Building Interpersonal Relationships

working intimately with key leaders who are in a hurry to further boost their success

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Building Interpersonal Relationships

Definit ion Interpersonal Relationship is the ability to establish and maintain mutually satisfying relationships that are characterized by intimacy and by giving and receiving affection.

Notes

The ability to form positive interpersonal relationships is one of the most important factors in success at work, and absolutely essential for success in leadership. People are going to be more interested in cooperating with you, in following your lead, and in promoting you when they enjoy their relationship with you. Whether or not you think that is the way things should be, it is the way they are.

Generally speaking, two behaviors build solid relationships:

• First, the give and take of appropriate and relevant emotionally intimate information builds a depth of trust and comfort.

• Second, the give and take of appropriate affection also builds relationships. People like to be liked, even when they behave as if being liked doesn’t matter.

Of course, the give and take of intimate information and affection must be tailored to the work environment. For example, if you’re a bit nervous presenting to your CEO, sharing that emotional information with a trusted colleague is likely to build that relationship. Letting a colleague know that you enjoy working with him or her will also build your relationship.

Business intimacy can be defined as sharing emotional information about ourselves that is relevant to the other person and to the business situation. It is usually inappropriate to tell all of your co-workers the gory details of your divorce. (They probably are not as interested as you in it anyway.)

It’s often appropriate to share your feelings about shared events. To confess that you are nervous about the presentation to your CEO makes you human in the other person's eyes. Such a behavior says: “I trust you.” And trust begets trust.

Emotional intimacy means that we are not hiding who we are. We trust ourselves and selected others enough that we don’t have to hide who we are or pretend to be someone with different qualities. Who we are is good enough.

The authentic we are, the more comfortable we are, and the more comfortable we are, the more effective we are likely to be.




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Exercise 1 We like other people when we l ike the way that we ourselves act when we are in their company!

In other words, we most enjoy people when they help elicit expression of the parts of ourselves that we most admire and enjoy. For example, if you enjoy your intellect, you will probably like people who want to hear your ideas.

Test this theory for yourself. List people with whom you are comfortable and close. Now list your typical behaviors when you are with them. Do you like/ respect yourself when you behave in these ways?

Exercise 2 Building on your work in Exercise 1, identify someone with whom you would l ike to build a better relationship.

What do you think that they like or admire about themselves? Make a point of eliciting relevant behavior when you’re with them. For example, if someone enjoys sharing their ideas, ask them to do so with you. If someone has a great sense of humor, respond to it.

Here’s an important guideline: You must be authentic when doing such things. Phoney behaviour doesn’t build a positive relationship. So, if you ask for someone’s ideas, be sure that you are really interested in what they have to say. And don’t laugh at jokes that you don’t think are funny.




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Exercise 3 Your lower score on the Interpersonal Relationship scale suggests that you get relatively little pleasure from your relationships with others. It will help to f igure out what is getting in the way of more satisfying relationships by considering whether or not some possibil it ies describe you.

Some people just naturally prefer more time to themselves while others prefer more time interacting with people. There is nothing wrong with either preference. However even if you really value your time alone, that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn to make your time with others more satisfying to you and them.

Some people are uncomfortable in certain activities. Knowing which ones are the most challenging for you will help you plan the most effective strategies in building relationships.

Using a percentage, list your comfort level in each of the situations below (100% = maximum comfort; 1% = maximum discomfort).

• Meeting someone new

• Going to a party

• Speaking up in a group

• Asking a stranger a question

• Having a serious conversation with someone

• Getting to know someone better

• Teaching someone to do something new

• Giving directions to a team member

• Interacting with your boss

• Other interpersonal situations not listed above

Pick three of these situations. For each, select an actual recent event in which you were uncomfortable, or imagine a plausible event in the near future. To better understand the nature of your discomfort, analyze it using the ABCDE method.

A: Describe the specific event you have in mind.

C: Label the discomfort you experienced, e.g., anxiety, anger, boredom, etc.

B: What were/are you saying to yourself about this situation? In particular, listen to what you are saying about yourself (Examples: “I'm not smart enough.” “I cannot trust them with my feelings.” “I will make a fool of myself.”). Also note what you are saying about the other person (Example: “They will think less of me or ridicule me.”).

D: Dispute and debate your self-talk. In particular, ask yourself what you would say to a friend in a similar situation to the one you were in.

E: Identify the consequences on your comfort level if you become more logical/rational in your self-talk about the situation in question.




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Exercise 4 Use what you learned from Exercise 3 to strengthen your skills . Plan to try out one of each kind of situation that makes you uncomfortable over the next few weeks, while focusing on using more logical self-talk.

Hint: begin with the situation you believe will be easiest for you. Then you can work up to the others. You may find that you want to try more than one event in your first category before moving up the ladder. Trust your judgment on that.

Many people find it helpful to discuss this exercise with their coach.

Exercise 5 Identify three or more things that people seem to l ike about you.

Remembering what is likeable about you will help you have confidence in interpersonal situations.

Exercise 6 Identify three people whom you l ike. Identify what it is about each person that you like.

Then as you meet and work with others, look for those things that you tend to like in these other people.

Make it an intellectual game for yourself to see if you can discover traits in these other people that you like but did not know that they had.

Liking someone else increases the chances that they will like you back!

Exercise 7 If you have discomfort meeting new people, give yourself a script to follow.

Just getting through the first few moments may be all that you need to get started. Eventually, you won’t need the script but it can be useful for now.

Write down ways to introduce yourself in various situations. Go for using open-ended questions that can’t be answered with yes or no, or another word or short phrase.

