The Power of Relationship | Highlighting the core components of relationship building via a tribute

I've learned the best way to connect with others and drive a point home is via storytelling.

Over the next few moments, I'm going to share a story about two co-workers who became family and how their lived principles can help you in your career and workforce development.

Identifying where a person fit in your life, at the end of the relationship, can often be attributed to their role having been

• "a reason" or lesson
• "a season" or short-term purpose
• "a lifetime" or long term impact

I emphasize, the end of the relationship, because more often than not, we're figuring out their value add in the interim, and we don't have enough data in the beginning to properly categorize.

We should go into environments and (relation)"ships" with intentions however life has taught me to be flexible and receptive to those things changing. We just don't know what we don't know when it comes to the people that we connect with, and we can't always quantify or articulate their impact on us until the end.

Monday, October 31st, 2016

Eager to start a new career journey post lay-off and an eight month stint with unemployment, I joined Southern Company GAS as a Talent Development (TD) Specialist. That day, I met my team mate of 7.5 years, Jonathan.

As I walked into our shared cubed space, I was met with bright eyes, energy and inquisition. I soon discovered that this Asian American individual had transitioned to TD from Technical Training and was thoughtful enough to research his new teammate. I use the adjective thoughtful with intention, in the moment, I don't know that that's how I received hearing that I had been googled.

As time went on, I learned that thoughtful was in fact the proper description.

I had nothing in common with Jonathan.

I'm pretty reserved. I don't like small talk and I am not naturally excited about having to interact with other humans. Yes, I know how to navigate social settings and show up authentically when I need to but I will never pretend to be the person that runs head first, enthusiastically, into any of the aforementioned.

Jonathan was exhausting to me and I questioned how I could navigate our new partnership.

As the years passed, we transparently identified our differences and leveraged them to grow what is widely known as one of the most treasured relationships of both our lives:

• Building Trust: the 1st few months of our working relationship, we spent more time learning the role and the business than we did interacting with the business. We navigated three facilitator certifications and countless hours of development material review together. We intentionally and unintentionally learned a lot about each other as well as began to rely on one another to grow through our new roles.
• Effectively Communicating: A large part of our responsibility was to deliver open enrollment development sessions across our business. We needed to identify topics, build the facilitator material and navigate logistics. It was important to leadership that we were as uniform in meeting these deliverables as possible. We had very different approaches and styles. We bumped heads often so we had to learn to be clear, concise and deliberate in our feedback. We learned to say the things that needed to be said, listened and made reasonable recommendations that took the other's behavioral style into consideration.

• Leading with Empathy: Did I mention that we bumped heads often? Conflict is key to any relationship, there's going to be disagreement, tension and navigation of lots of feelings. I like to talk things out immediately and move forward, Jonathan liked to accept things as they were and rarely wanted to rock the boat. I learned to consider his feelings first when realistically possible while he learned that until it's addressed, it will always be a barrier, road block or hurdle. Having embraced what we each shared about upbringings, family and life, we grew to read then respond to each other well.
• Mutual Respect: We had very different workstyles. It wasn't a matter of right versus wrong, it was a matter of what worked for us. We asked each other questions and relied on one another when one demonstrated a strength that proved to be another's opportunity.
• Showing Support: We leveraged each other in our examples when engaging the business. We recommended one another for opportunities that ideally fit the other's strengths. We worked together when tasked and even when not. We were each other's biggest cheerleaders.

Building and navigating relationships are tough; especially relationships that we're initially forced to be in. Myself and Jonathan were culturally diverse strangers thrown together to deliver an outcome for an organization.

We decided that the time and effort required for us to operate as one team was worth it so we developed a mutual understanding of what this would look like. Keeping this top of mind, we navigated all of the core components of relationship building, as I dare to say, quite successfully.

You can to.

We should go into environments and (relation)"ships" with intentions however life has taught me to be flexible and receptive to those things changing.

Regardless to if it's a self imposed or mandated connection, if you are intentional about your end game, and applying the core components of relationship building, you'll be able to quantify and articulate their impact on you up until the end.

Jonathan was a co-worker, turned friend of a lifetime.

He transitioned on Friday, March 29th, 2024.

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