The Big Win – Building Relationships with the Team
Great Managers Focus on this Every Day
When organizations ask me to come in and teach the Great Manager program to their teams, I start the first session by teaching them feedback. It is a quick and easy way for the managers to change behavior and see quick results. It works well and managers appreciate the immediate application of a skill.
It is somewhat of a gimmick. I give them this quick win to get them committed to the program. The second session is the hardest, but also the most important – building relationships.
Every manager has 3 types of power:
Position: They get position power through the title.
Competence: They get competence power through showing they can do the job.
Relationship: They get relationship power by focusing every day on building strong, trusting relationships with each and every member of the team.
Relationship power is the only one that guarantees someone will be a Great Manager. You can be good if you use competence power. You will never be more than a tyrant if you only use position power. Therefore, building relationships needs to be part of your behavior skillset if you want to be a Great Manager (and if you have any hope of more promotions in the future).
The Importance of Relationships in Management
I could spew all sorts of data about the importance of strong, trusting relationships: it increases engagement, customer metrics, sales, and employee retention. It is commons sense – people like to work for people who they trust and know well.
It is only becoming more important. In today’s world of AI and workflows that assign tasks and all the benefits of technology, the only thing that tech can’t do is connect to people. A study was done a while back that said that over 50% of employees preferred getting direction from AI than from the manager. However, when the employee needed help, encouragement, or advice, he wanted to talk to the manager.
Understand your strength. Your strength as a manager comes from getting to know people on the team, making connections, and helping them feel valued and respected. Technology cannot do that.
Ways to Build Strong Relationships
Building relationships is something that you need to work at every day with every employee. It takes a lot of time and effort on your part, especially in the beginning. If you do it regularly and well, the ROI will be tremendous. Here are just a few ideas:
Regular One-on-One Meetings: Personal attention is invaluable. Regular one-on-one meetings provide a private space for employees to voice concerns, discuss career aspirations, and receive personalized feedback. Soon, I will publish more guidance on how to facilitate a one-on-one meeting, but know it should be done weekly or every other week and rarely be cancelled.
Daily Check-ins and Being Available. The one-on-one becomes a dedicated time between you and the employee, but it shouldn’t be the only time. If in person, walk around and say “good morning” and chat with people. If remote, using instant messaging like Slack or Teams to generate light conversation. Show interest – for example, if an employee says they went to their child’s recital recently, ask how it went. Find ways to be available. It may be an open door policy or office hours or any number of ways, but make sure the team feels like you are present.
Give Feedback: One of the benefits of feedback is that it can be done quickly and about almost anything. Setting a goal to give feedback (remember, more positive than negative) every day to everyone on the team is a realistic goal in most cases.
Note: Feedback should take less than 30 seconds. If you have 20 people on your team, that is 10 minutes of giving feedback. It isn’t dedicating hours, so I don’t want to hear excuses about time.
Conclusion
Some managers will try to shrug off the relationship idea as “touchy-feely”. I’ve heard that criticism my entire managerial career. The fact is, the only managers who get the most out of their team and have a chance to climb the ladder are the ones who understand the importance of relationships.
In future posts, I’ll go into more detail on how to hold a one-on-one meeting and how to do daily check-ins and being available, but don’t be afraid to start now.