Record your impressions of each encounter: How did you feel? What was your self-talk? How did the other person respond to you? What did you reveal about yourself?

Remember that building relationships is about the exchange of information. There is a law of human behavior that says “You get what you give.” This means that if you tend to withhold information about yourself, others are likely to sense it and do the same with you.




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Exercise 8 How to get to know someone better once you have broken the ice:

People love to talk about themselves. It’s the one thing we all have in common. Find ways to get someone whom you want to know better to talk about themselves.

For planning purposes, write down some questions you could ask them, based on what you already know about them. Obviously, you won't take the paper with you when you talk with them. However, the structure of some pre-determined questions in your head will make you more comfortable in the conversation.

As you have success in the conversation, your anxiety will diminish such that follow-up questions will come naturally to you. Before long, you’ll probably find yourself enjoying the conversation and not being self-conscious at all.

With people you already know well, but with whom you want to improve the relationship, again prepare some questions in your mind about what you would like to know about them. The nature of these questions is likely to be more personal because your relationship is already established.

For example, many managers have had direct reports for years but don’t know why their direct reports have the jobs that they do, i.e., how the job fits in with the person’s career or life goals. If you’re in that situation, find out!

Exercise 9 Successful relationships are two-way streets. Therefore you’ll need to do more than ask people questions, as outlined in the previous exercises, or it will feel like an interrogation.

To build your relationship you can (a) tell personal stories of experiences relevant to the topics you are already discussing, including your feelings during or about those experiences, (b) share your feelings about current situations in your life, (c) share your feelings “in the moment” of the situation you are in with that individual.




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Exercise 10 Sometimes troubling relationships can color how we feel about all of our relationships. Developing strategies to deal with them can be extremely helpful in building our skills in other, more positive relationships.

Some relationships are best ended. If they cause more grief than comfort, and don't appear fixable, or if they lead you into behaviors that are bad for you, consider ending the relationship. Of course, if this is a relationship with a family member, make every reasonable effort to repair the relationship before walking away.

Sometimes we aren’t clear why a relationship is troubled. Finding out can lead to previously unrecognized solutions. While we are highly prone to blame others for the problem, the truth is that some relationship problems are based, at least in part, on our own irrational self-talk. To explore this possibility, apply the ABCDE process to one or more interactions with the person with whom you have a troubled relationship.

A: What was the activating event—What did the person do or say that was troubling to you?

C: What were your feelings at that time?

B: What self-talk did you use to interpret the meaning of that person’s behavior? Focus especially on what you told yourself. How did you interpret their behavior that led you to feel uncomfortable, angry, or anxious?

D: Debate and dispute the self-talk so that you are talking to yourself more logically. What would you advise a friend who had this experience?

E: Does changing the self-talk change your feelings about this interaction? If so, how?

Exercise 11 Think of a troubling interaction in a relationship that is normally pretty good.

Apply the ABCDE process, as outlined in the previous exercise.




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Exercise 12 To some extent, if you want to enjoy relationships more, you will have

to push yourself through your discomfort. Do not wait until you “feel like it” or you will wait forever. The more you “hide out” the higher will be your discomfort.

Accept invitations that you might normally turn down out of discomfort. Begin gradually. Start with a situation that is at, say, 40% uncomfortable, where 100% is absolute terror and 0% is maximum comfort. Forty percent will be uncomfortable but not overwhelming. If your discomfort in a situation approaches 100%, don’t do it.

As you learn to manage situations around 40%, you’ll find that your discomfort in other situations may decline. In other words, a situation that may have caused you maximum discomfort is likely to begin to be within your reach.

Exercise 13

The extent to which you are pleasantly social at work will help set a comfortable and welcoming tone.

Make it a point to speak to people in a pleasant tone of voice. Smile when someone approaches you rather than looking annoyed at the interruption.




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Exercise 14 Learn how to use reflective l istening—a simple yet powerful means to

encourage people to be more open with you.

True listening is rare. Too often, when people seem to be listening, they are really rehearsing what they want to say instead of really hearing what we are saying. All of us are vulnerable to this bad habit.

Reflective listening involves repeating back what you heard in different words. For example, your spouse says: “I want to be sure that we get all of our chores done this weekend. Otherwise, on Monday morning, I'm a wreck.” Rather than roll your eyes, you respond: “You're worried that you won’t be able to get everything in order for Monday, which will stress you out.” The most likely response you will get is a smile with some form of “Yes, that's right!”

If you’re reluctant to try this it’s likely that you’ll believe that you’re trapping yourself into an agreement that you don’t want. Actually, the outcome is often just the opposite. Once people feel that they have been heard, they relax, no longer feeling that they have to push their agenda so hard.

The person is often more receptive to hearing what you have to say, for example, “I look forward to some downtime on the weekends. Otherwise I feel that all I do is work. I wonder what we could do so that we both get what we need this weekend?”

Here is a work example. Suppose that you and a peer disagree about which tactics will accomplish a strategic initiative best. The next time you discuss the situation, listen carefully to your colleague. Rephrase what you hear until your colleague is satisfied that you heard him or her accurately. Then ask your colleague what makes their choice of tactic important to them. Again, rephrase what you hear. Repeat this process until you hear what really makes this tactic important. Since it is important, there will be some emotion involved. Acknowledge that their feelings are understandable.

Only after taking that first step should you present the argument for your preferred tactic and what makes it important to you. You could even ask your colleague to repeat back what they heard you say to be sure you have successfully communicated.

Now that you have heard each other, the two of you are in a position to negotiate an agreement that may serve you both quite well. Such an experience will undoubtedly improve your relationship.

Building Interpersonal Relationships

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