Rarely is anything as important as working relationships
Which is easy to forget.
Good relationships with everyone make a bigger difference to your serenity and success than almost anything else. They’re often more important even than talent (though not entirely separate from it). And, when relationships sour, the cost can be huge. The world is small, and people don’t forget conflicts.
Imagine, to pick an outlandish example, you do something professional in a setting where a manager seems to have been promoted beyond her abilities and to exist solely to get in your way. Let her catch a glimpse of that opinion and your relationship with her is shot. When, in a couple of months’ time, you need her support for something, don’t expect anything good. And count on her telling anyone who’ll listen that you’re difficult to work with. In years gone by, I’m embarrassed to say, I have been the culprit in that story.
On the other hand, deal with the snags with charm, get to know her, take an interest in how things look from her perspective, and don’t be surprised if you’re the person she asks to spend a couple of days shadowing, to help her better understand the realities teams like yours are facing. Nor if, a few months later, someone who’s heard from her about you asks if you’d be interested in being involved in something that turns out to be a great opportunity.
There’s no exaggeration in these stories—as I eventually learned. We’re social animals, to whom relationships matter more than almost anything.
Almost. Relationships aren’t as important as the world your work serves. You may, on occasion, have to damage a relationship for some higher goal, to stand up for something that’s right and important. But that’s unusual. With skill, you can almost always find a way of doing what’s right that also, in the long run, strengthens the relationship. You may at first be met with anger, distress, or offense. But those feelings dissipate and, if you’ve acted with integrity and kindness, you might find you’ve earned respect, even gratitude.
This is no excuse for avoiding difficult conversations. On the contrary, it’s one of the reasons why those conversations are essential. (And a future email will be about having good ones.)
You can make pretty much every contact a positive experience: spending a moment with others at the start of the working day, charming the unhelpful person on the other end of the phone, finding out how the cleaner’s life’s going, even the kindness with which you resign from a job you hate. Behaving like you’re in good spirits puts you in good spirits. And every relationship is nothing more than the sum of your interactions with someone.
Next week: rest.
Last week’s email contained a poll asking whether you’d be interested in an audio version of this email—a sort of mini-podcast. Of those who responded (thank you!), 25% said you’d prefer a podcast; 38% said you might sometimes listen; and 38% would stick with email. And that’s a poll of those who signed up for and actually read to the end of an email. Perhaps I’ll experiment with Substack’s podcasting feature …
So very true. Good working relationships are so critical to how I feel about going into work each day even when I know it is going to be a tough day. In a world of endless online meetings taking a few moments for a little face to face human interaction is so important. But even a sentence in an email just enquiring how someone is or asking about kids/ weekend/ how they got on at their first 5k race makes a difference.
Indeed. Another unpredictable factor is that often you will encounter that person in another role and be glad that you didn't erect barriers. You never know when you are learning something that will be invaluable later... even if it's what NOT to do!