Relationships at Work

During Valentine’s Day I was not only thinking about my “Valentine, “ though he did a great job hand delivering flowers to me at work and going on an amazing dinner date. I was thinking about how that day is really to revel in the happiness that are positive relationships with anyone; friends, family, coworkers, teammates, significant others, etc. I’ve often mentioned how important building relationships are outside of work, but I started thinking about what positive relationships at work look like and how to really GENUINELY cultivate them.

I’ve recently needed to quickly develop working relationships across departments in order to “get the job done.” This was necessary because I have gone through one acquisition in 2012 and will be doing another in 2013. The first acquisition was my boutique, hospitality driven consulting firm being purchased by a very large HR consulting firm. It was a firm I’ve always wanted to work for and I felt like I received a golden ticket. From that, many processes, products, etc. needed to be streamlined and a large amount of cross training had to be conducted. 

Throughout that process (and it is an ongoing one) I’ve attempted to learn different methodologies, apply ones that are most suitable for the situation, and suggest new and improved ways of doing things. I couldn’t do all of that had it not been for my consulting team really helping to train me on everything. Outside of my department, there are large components of project management and technology that I can’t possibly know everything about. But through a few friendly IM chats, emails and discussions on the phone, I now know who can help when I have a problem. They also know who to ask when dealing with what I do. In all of these instances, I feel like these relationships are mutually beneficial, very collaborative and team oriented and very positive working relationships. You don’t have to go out on weekends with all of your coworkers to have great relationships with them. 

The main point that I want to make is that these relationships take time, interest and actual cultivation. When I was developing these strong relationships, I took a genuine interest in learning, developing, the other person’s expertise and had GREAT respect for their time. The consideration for time and respect for their perspectives goes a long way (even in relationships not at work). Being genuinely interested in people shows and it helps you to develop good strong relationships more rapidly. I didn’t realize that being myself when talking with coworkers and taking a genuine interest in them would make finding out things and learning things so much easier. 

I have an example of trying to implement a new process for a client and I had NO idea how to actually distribute information, upload information into a different system, how to manage client expectations surrounding the new process, etc. I reached out to a project manager who is rather new, but that I have worked with previously on a similar task asking her the steps etc. She offered to help manage the project, found out whom to ask about my specific issue and learned something new about our processes. The person she reached out to walked me through a new system, showed me how to upload things, explained the process, informed me on a few pitfalls I could run into and gave me contacts in case anything went wrong. I honestly did not expect that my reaching out to a project manager would result in something so helpful, individualized and positive. 

Since then, I’ve become a “go-to” person when implementing this new process for a few of the consultants that haven’t worked in that space. It gave them more resources to utilize when doing something new and it helped me to give back a bit since they had taught me so much already. I felt as if my personal development has gone through the roof by having such good working relationships and it makes me a better employee as well as really enhancing my career. I challenge all of you to develop more and better relationships within your workplace; you’ll be surprised at the outcome!