5 Steps to Healing a Broken Relationship!

Oh, oh, oh
After the love has gone
What used to be right is wrong
Can love that's lost be found?

After the love has gone

Earth, Wind and Fire

It's Broken!

One of the hardest things to deal with is a broken relationship. In our personal lives, or professionally, after the love has gone and what used to be right is wrong, it's often immensely difficult to repair things. In a professional environment, productivity suffers. The damage is done over time - a thick rope frays thread by thread - until it breaks. Trust slowly ebbs away until both sides grow deeply suspicious of the other's motives and actions.

I was reminded of this last weekend watching the Monaco Grand Prix and the excruciating, globally televised, unravelling of the relationship between Mercedes' Formula One drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Until recently, they were good friends and, at one time, even lived in the same apartment block in Monte Carlo. Not any more. No way, no how. "We are not friends" Hamilton said in an emotional interview after the race. The relationship has been teetering on the edge for the last few weeks as the two drivers battle it out on the race track for the coveted top spot in the most lucrative sport on the planet.

Here are the key points:

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton have been friends since 2000 when they were karting team mates as early teenagers. This season, they find themselves back together driving as team mates, this time for the mighty Mercedes. Their F1 W05 Hybrid cars are easily the quickest on the grid.

Between them, Hamilton and Rosberg have won every F1 race this season - an achievement unprecedented in modern times. They lack no material luxury, earning tens of millions every year, plus more in sponsorship. They have adoring fans around the globe and, right now, should be basking in the sunlit uplands of their team's unparalleled success and domination. Instead, they are sworn and bitter enemies. The love has most definitely gone.

There are some lessons to be learned from all this that we can apply to our own relationships - particularly in the workplace.

The Warning Signs

First, here are some signs that your relationship with a colleague, boss or team mate has deteriorated and urgently needs to be repaired:

You're suspicious

You are deeply suspicious of your team mate, and very slow to give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

During the final, crucial, qualifying lap last Saturday at Monaco, (the lap that determined who would start on pole (first) on the grid in Sunday's race) Rosberg apparently "lost control" of his car momentarily, and drove down an escape road - causing yellow flags to be deployed and Hamilton to abort his final qualifying lap.

Hamilton was livid, convinced Rosberg had cynically and deliberately contrived to ruin the lap in order to ensure that his own, earlier, super-quick lap time could not be beaten in the closing seconds of qualifying.

You are resentful

You harbour resentment and hostility towards your team mate.

As far as you are concerned, they are the sole cause of your problems and, if only they were no longer around, all things would be bright and beautiful. One suspects that both Hamilton and Rosberg would be receptive to the news that the other had driven their car off the side of the Col de Turini.

You don't talk any more

There is no dialogue, or, if there is, it's superficial. Talking about the weather, Dr Dre or the European elections does not constitute dialogue. Even worse, is passive aggressive silence.

As Jonathan McEvoy in The Daily Mail put it:

"Lewis Hamilton could not even bring himself to look at Nico Rosberg, the winner of the Monaco Grand Prix. Neither put his arm around the other's shoulder for the podium pictures. They then travelled back to the paddock press conference in separate minibuses. They sat on the dais side by side without so much as a glance at each other. The two World Championship contenders are not talking in private or public."

Your interpretation is definitely, 100%, correct

It is abundantly obvious to you that your interpretation of events is correct.

You struggle to see the world through the other person's eyes and there is no rational interpretation of events except your own. The longer you ruminate on things, the more obvious it all becomes. Your own shortcomings play little or no role in the equation. As Mercedes' F1 boss, Toto Wolff put it:

Everybody has their own absolute reality, absolute belief. I guess it is like arguing with somebody where you think you are right, the other person thinks he is right. But it is never black and white. There is sometimes grey.

You don't care anymore

Once upon a time, it mattered to you what your team mate felt. Now, you couldn't care less.

Last season, Red Bull's star Formula One drivers, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, also fell out publicly when Vettel trashed Webber's race at the Malaysian Grand Prix, by overtaking him in direct contravention of the team's explicit orders. Asked whether he would do the same thing again, given the highly negative impact on his team mate, Vettel replied:

“Had I understood the message and had I thought about it, reflected on it, thought what the team wanted to do, to leave Mark in first place and me finishing second. I think I would have thought about it and I would probably have done the same thing. He didn’t deserve it.

