The Secret Organizational Cultural Glue: Relationships

The power of a relationship review

Originally posted for The Mind Tools Newsletter | May 2024.

Many people rate time with their bosses as the worst time of their day. Consider what that means: interacting with their leader is less enjoyable than waking up to an early alarm, dealing with a rush-hour commute, or taking out the trash.

Depending on your own experience, you may find that surprising – or sadly obvious. Either way, this widespread dissatisfaction should not be ignored.

Why? Because an individual’s relationship to their manager is directly related to their engagement and productivity.

Nurturing our relationships at work can transform cultures and improve productivity. Not surprisingly, our connection to self and to others in our organizations is a key to healthy cultures and results.

Studies have shown that there’s not much you can offer in the way of perks to balance out the effects of a bad boss. But there’s a seemingly endless amount of rewards – from employee satisfaction to increased company profitability – that can be derived from having a great one.

While writing “The Awakened Company,” I interviewed many top CEOs who had come to the same conclusion. On top of finding and cultivating great leaders, we all need to review our relationships on a regular basis – our relationships with ourselves and members of our team.

What Is a Relationship Review?

A relationship review is designed to develop greater self-awareness and to ignite positive change in your relationships.

It’s an assessment of different aspects of your relationships at work and encourages you to reflect on these unique aspects and to focus on how you can strengthen them.

Once you have completed it, you will have a clear idea about how to effectively “show up” in your relationships.

This review can be done at any time, and I would suggest doing this regularly before things go out of balance and someone quits!

Signs that your relationships are an issue in your organization:

High unwanted turnover
Burnout
Disengagement
No clear roles or relatedness
Frequent arguments
Un-energizing interactions

Please note: this is a useful exercise, but sometimes you might need professional advice from someone such as a mediator to help with it. Try to be aware of when this is needed.

Benefits of a Relationship Review

Conducting a relationship review develops self-awareness around your interactions with others. It also helps to bring clarity to your intentions for future engagements.

Some tips on how to begin:

Find a quiet space.
Be honest.
Get your thoughts and feelings on paper.
Remember, the only way to change someone else is by showing up differently.

We have the power to build healthy connections – and how we are to ourselves matters most in shaping our relationships. Did you know we have 60,000 thoughts a day, 85 percent of these are repeating, and 95 percent are negative? What we tell ourselves matters!

So, how can we do a relationship review?

Relationship Review

We are the only person we can immediately change, and in changing ourselves, we change everything.

First, I would like you to reflect on your connection to yourself by answering the questions listed below. Then reflect on your key relationships at work.

Feel free to add columns for each of these key relationships. Be completely honest with how you see them.

	With Yourself	With (Name)
How are we connected (relatedness) to ourselves or to the other person?
What is the purpose (role) of this relationship?
What is the depth of this relationship?
How do we live in alignment with our values in this relationship?
Where and how is this relationship peaceful?
Where and how is this relationship powerful?
Does the structure of this relationship work?
Where and how is there joy in this relationship?
What is this relationship’s wisdom?

Now, ask yourself how you want to show up in this relationship. Fill out the table again to reflect how you would like these relationships to be.

Notice what attitudes and behaviors are asking to be changed. What can you do to bring about the changes you would like in these relationships?

Additional Tips to Build Healthy Relationships

We need to cultivate one-on-one relationships in organizations. Only by fostering these deeper, meaningful connections can we create relationships that enable higher employee satisfaction, greater productivity, and broader company success.

Here are some ways to strengthen our work relationships:

1. Be heartful. We all have emotional bank accounts; we need five positives for every one negative remark. Let’s celebrate each other in the act of awesome – and, in doing so, people are likely to do what they are doing right again!

2. Be mindful. Ask questions and get team members to think for themselves. If you are in a reactive space, consider taking a pause to be more thoughtfully responsive than reactive.

3. Be spacious. Give people as much control over their work environment as possible. Let people have autonomy in their work.

Perhaps most importantly, remember your relatedness in your relationships at work. That means honoring the humanity of ourselves and the other person; we must separate out people’s roles from our relatedness with them.

Other ideas include taking each member of your team out for lunch; if that’s not feasible with your schedule, try taking them out for tea. Making time to connect should be a priority, not a bonus.

This can be achieved daily by recognizing your colleague for what makes them unique and valued, so comment on what their awesome is!

With an open heart and effort, we have the power to be the best part of each other’s days.

What’s Next?

At the heart of better relationships is understanding each other. And active listening is a great place to start and begins with being totally present in the conversations you are having.

In a wider sense, developing our emotional intelligence – the ability to recognize our own emotions and how they affect others – can also help improve our relationships.

And why not check out our article Tips for Creating an Inclusive Culture for ways to build bonds in your organization.

By Catherine R Bell, MBA, Founder and Author, The Awakened Company, Organizational Culture Consultants