|
This might sound strange to some. Why does relational need its own column? Even more so in business. Why making it a thing? We do it every day, right? Or do we? Bernard Crick, infamous defender of politics, not party-politics, but politics as the best way of peaceful conflict resolution wrote “in defence of politics”, an all-time classic. I lean in on his phrase “in defence of” because I feel relational is either seen as un business, a bit soft, unclear, unmeasurable, wishy-washy, esoteric even or simply taken for granted. Relationships is something private, a private business. Nothing to do with business, even charitable business. We don’t have time for that. The art of building public relationships is undervalued and too often, (in my experience), abused as a means to an end, why? This article is based on over 20 years of doing business in public life. Working mostly in the third sector as a community organiser. (Now what is that again?) One of the greatest and most revered Community Organisers of our time, Neil Jameson, just passed away this week. So, this column is dedicated to him and his tireless campaigning for a more relational world. Not just communities, all of society should be able and will be better off for having better relationships. “Weaving the fabric of society” was once the tagline of the Community Organising Foundation, now Citizens UK. Who is weaving? What is weaving? The actual thread, and the skill and the craft of the weavers of society, this is what it’s all about. In case you were already switching off, this is NOT an article talking about kumbaya, tree-hugging or some pseudo-religion. It’s meant to be a logical, sober and mindful reminder that what we have been told for the past 100 or so years, to be more efficient, more effective, more productive and faster in our delivery isn’t the solution. Whether it’s business, policy making, public office, media, even charities and civil society, too many organisations suffer from lack of trust, short-termism and perhaps a leadership focused on quick wins. All in all, I argue here, we see the boom of a relentless transactional culture. It’s all about the transactional. All our measures are about input, output, outcome and impact. Our metrics, KPI’s and OKR’s are all narrowly defined and leave little room to be human. We reduce ourselves to becoming robots. Building and maintaining relationships is culture, not strategy. We should spend at least one-third of our time building relationships. It’s an investment. A good investment. Mental health, wellbeing, feeling purposeful, feeling autonomy, feeling in charge, aligned to my values and those of my organisation. Actually, one of only four reasons that warrant a meeting is to build, foster, deepen or rebuild relationships. I’ll share the other three in another column sometime. Just think about it when you organise your next meeting. How can this particular meeting help improve relationships? By design, not as an accident. Now, what do I mean by Relational Culture? For me, this is a mindset to sustain the practice of building and maintaining relationships for the benefit of building something for the future. Call it community, call it a movement, a market leader, or simply something bigger than yourself. A relational culture is based on self-interest with a healthy balance of time for transaction, (doing business), with time to connect, substantially with others or other leaders. For what are we?! No one is an island… A relational culture in an organisation also means you deeply connect to the purpose of the organisation. People have personal stories and they share why they are invested in it. People are actually people, not roles, not titles, not cost centres. An organisation that is promoting a relational culture is not necessarily a place where people spend half their working lives having coffees and chat about Netflix series. A relational culture means you actually see people and you treat them as people. You relate, simple. The moment you reduce people to tasks, to outcomes, you are lost in the relentless world of transactional fighting. Relational culture requires you to see everyone around you as a human being and you are building a deliberate system of people valuing personal interactions. It may sound counter intuitive, but it minimises silo thinking, frustrations, unnecessary hierarchy and it increases motivation, team play, it rewards initiative and risk taking. Why is it so hard to be more relational? First – the fakers. Most people, (in business), think they are relational, so nice. You wouldn’t find too many hard-nosed ‘Transactionalists’ being overly proud to be so transactional. It’s not seemly. It’s not nice. No, of course, we are relational. We do small talk, we ask “how are the kids” before we ask for money. We play fake relational and that can be enough to get by. So, why bother? Second – the free-riders. For some senior leaders, those who define the culture, the incentives, create roles, set examples, they might want it, but they kind of want it for free. They hope the middle and junior managers kind of figure it out for themselves. Or they encourage the extra shift to meet clients for a coffee, but they don’t want to pay for it, ignore the hard work and only honour the deal. For them, relationships are optional. They are an enabler but not material. Wrong! Third – the misguided. Top down, (ignorant, short-term), leadership, highly prevalent and widespread. I just left a small charity where all that the nice people from our corporate partnerships team could think about was ‘selling’. Highly transactional, very needy, somewhat terrible, uninspiring, and dare I say it, doomed to fail. But I argue, it’s not them, it is the leadership of the organisation. It’s what they built. Probably with the idea of being smart, effective, and productive. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the world doesn’t work like that and organisations and people who stay on the transactional train for too long, will learn their lesson. On the other hand, more often than not, by the time things go belly up, those who built the culture and incentivised transactional culture above all, are long gone. Certainly, some organisations, (and leaders), must think their products and services are so great, so important, so unique, they sell without much relationship work. Do the relationship stuff in Church on Sunday, (other religions are available), or on your volunteer day. You are on billable hours, so bring in money, land that fish, sell the programme! Even charities, same thing or worse. How often do we do business without knowing who we are doing business with, and why? Of course, we know our customers, (or beneficiaries). I believe most organisations do that part well. But everyone else who is involved in our cause? Our ‘thing’ is the most important, our mission trumps others, we strategize, re-structure and hire another marketing person. We become ever more focused on the transaction. Who cares about the people on the other side? Business people are people, funders are people, clients are people, suppliers are people, communities are people. Individuals. With self-interest. And then there is us. We are also people with self-interest. Maybe we think of ourselves as highly motivated purposeful leaders with integrity, signed up to a noble cause. But of course, we are self-interested creatures too. So, why not find a language, a mechanism to share that element of our self-interest with one another? Wouldn’t that build more trust? Wouldn’t that be enlightening? Wouldn’t that be more fun even, and certainly more sustainable? I don’t need to like everything about my business partner, but it would help me respect them more. And in reverse, someone would learn about my story, my drivers, and my self-interest. That someone might be more inclined to walk the path that I am on together, work with me, invest in me. So, what are three of the key ingredients for relational business (yes there is more)? Be curious, no, I mean really curious; interested, like, wanting-to-get-to-know-you type interested. Its fundamental, if you truly care, you show up with love. And you want to know whom you love, don’t you? Make time in your diary. This is work, ok, not leisure. Make a list of interesting people you would like to meet. Meet them. For thirty to forty-five minutes at a time. One a week or two if you can. And be personal. Don’t talk business unless absolutely necessary at the beginning and for five minutes at the end. The rest is time to meet another human. That’s all. How simple and how beautiful. Make that the default way of thinking/being. Think relationships before transaction, people before programme, with every single person you come in contact with, through your business and beyond.
If you find that difficult, but you are intrigued, give me a call and I’ll happily spend thirty to forty-five minutes with you, to get to know you…no sales, just curious.
|
