Relationships Matter
Want to influence change better? Make building relationships a priority.
Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about a conversation that I had with a colleague of mine who posed a question to me last week. The question in and of itself wasn’t terribly complex and for that matter neither was the answer. However, over the last few days I’ve been realizing that as I go through my day and interact with the people around me that I rely on in order to accomplish the duties and responsibilities that have been assigned that there was more depth to the answer I gave than I had previously thought.
The question posed to me was simple: In my opinion, what is one of the most important aspects to successfully influencing change? Like I said not a terribly difficult question, at least for a guy who has been doing his best to act as a change agent in many different companies scenarios, typically in an organizational development capacity, for coming up on two decades. My answer was this: You must build healthy and valued relationships. Again, as noted earlier, not a terribly complex answer but one that I certainly feel accurately portrays my opinion as to what it takes to truly influence change in an organization. At that point our conversation skewed into a number of different tangents until we both had to go our separate ways and I didn’t think a whole lot more about it.
That was until I came across a binder with documents for a program that I had built around leadership and management development at another company I had worked for previously. Upon inspecting the documents I found I was reminded that I spent a significant amount of time reinforcing to those leaders and managers that I was coaching just how important building relationships was to every aspect of the work that we as a company were doing. I titled the philosophy “Relationships Matter” and basically required all training and development initiatives that would be developed and deployed over that 12-month period to ensure that they addressed the importance of relationship building inside of the content in some meaningful way. Incidentally, but not coincidently, these programs would prove to be the most successful development initiatives that I’ve ever launched in my career.
This got me thinking about the answer that I’d given to my colleague. I honestly believe that the human dynamic is one of the most overlooked and taken-for-granted aspects in corporate environments. I think that it’s very easy to forget that the most valuable resource in your company structure, your people, are just that, people (not commodities or robots or pieces of machinery) and they need to feel some level of connection not only with the work that they’re doing but with the people around them, with their peers, and their leadership and management. This is why things such as mission statements and vision statements and values are so crucial, due to the fact that they help create an anchor point for emotional connection between the company and the people who work within it.
But a lot of leaders over the years have said, “Keith we have a mission statement and guiding principles so we’re okay, right?” My answer to that is PowerPoint slides that get projected on a conference room wall or posters hanging in the hallway are not the answer to creating emotional connection and fostering an organizational presence of cohesive partnership (we win together and we lose together). There must be a culture of teamwork and shared ownership of your mission/vision and values if you ever have any true hope of inspiring a high level of employee engagement. Leaders have to come out of their offices and walk the floor interacting with employees. Managers need to set up time to just listen to their employees so that they can understand what the mood is and what the thought trends are within the ranks and throughout their work environments. Employees need to be encouraged to collaborate not only in conference rooms but also in ways that get them out of the office and get them creatively problem-solving in settings that stoke their creativity and fuels their innovation.
You would be amazed with what happens when you get leaders and managers and employees at all levels working side-by-side, talking, thinking out loud, and problem-solving. That sharing of thoughts and ideas across all levels has produced some of the best innovation and out-of-the-box thinking that I have ever seen. And the amazing thing is that it’s not a one-time phenomenon. Once people start interacting with one another and building relationships there is a tendency for them to rely more and more upon those newly formed relationships for their perspectives and insights that ultimately ends up influencing projects week, months, and years down the road.
There is a natural compounding effect that has been proven to me over and over that you really can achieve significant, meaningful, thoughtful change when you foster an environment that emphasizes the importance of building healthy and valued relationships. By building out these relationships, that ultimately strengthen the connections between individuals and enhances the work that happens inside of a company everyday, you’re not only positioning your company for greater success, but you’re role modeling a cultural environment that emphasizes the importance around collaboration, teamwork, and a shared conviction for the most important asset in your company (which is also your greatest competitive advantage): your people.
So now let me pose a question to you. What are you doing in your organization or company to foster the building of significant and meaningful relationships amongst all levels of your workforce? In what ways has this helped foster meaningful change?
