insight

Strong relationships at work

If you want your team to function and perform at optimum levels, the first step is to empower them. And the process of empowerment starts with the quality and strength of your relationships with them. 

This lesson is one that I have to constantly revisit in my own work life. Many entrepreneurs, and I include myself in this category, struggle with releasing control and empowering their team. Because the promoters of a business, or the leaders of organisations, have so much invested, in terms of money, reputation, and potential future growth, many of us hold on too tightly to reins. 

Leaders sometimes exert excessive control due to a combination of factors. This includes fear of failure, a need for certainty, lack of trust in their team, insecurity about their own abilities, a desire to maintain order, and sometimes a misalignment of what true leadership is.

This has been my personal struggle. Often, I have to remind myself that everything that I have achieved at work has been significantly impacted by the relationships I have forged with others. This includes my relationships with colleagues, suppliers, customers, as well as my business associates and mentors.

In life and at work, there is no doubt that you will need the goodwill of others to progress. But you can only expect that if you actively choose to cultivate good relationships. Most people underestimate the value of building good relations.

In 2001, Dr. Daryll Hull and Vivienne Read, from the University of Sydney, with backing from the Business Council of Australia, undertook a study to examine some of the top-performing workplaces in Australia and analyse the reasons for their success. The research then offered insights on what these workplaces had adopted as their best practices.

Their work identified 15 major factors that separated excellent workplaces from the generally good ones. These factors or "drivers," were present to varying degrees in all the outstanding workplaces they surveyed.

The study advocates that organisations can create excellent workplaces. And the characteristics that support an exceptional workplace are discernible, measurable, and manageable. It even went on to say that there is no magic in this process.

The first of the 15 drivers identified was "the quality of working relationships." This simply means that people relating to each other as friends, colleagues, and co-workers played a major role in making an excellent workplace. Organisations that have people supporting and helping each other to get the job done are the most successful ones.

This also means that you are happy to wake up and go to work with a spring in your step if you like the people you work with. On the other hand, if you work in an organisation with colleagues whom you think are insufferable nitwits who don't support and help you, it makes going to work a real bother.

Many of us spend more of our waking hours with co-workers than with our spouse or family. Therefore, it becomes vital that we build quality relationships with the people that we work with.

In my experience with training and coaching, as well as with managing teams, cohesiveness comes only when you forge decent relationships, based on mutual respect and understanding, with the people that you work with.

No amount of team-building activities will be able to help you connect with your co-workers. These programmes serve a very shallow purpose. The feel-good factor these programmes may achieve usually has a limited shelf life. 

The commitments that people make at any teambuilding event are rarely kept, and the motivational element never lasts unless you are grounded on purpose.

You can only build workplace relationships by first establishing personal purpose. Next, you must align your personal goals with your team's goals. And finally, you have to establish appropriate communication strategies that will help you build strong bonds with others. 

Team connectivity depends on mature and professional relationships. The most successful leaders exemplify how to do this effectively. They take the trouble to be genuinely interested in the lives of their colleagues.

Common goals that are clearly communicated, positive after-work experiences, and problem-solving successes will contribute to the consolidation of workplace relationships. 

Focus on developing good relationships with your co-workers based on respect and trust because this will help you get the results you want.

If you don't do this, you will find yourself out of leadership roles. You may be very capable, but if you fail the first test of leadership, which is to actively forge quality workplace relationships, your personal growth will always remain stunted. 

This is my regular personal reminder. Make it yours, too.

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