Improve an important work relationship

How would you like to improve an important relationship in your life/career?

Relationships can be a wonderful source of joy or a crippling source of pain and stress. This is true at work as much as in our personal relationships.

And yet, we never learn some of the basic elements of healthy relationships. 

I recently worked with a CFO at a large multinational company who was a top performer, but was struggling with his relationships at work. He was getting along fairly well with his team, and was well respected by the CEO and Board, but his colleagues found him to be combative, disconnected and aloof. 

Another client, an EVP at a financial services company was having a hard time building trust with his boss. He was working hard and delivering on his commitments, but he felt that his efforts weren't working. He came to me to figure out whether he should leave the company. 

On a personal level, almost 10 years ago, after having my third child and deciding to leave my corporate career, I found myself struggling in my relationships. I felt alone, misunderstood and disconnected. 

I was struggling in my marriage, upset with the fact that my husband was focused on work and I was left to hold things together at home - a traditional role I had promised myself I would not fall into.

I was struggling to stay connected with friends as I became the primary caregiver of a newborn, 4 year old and 6 year old as well as aging parents, right as I was facing an identity crisis as part of shedding my executive woman persona.

I was struggling, upset and pretty sure that the issue, the main cause of the problem, was unequivocally, most certainly, and absolutely... everyone else!

This is also true of my clients. Often their actions are focused on changing the other person's mind, persuading them to see it their way.

They invest energy crafting emails, strategizing their next move, working extra hours, engaging in heated debates, complaining about all of the ways that they are right and the other person is wrong, and the list goes on and on. 

And these are fine strategies, if they are working. When they don't, which is often what bring them to me, we try something different.

We direct the spotlight on them and this is when they get VERY uncomfortable! 

We focus on strengthening the relationship they have with themselves. 

Here are a few of the places we start to look. 

Witness Your Triggers.

Here’s the thing, we tend to believe that we get angry or sad or offended (fill in any energy draining emotion) when someone says or does something negative to us, but really this is not true.

The only time we experience a “negative” emotion is when something someone says/does triggers a story in our mind about what it means about the other person, and ultimately, what it means about us.

At the core, there’s a wound, insecurity, perceived weakness that our ego is being triggered by and that causes the REACTION, in an effort to protect ourselves.

Starting to see the patterns for our triggers and the stories we tell ourselves, allows us to recognize them, interrupt them and choose differently. 

This of course changes the relationship we have with others and strengthens the relationship we have with ourselves.

You see, the more we are connected with ourselves and recognize the stories our mind makes up (it does this innocently and with good intentions), the cleaner our relationships are and the less what other people say or do bothers us. 

Clear your Assumptions.

We amazing humans are constantly making stuff up.

We make up why people are acting a certain way, why people are underperforming, why people say what they say, etc., and while we hold these as fact and true, often we are wrong. 

Simply looking at what is FACT (you know it to be true with 100% certainty!!) and what is STORY (anything below 100% certainty), can be a powerful exercise to diffuse a situation and get us to a calmer state.

This we call clearing assumptions.

Invest in the relationship.

In relationships, we often get stuck looking at things from our own perspective and then complain that we're not making any headway. I wonder why? :)

When you're feeling stuck, it's useful to take two other perspectives, the one of the other person and the one of the relationship.  

1) The other person's perspective: put yourself in their shoes - really feel into what it might be like to be them, what pressures are they feeling?, what might be important to them? what do they want from the relationship? Speak from their perspective only. Take this perspective firmly! 

ii) Hold the relationship as a separate entity, with a voice and perspective, and consider the following: what does the relationship feel as they look at the two people?, what does the relationship need from the pair?, what would the relationship say if it could tell you something? What does the relationship believe is possible?

Consider what new information comes from this exercise and decide what you'd like to do with it to get unstuck. 

Now back to me... and my certainty about the problem being with everyone else, ... well it turns out my dear friends that Taylor Swift is right after all. It's me, I was the problem.

Not in an accusatory, I'm bad or wrong kind of way. 

It's just that without me and my thoughts there is no drama, there is nothing wrong in my relationship. And this is good news!