When management search the best place to find people with whom to build a team or to get the best person for a particular job, they often cast a wide net. Looking for skills in a wide range of different fields can make it difficult to find the right person. For such managers, it is best to give up if the search proves unsuccessful and then move on. They might think that their results have not been satisfying on either front or that the approach might not be effective. In some cases, their efforts have gone very well and their search has produced results that lead to some fantastic recognition for the team they are responsible for. In other cases it has crashed and they have damaged business relationships. In some cases, the managers have completely ignored the possible impact of their actions. In other cases, they have arranged future meetings and meetings in order to repair any damage, but often their way gets them nowhere.
When you improve business relationships with people you have to be prepared to trade some access to have some ‘back door’ access to your bosses and some ‘poker88‘ access to others. While you should always have good business relationship with the team you work with, as you move forward you need ‘back door’ access in order to reach out to people that you might be interested in working with.
Here are five tips for improving business relationships with people where you want to work and improve their skills and advance with the team:
- Spend some time with people in your team that you would like to get involved, for example, in the next team meeting. You don’t want to spend time with people in the same team as you, but you want to make sure the people on your team understand you well enough to feel comfortable getting to know you.
- Partner for your own sake. While you are doing your own thing, you are actually hurting your team. You might be a driven person that plans a great job as a manager, however, you can inadvertently hurt your team by spending time with people that are not on your level and not giving them the respect they give their colleagues.
- Avoid the temptation to get too close and personal. Yes, if you have spent time with members on your team, you will discover that you have some commonality. It is important to have good relations on team. However, what often happens is that the members of the team feel less important and less trusted of each other. Consequently, they have less respect of each other, and your team interaction becomes less effective.
- Make sure you spend time with people where your team will want to work with you and that you have their best interest in mind. Learn to deal with people from any generation, any up side and any down side. Don’t just focus on how you can interact with the person.
You must never be able to assess the value of your relationships until you have gained access to the people you work with. People come and they go and regardless of how hard your work may be, someone will emerge as a useful asset to the company.
Regardless of the size of your team, ask yourself the following question:
- Who do you want to become?
Trying to build a team with people that support or point you in the wrong direction is a guaranteed way to hurt those that are supportive and defend your team interests. As a manager, you have an obligation to select people with whom you can build an effective working team. Sometimes you will hurt them in order to get what you want. Knowing who you want and how to profile each team member is important to understanding the specific skills and behaviours that you really need to make an impact in order to get your team back on track.
It is critical that you spend time with people where your team can see you, where they can’t see you, and where it is wise to do so. You must also watch for going down a person’s path at the wrong time of day. Sometimes we want people around the table when they are taking a shower in the middle of the night.
The objective is to choose the right venue for working together, to ensure that you arrive there with the appropriate behaviour and skills to put a team on the track to working well together. You shouldn’t try to fix every battle, and you shouldn’t try to change the character of the other person. You just need to be aware of how you can best benefit them by being a good listener, an appreciative person and then follow the appropriate protocols.
- Finally, you need to know what else you need to become to succeed!
It is not very easy and it takes time to develop any good working relationships, but you need to do the work. As much time and effort as it takes, it is worth it.