There is quite a conflict, because on the one hand I am the kind of guy who respects team decisions and the other hand, probably Mark is not the one who deserved it at the time.”

Google translate: I just don't care what he feels or thinks.

What To Do

Heaven knows I am no expert in this stuff but, from all I have learnt over the years, I think it works something like this:

Take Immediate Action

Admit that the situation urgently needs to be repaired. This thing will not play out the way you expect. Much of it will be out of your control and, by the time you realise that, it will likely be late in the day. Unless they repair their relationship, Hamilton and Rosberg will probably crash into each other in one of the remaining 13 races. If that happens, their sponsors will be seriously unimpressed, as will Toto Wolff and as will their fans. Everyone likes to see some good old fashioned sporting rivalry, but it’s easy to overcook it.

Plan for reconciliation

One thing is for sure, reconciliation won’t "just happen". Things will only get worse with time, not better. You may tell yourself that it doesn’t matter, that you can do quite nicely without repairing your relationship, but if you are in a team, that isn’t true. A winning team needs to have everyone in synch and working together.

Train yourself in Emotional Mastery

Emotional mastery is very difficult, but essential (often the way). One of the problems with dealing with relational issues is that tensions run high. Pent-up emotions are unleashed and things can get ugly, fast: "You only think about what matters to you." "You don't care who you tread on on your way to the top." "You make me so mad." "You [....]" Etc.

Emotional mastery involves taking a firm hold of those unruly feelings and, whilst recognizing and acknowledging them, doesn't allow them to run amok. The other person's anger or upset doesn't have to trigger a maelstrom of emotion in you. The key is to listen carefully and thoughtfully to the other point of view, acknowledge it, and calmly explain your own position. Both sides will usually move closer together as they come to understand the other's perspective.

Time-box One Hour to have a frank, open and honest discussion

Often, the relational fracture is due to a failure of communication and to mis-interpretation. A few irksome actions or comments and, before you know it, that all-important element of trust has gone. Once that happens, every subsequent action is tainted with suspicion. "He deliberately ruined my chance of winning the race.”

And it can rapidly morph into wider paranoia. During the Monaco Grand Prix, with Hamilton stuck behind Rosberg lap after interminable lap, unable to overtake on the treacherous, twisting, narrow Monaco streets, another racing driver crashed. There was a brief window immediately after the accident, during which the Mercedes team could, and arguably should, have called Hamilton into the pits and changed his tyres. It would have given him a marginal tactical advantage. They didn’t do so, probably because they weren’t thinking fast enough.

Hamilton says over his radio to his team: "I can't believe we didn't pit [on the previous lap]." Then he says: "I ... knew you weren't going to call me in." He sees plotting and scheming not just from Rosberg, but from his own team. This is a serious development. Now, things are properly starting to unravel.

In this step, you should suggest taking an uninterrupted hour to discuss what actually happened and how you both perceive it. This is a crucial part of the process.

Admit to yourself and the other person that you have played a role in the breakdown

This is perhaps the hardest thing to do, but it is also the most important. Until you take this brave step, you're still looking at it through your own lens. Once you do step up to the plate and admit that you are part of the problem, that hour-long, open and honest discussion will go a lot better. During the discussion, admit your part in it, apologize and/or forgive - if that is what's required.

In the words of Don Henley:

I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter

Because my will gets weak

And my thoughts seem to scatter

But I think it's about forgiveness...

Resolution!

If you are genuinely committed to the healing process and walk through the steps above, then, over time, you will see a marked improvement in your relationship and in the morale of the team.

Footnote: I wrote this because I have found that many of us grapple with these complicated relational issues but, all too often, don't get down to the Heart of the Matter.

Please do comment, connect and follow on here and on Twitter.

Finally, if you want some professional assistance on the issues I have raised here, you might want to reach out to the awesome Andrea Facchini to whom we often turn for advice on how to build and nurture healthy teams.