6 Tips For Building Great Workplace Relationships Fast

#1 — Understand the fundamentals of relationship building
When you understand the basic building blocks and actions, you can apply them in the best way suited to your vision, people, time-frame, mission, values and goals.

In a nutshell, we build relationships through the exchange of information which uncovers a shared purpose, and is strengthened by the discovery of common values and beliefs that reflect what is important to us. The greater the importance, the greater the potential impact to weaken or strengthen the relationship.

A basic relationship foundation requires 3 things; Purpose — the why? where? when? how? of the relationship, Trust — this is the assurance given and received of each other’s ability, commitment or intention of holding up their side of the relationship, and Positive emotional attachment — this is what takes relationships from good to great. It’s feelings that have the greatest impact on the success or failure of a relationship.

#2 — Go slow to go fast
An extra 5 minutes will make the world of difference.

The fundamentals of building a relationship are simple (though not always easy!). If you can achieve a level of familiarity gained by establishing a relationship foundation, this is when people start to let down their guard just enough to start communicating more openly, freely and frequently.

Here are our top 3 super quick get-to-know-you activities that will immediately improve your team relationships; Guess Who, 60 Seconds, Top Of Mind

#3 — Be Explicit
We have a tendency to assume (and expect) that everyone knows how to behave in a social environment. However if that were true, we wouldn’t have eye-rolls, gossip, backstabbing or bullying in the workplace. You must be explicit about what your workplace social values are.

What is the visionary state for your team? Are we one big happy family, a fast moving competitive sports team or a dynamic project team? What are unacceptable behaviours?

#4 — Upskill Leadership
Leadership is the most critical relationship of all and a pivotal point of success or failure in every business, community or group setting. It’s leadership’s role to provide direction in the face of uncertainty, but ‘leadership’ is only as effective as those who choose to follow.

It’s important to recognize that effective ‘leadership’ exists when both parties are willing and engaged ie a strong and healthy mutual relationship exists.

Apply relationship fundamentals to leadership and you will see amazing results.

#5 — Understand what relationships you need
We don’t all have to be best buddies. Great relationships come in a wide variety of forms.

Employees with close relationships are 7X more engaged — create opportunities for your people to discover and build a close relationship.

Weak ties have been known to hold a significant amount of value when innovating.

A charismatic, super confident and bold leader is not the only type of leadership. Discover the relationship of leadership that works for your unique team and mission.

#6 — Be pro-active not reactive
20% of the relationships in your workplace will be causing 80% of the damage.

Four critical relationships that are common problem areas;

Executive — even though it’s critical, it’s often impossible for c-suite to have relationships with everyone, but an aloof executive may set a standard for social values that creates a sub-standard culture that’s very hard to change.

New staff — the first 90 days are critical in whether someone stays or goes. The goal is to make them feel like an ‘insider’ as soon as possible. Revisit your onboarding processes and review your approach to making people feel welcome and then valued asap.

Managers — it’s common knowledge that bad’ managers are the number one reason people leave, placing a huge direct and indirect financial cost on the business. Effective management is based on a solid relationship. Do your managers have basic relationship building skills and understanding?

Don’t know, don’t care — every non-existent relationship within your workplace is a weakness. It’s a dead-end for the flow of information, it’s a driver of resource hoarding, a road block to knowledge exchange, it stifles creativity and innovation and contributes to a poor quality social environment ripe for misunderstanding, judgement, fear and anxiety.

Be sure to create opportunities and facilitate focused relationship building across your teams.

We are happier, healthier and stronger together, and can go further, faster and achieve more.