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March 15 is the Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was assassinated by his own government. Without getting too dark, it seems appropos to focus this newsletter on relationships, and how they can work for you or against you.
Years ago, I worked with a talented leader I’ll call Pete. Pete ran a large division within an even larger company. He was bright and ambitious, and his organization revered him. But he severely undervalued his peer relationships. Many of these relationships were strained. He was seen as dismissive, and he often came across to them as arrogant. For a while, the nature of Pete’s peer relationships with either not visible to his manager, or his manager chose not to address the issues. Pete was then put in charge of a company-wide project that was bound to be somewhat contentious. His condescension became quite visible, and what might have been whispered about him behind the scenes became much more apparent to everyone around him. His manager was forced to act.
At first, given his track record, Pete was moved by the company’s leadership into a different job. It was a role with potential for significant impact, and it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that he was being set up for failure, but the odds were stacked against him. Twelve to 18 months later, it was clear that his career with this firm was finished, in spite of all the success he’d had over the years.
Work relationships matter tremendously. We all want to work with people whom we respect and who respect us. When you’re a manager or a leader, you need to take a 360-degree view on your relationships, and you need to nurture all of them. Some workplace relationships can be hard to manage, either due to differing work styles, conflicting personalities, or challenging circumstances. But you need to put forth a good-faith effort.
One of the things that I encourage the people whom I mentor and coach to do is to create a relationship map. In this process, you evaluate which relationships are important to your near- and longer-term success, what the others need from you in those relationships (and vice versa), and how you’re doing in meeting those expectations, as well as whether you’re getting what you need from them in return. Done right, this is a detailed, person-by-person analysis, one you can then revisit and refine periodically. Where appropriate, you can enlist the help of your firm’s HR department or an outside coach to facilitate a more formal 360 assessment process, but in any case, you should definitely start by taking stock yourself.
No one wants to be backstabbed by their colleagues. (Sorry, perhaps getting too dark.) Sometimes, despite our best intentions, it happens anyway. But you stack the odds much more in your favor by actively focusing on your relationships and doing your best to develop them.
We’d love to hear your feedback on what you do to nurture your workplace relationships and what has worked best for you. Feel free to share your thoughts by writing to us at info@pathwise.io. We’ll then share a summary with the broader member group.
JR Lowry and the PathWise team
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