, it's to be as open and honest as you can with anyone you're trying to build a good relationship with.
There are some other things to consider when it comes to building trust, though...
Other key elements for building trust 🔑
As well as being open, you also need to be...
- Dependable - If you're not dependable, you'll lose trust quickly. Do what you say you'll do.
- Consistent - Being consistent is a great way to show others that you're dependable. If you're seen as inconsistent it can really damage others' trust in you.
- Visible - In a remote setting, it's important to be visible to those you want to build a relationship with. If you only interact occasionally, it's going to take a long time to build an open and trusting relationship.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (or EI) is your ability to recognise your own emotions, and better understand what they're telling you. By developing your EI, you'll also become more adept at identifying and handling the emotions and needs of other people.
Both these things make it much, much easier to build open and trusting relationships. And the complete absence of emotional intelligence makes it almost impossible to build strong relationships.
Some Practical Tips for Building Relationships
There are no magic top tips for building strong relationships... there's no shortcut for developing empathy, emotional intelligence, self-awareness and openness. And relationships always take time to develop. Bearing that in mind, here are a few thoughts that might help along the way...
Be Intentional
Like many things in distributed companies, we need to be more intentional about building good relationships than we might in an office. So make building good relationships part of your job and take deliberate action on it.
Organize social calls
Make the time to organize regular social calls with anyone and everyone you want to develop a relationship with. See Socialising in Remote Teams . Don't wait for others to do this, be proactive.
Be genuine and actually listen
It's impossible to build a real relationship with someone unless you are actually interested in them. If you view relationship-building purely as a means to an end, you won't have much success.
Similarly, you need to actually listen and hear what people are saying to you. This is incredibly difficult, but active listening is a learnable skill.
Spend time on Slack
While you're unlikely to build a great relationship with someone only via Slack, it's a great way to start or maintain an existing one. Take some time every day to get to know people through their slack messages. Send thoughtful and honest responses. Etc.
Being open and honest on slack yourself is a great way to help others form relationships with you. So post pictures of your dogs, food, holidays etc! 🐶🥑🌴
See Socialising in Remote Teams for more on this.
Show appreciation ❤️
Showing appreciation is a great way to develop trust and goodwill. This might be as simple as a slack message in #core-shoutouts or a DM to thank someone for their work. Or you might take the time to thank someone at the end of your next zoom call.
#core-shoutouts.Smile 😃
It might sound obvious, but smiling lots is an underrated skill. Not only will it help you to feel a little better if you know you're a bit grumpy (see Emotional Intelligence 👆), it also does a huge amount to help others feel comfortable around you.
So if you're trying to build a new relationship with someone, remember to smile.
Summary
Strong, resilient relationships are so important at work. And doubly so in distributed companies because they're less likely to form organically. So be intentional about how you build relationships and take the time to learn how to do it well. Give this the time and attention it needs.
And if you lead or manage others this is even more important – not only do you have to be great at it yourself, you also have to help your reports become great at it!
We've hardly scratched the surface in this lesson, but if you've not spent much time deeply reflecting on emotional intelligence and how trusting relationships develop, that's a great place to start. ❤️
![[Case Study] How We Build Strong Relationships Remotely](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.super.so%2F87a8fb85-04f9-40b7-b235-6f4ba5b6feb2%2Fimages%2Faca66c7b-2b47-4292-9656-fdf108301153.png&w=640&q=90)
