Relationship Building

Human being is called a social animal, we as human being cannot live or survive alone. We have family, friends, neighbours, managers, reportees, management, colleagues etc. It is very necessary to build a bonding with all of these relations, surrounding us and we can call this as relationship building. Relationship building is a skill and we should understand certain basic principles for better results.

Years back, when my immediate manager resigned from the organizations, I was asked to report to a new manager. This new manager was never happy with me, especially during meetings. Many of the times, I was thinking of quitting the job. I did have discussions with my peers who were also reporting to this same person, somehow most of them were happy with this person. That at least gave me an indication that something is wrong with me and not with that person.

After a lot of due diligence and research, I did a root cause analysis. There were a couple of reasons which I identified and I started working on those identified reasons. Over a period of time I was able to develop a cordial relationship with my boss. During this period, I learned few things which I want to share in this article.

First of all, let us talk a bit about personality. Personality refers to the enduring pattern of thought, feeling, motivation, and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances. The smallest building block in personality is an individual’s behaviour. Behaviour is the?range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals in conjunction with themselves or their environment. This is followed by attitude and attitude is?a way of feeling or acting toward a person, thing or situation. Group of qualities that make a person, group, or thing different from others defines his or her character. Personality is the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.

Think of a simple behaviour of a child, how much efforts are being put by parents to change the behaviour of their children. Ask a parent and you will be shocked to know that parents struggle to change the behaviour of a child. And then when that child attains teen age, do you think it is easy to change a simple, one behaviour, of a teenager. I personally being father of two teens, it is almost impossible. When we cannot change a simple behaviour of a child, how can we even think of changing personality or behaviour or attitude of our friends or colleagues or our manager. And that explains the first principle in relationship building.

The factors which help in shaping one’s personality are heredity, environment and situation. Heredity in most of the times determines body type, complexion, intelligence etc. These we called a nature factor. Environment or nurture factors include varied cultures in which an individual is brought up, like our family background, religion, upbringing, our profession etc. Situation sometimes plays a role in our personality. For example, personality of a person may change if he or she goes bankrupt. Or a coward person may show bravery if his or her family is at stake.

Once we understand this principle, we will then understand how difficult is to change the personality of other persons. Rather, we have to understand his or her personality to strengthen the bonding. The question which arises here is that, when we cannot expect other person to change his personality, how can we change our personality. There are two answers to this question. First one is that once we know this basic principle, we can handle the relationship building accordingly. Second most important point to discuss here is that as per one of the recent researches, personality of a person may change through different personality development programs. I cannot change the personality of other person, but I can put efforts to change my behaviour and attitude, to make it compatible with the other person. And that becomes second principle of relationship building.

If I cannot change the personality of the person with whom I have to build a bond, it is necessary for myself to change. In certain relationships, it becomes inevitable to do so. For example, relationship between husband and wife. If one has to strengthen the relationship, the personality compatibility is must. Both or either of the two will have to put efforts for the change.

The third principle is communication. Not just communication, but an honest and transparent communication helps to built a strong and long-lasting relationship. Let us talk about manager Vs team relationship. A manager can strengthen his or her bonding with the team by using effective communication skills. Communication is defined as the ability to convey or share ideas and feelings effectively. Communication skills involve?listening, speaking, observing and empathizing. It is not at all effective to just give instructions to your team, listening to their concerns and providing correct feedback is also equally important. Same is applicable with the individual team members. An honest, up to date and transparent communication to our managers not only helps in relationship building, but also develops a confidence in the managers for those individuals. Communication also includes body language and many times inappropriate body language spoils the relationship. Through a transparent and clear communication, a trust is developed and that trust is the building block for sustaining the relationship.

The fourth principle (and I think the important one which gets ignored) is the efforts taken to build the relationship. Those in networking business can understand this concept fully. More the efforts, better will be the business. In fact, service providers also need to put lot of efforts to build a strong relationship with their customers. In our professional lives, the relationship which matters the most, is between manager and its team members. The cordial relationship not only helps in improving productivity, but it also keeps the team highly motivated. There is a misconception that building a relationship is mainly the responsibility of the team’s manager. I strongly disagree with this theory. I talked to many people and most of then blame their bosses for sour relationships. I have a logic to disagree and my first logical point is that a manager usually has multiple members reporting to him or her. Even if the manager puts sincere efforts, he or she has to divide his or her time equally between his team members. Assuming a manager has six direct reportees and assuming the manager has kept 10 hours dedicated in a week for relationship building. It means, the manager has only 2 hours per week with each team member. Contrary to this, each individual team member has only one reporting manager (in exceptional cases, there could be dual reporting) and if the individual team member is sincere in developing a strong relationship with his or her manager, he or she does not need to divide the time. Other logical answer in similar terms is that a manager has to deal with six different persons having six different personalities. Contrary to this, the individual team members have to deal with one person. There is one more logical point, a manager has a choice of ranking one above the other, may be based on compatibility or hard work or IQ. But the team has no choice. There could be arguments and counter arguments, but my point here is clear, a manager has to strengthen the relationship with multiple people and a team member has to strengthen the relationship with one person (which is easier). We are talking of efforts and the efforts should be sincere and not superficial. I am not talking of buttering and becoming yes boss type person, my message here is to put efforts for knowing the other person. And in case change is required, putting efforts at self and not expecting others to change.

In every relationship we have situations where we knowingly or unknowingly hurt others or get hurt. Carrying the load of not forgetting those incidents ruin the relationships further. Best way to strengthen the bonding in such cases is, to forgive and forget. This part is easier said than done, especially when the hurting incidences are more frequent. But if we really think over it, not forgetting and not forgiving seldom helps. Rather, when done, it reduces the invisible burden of the involved parties and person feels relaxed.

Supporting each other, especially during distress conditions, improves the bonding. We should not miss the opportunity when our team, or friends or colleagues need us. In the same way, respecting each other helps in building a strong relationship.

While strengthening the relationship, we should never cross boundaries. There are set expectations in each relation, never ever expect more than what is desired. And this, more than desired, is applicable to each principle which I have listed above.

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By

Dr. Arshad H Khuroo

Head Bioavailability and Bioequivalence