Welcome back to our Working Forward series and it is my pleasure to bring back our Talent Development Manager, Kevin Reyes, to share some more pro tips on building relationships in the workplace.
Is it alright if we just dive in, Kevin?
Hi there, and thanks for having me back. I figured the last time I said so much that I wouldn’t have to return for months! Yes, let’s get started!
What are the biggest challenges we face with work relationships?
Love this question. And I may sound a bit redundant here, but the biggest challenge that I see with relationships at work is just that – Relationships! We often forget that we work with other humans. I like to share a model of: Leadership = Vision + Task + Relationship. Sometimes we focus too much on one component though. We often are hyper focus on the task, or sink ourselves into the vision of the future. This means we overlook the people. People who are experiencing the world around us, in real-time, like we are. And imagine if they had a bad day like we do sometimes? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if instead of criticizing someone for a delayed response to an email or a missed deadline that we instead asked, “was there anything about my message that was unclear or caused you confusion?” or something like, “I hope I didn’t slam you with my request and if you need time o
r more clarity, please be sure to ask.”
The point here is that we are all people, and we all experience things through our own lens. This can sometimes be great, we innovate, build on the ideas of others, create synergy and synthesis when collaborating. However, we seem to have difficulty when things aren’t presented ‘just so’ or that the wording wasn’t ‘just right’ or rather than being courageous and saying, “um, maybe it’s just me, but can we get a little clarification?” Relationships take work, they take honesty, they take vulnerability, they take focus and patience. As Simon Sinek shared in his vlog, Find Your WHY with Simon, “it’s kind of ironic as well, if you think about relationships. We present ourselves as out BEST selves, but it’s only really when our vulnerabilities and insecurities are revealed, can love exist. That’s that magical authenticity.” And that is really key in general, but also more important right now with our current work and world environment. To have better relationships we have to focus on the relationship.
Can you tell me more about why authenticity and vulnerabilities are so important to share right now?
Totally! I am always happy to share more (just ask anyone who’s listened to my stories – Ha!). The reason that I say that those are key in our day-to-day with work right now is because they are critical for any trusting, meaningful, safe and truthful relationship. Regardless of what that relationship is, where it was founded, or if it’s in the home or the workplace. As we emerge into the evolving post-pandemic world, we need to realize that we have become a more openly authentic community. Let’s be honest. Y’all love seeing my dog on zooms, right? And we all have had more than one instance of a kid walking in on a meeting; a doorbell interrupting a critical conversation; Wi-Fi dropping you from your call; forgetting to mute before yelling to (or at) someone; or any number of the distractions and daily interruptions that have ranged from annoying to downright comical.
So, we are uniquely and increasingly becoming a more authentic version of ourselves at work. This means we’ll likely expect that will be reflected as we Work Forward and begin transitioning to our new post-pandemic working environment. This is where the magic happens though. This is where honest interactions lead to breakthroughs and innovations; strengthened commitment to our campus; shared experiences and deepened connections; and ultimately better fulfillment, satisfaction, and shared successes. Even in this quickly changing work environment we can pause to be our real selves and see what happens from
there.
I’m curious about the building of and maintaining of relationships in today’s changing work environment, can you share your thoughts on how our current hybrid workforce impacts relationships?
Totally, and it connects to the earlier question. Today, many of those human-to-human relationship interactions are no longer in-person, not as frequent, or that have become punctuated at best. If you think of this as a purely mathematical model, it’s like fractions. I know, I can hear the collective groan across campus as I refer to fractions. Think of this. You work 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, and we’ll call that 8 hours a day. This amounts to about 2,000 working hours. So, if we have one bad interaction with a colleague, co-worker, customer, supervisor, student, and so on, that let’s say lasts for 15 minutes – ¼ of an hour, right? We now have .25/2000 of our work time in a bad interaction, OR, 0.000125 of our work-year. And many of you are thinking, that’s not too bad, right?!? But the reality is that as humans we now think, “wow! I’ve had one interaction with you, Luke, and it went badly.” In our relationship building math, we’re now 0 for 1. OR more mathematically frightening, we’re batting 0.00. Now stick with me here. If, however, Luke and I have another interaction tomorrow that lasts 15 minutes again and this time is AMAZING, then I think, “wow! That was better, and I was wrong, Luke isn’t a bad person!” So, my point is that 0/1 is bad, 1/2 is much better. What happens when we have 3/4 or 10/11? Our relationship perspectives change as we have more interactions, and the sheer numbers start building up our relationship.
Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes we have bad interactions with folks 14/13 times and yes, we’ll want to self-assess, possibly self-preserve by removing ourselves from that relationship. Or maybe reach out to you, Luke, for some conflict coaching. The point is that the more human-to-human interactions we have, the more opportunities to build (and yes damage) our relationships. So, we should be as authentic, honest, vulnerable, and present as possible in all our interactions with each other. It’s the least we can do to respect and honor the others we deal with day in and day out.
So, with all that you’ve shared about relationships and our ever-changing work environment, what tips would you give our campus for building, nourishing and maintaining good work relationships?
First, let me say
thank you. I really appreciate how you have stepped up and provided a much-needed resource and tools for our campus community. It’s not easy to communicate, to deal with us complex human-folk, to modulate and moderate our daily challenges and still be a good colleague, co-worker, leader, teacher, or person. I really appreciate being able to partner with you to provide these tools and resources. The one tip I will give is to be aware that the interactions we have with each other are much more impactful than we realize. Telling a co-worker that they can’t ask for a day off because “who will we ask about…?” or that “there’s a deadline that we cannot miss!” is really not the way to build a caring, trusting, and capable campus community. In fact, it breaks trust and makes people feel like all they are, is THE task. And we know they are so much more.
Our campus community is our greatest resource. We want our teams engaged, rested, enthusiastic, and at the least, willing to come to work and help our campus succeed – in all facets – like achieving R1 status; supporting student graduation rates; improving employee satisfaction; providing a personally, psychologically, and emotionally safe workplace; and most importantly being a place where people want to come and be a part of those successes. Take the time to have a human interaction that digs into the relationship and puts the task to the side. Focus on building rather than demanding trust. Share expectations, take accountability for being human and making mistakes. Apologize when wrong and then move forward. I guess what I’m saying is while the golden rule (do unto others as you would have done to yourself) is a good start, we need more purveyors of platinum. The platinum rule is where it’s at – do unto others as they would have done to themselves. Let’s work on being human and humane to our fellow Bobcats.
Luke Wiesner is the UC Merced Conflict Resolution Coach, a private resource for staff members who are interested in having a partner to support workplace challenges or conflicts. This service is voluntary, and you can partner with the coach by yourself or with fellow university employees.
