Improving Relationships at Work

I recently had the working managers in my MBA class on execution (as in implementation, not hanging) undertake an exercise to improve relationships with the people with whom they work.  In particular, we were interested in whether or not they could improve their affinity (liking) for people they currently did not like very much.  They discovered they could and that it was easier to do than they thought it would be.

There are lots of reasons why we don’t like some people at work: they don’t treat us or others the way we think they should, they create problems for us and others, they don’t do what they say they will, and so on.  For the most part, these differences don’t create problems for us and we can go on about our work without much difficulty.  But occasionally the fact that we don’t like them, or the things they do, gets in our way.  It is at these times that our lack of affinity for them actually works against us; our effectiveness is reduced, our stress increases, and we lose our sense of humor.  Work gets harder and more unpleasant and it takes longer and more effort to get things done.  And, we blame them.

What we fail to consider in all this is that it is OUR lack of affinity for them that is an issue.  It is not surprising that we treat people we like differently than the people we don’t. Nor is it surprising that we use the fact we like or dislike someone as a justification for how we treat them.  When asked why we do or don’t do things for others, we are likely to respond (if truthful) “I like/don’t like them”.   We act as if they are responsible for our liking or disliking them; that it is their fault we don’t have much affinity for them.  As a result, we believe that unless and until they change, our relationship with them has little chance of improving.  We are not responsible.

Like most people, the managers in my MBA class bought into this line of reasoning.  That is, until they did an exercise in which each one of them wrote a letter to three people they didn’t particularly like.  In the letter, they were to write out exactly what they would say to the person to authentically:
1. Acknowledge the person for something they had done but which the manager had not acknowledged, e.g., completing a project on time;
2. Appreciate something about the person, e.g., a good sense of humor;
3. Apologize for a mistake or misunderstanding the manager was responsible for but had not owned up to, e.g., not providing clear directions on an assignment; and
4. Amend an agreement that had been broken but had been stepped over, e.g., an agreement to meet on a weekly basis which wasn’t kept.

What surprised each and every manager was that they had more affinity for the person after they wrote the letter than before.  They discovered that it was their interpretations, assessments, evaluations, and conclusions about the other person that was the source of their liking or disliking them, not the other person.  They realized that they could be responsible for their affinity toward others and that if they were willing, they could shift that affinity.  What they found most exciting was that they could potentially improve their working relationships with other people if they were willing to authentically engage in something as simple as acknowledging, appreciating, apologizing, and amending agreements with them.