Building Relationships in Business

In my coaching experience, I frequently come across executives with competence, good track record, and integrity and yet do not progress as one would expect. Very often the reason for this is their inability to build relationships within the organization. Sometimes, I also sense executives mix up building relationships with ‘currying favour’ with others and therefor abhor it.
Let’s look at his issue from various angles. First of all, how do people make judgments about others?

Shouldn’t past performance and integrity be the deciding factor when judging an executive? It certainly should, but keep in mind that judging performance is already subjective. Two examples: Many years ago I had a target to triple sales in South East Asia, which I achieved. Some senior executives at HQ judged this to be an excellent achievement. Others commented that, based on all the support HQ gave me, it wasn’t really difficult. During another marketing role that I had, my turnover remained stagnant for 3 years. Some at the HQ were not impressed; other considered this to be an excellent achievement in view of the Japanese competition and the price erosion in our business. You see, when judging performance there is always a big element of the ‘judge’ being well inclined towards the other person or not, which is influenced by the relationship.

Also, how do we judge people? Rarely people sit down and make a comprehensive analysis on character or in-depths performance. No, judgment is strongly influenced by the encounters that a person had with you in the past or hears about you from a ‘friend’. Personal encounters typically have a stronger influence than other facts. Therefore, look at each encounter as ‘your window’ to form the other person’s impression about you.

Don’t start building relationships when you need them. It is too late and, by the way, too obvious. Build relationships ALL the time with EVERYBODY. It is the right thing to do. For practical reasons, keep in mind that you are normally not present when somebody talks about you. How they talk about you is influenced by their relationship with you. You also may have noticed that the world is a small place and somebody who may not be important to you at one time, may become very important at another time.

So, the ability to build relationships is a vital key factor for business success; note: an additional key factor to integrity and performance not replacing one of the two.

Building relationships, in my view, is NOT about smooching up to others. It is just behaving in an engaging and friendly manner.

Some tips to building relationships:

Let people experience that you are happy to see them and talk to them. (If you are really busy, just let them know that you are and fix another time to talk. Don’t somehow cut the conversation short without explaining.)

When people talk to you, be agreeable (keep your different view for a while), ask them more questions about the issue, listen and ABSORB (good chance you will learn something) before you bring up your own views and conclude. Read this one more time. Listening and asking questions for more understanding go a long way in building relationships.

A bit of gossip is okay, but say only good things about people (keep the negative views for yourself).

Be positive in your business discussions. (There are no problems, there are challenges. There are many circumstances or people that make your job difficult, but give the impression that you know how to handle it.)

Praise, when you observe something nice. Have a friendly word with others.

Learn to ask more questions instead of telling people what to do.

If you need to criticize or disagree then please do so based on OBSERVABLE facts, avoid accusation and judgements.

Criticize sparingly. There are too many of these self-proclaimed ‘do-gooders’ who keep on telling everybody what to do better and only because they have such good intentions. Essentially criticism implies ‘you are not good enough‘ and most of us just don’t like it and get agitated by it. So, if it is none of your business, doesn’t affect you, small matter, let it go, keep quiet.

Be transparent; explain why you do certain things or why you ask certain questions.

Be visible. Join activities, meetings, project groups, functions, associations, clubs, learning activities etc. You can only build relationships / networks when many people have interacted with you and can remember you.

And finally, here are two suggested exercises:

The next time when you are in a public lift, look at the stranger next to you and start a little conversation. Normally, I look at the person and observe something (particular hand phone / nice shoos / tie / handbag) Just ask. ‘Are you happy with that phone?’ ‘May I ask where you bought those nice shoes?’ The conversation will be short as one of you has to leave the lift soon. Good chance both of you will be leaving with a smile on your face. If not, never mind, you won’t see the fellow again.

Take note of everything that you say during a day and analyse what could be misconstrued by the listener as an accusation, or being judgemental. Some examples: What is your point (could mean can’t you express yourself properly). That didn’t work out well (could mean you didn’t do a good job). If you can’t observe anything judgemental in your daily talk, ask a good friend to observe you for a while and give you feedback accordingly.