Monday Mentor-Week 42-Maintaining and Reparing Relationships

As simple as beginning to build a relationship seems, maintaining a relationship in the working environment becomes tricky and difficult. The first order of business is to insure that the relationship is reciprocal and not one sided. People must not feel, perceive or detect that you are using them or manipulating them in the relationship.

This means that you must provide assistance and openness when required and without strings attached. You must be willing to help, mentor and coach when there is no immediate gain for your or your part of the organization. You must also spend time with the people you have built relationships with and continue to communication and build rapport. Effective relationships also require a healthy dose of forgiveness. The forgiveness of faux pas, the forgives of neglect, the forgiveness of lack of understanding, the forgiveness of neglect and the forgiveness of the lack of reciprocation.

Forgiveness is a funny equation. We all admit we need it for our own mistakes and misspeaks but we tend to be a little stingy in providing it. As openly as we seek forgiveness of others, we must provide it to others.

Repairing
The final element of fully engaging relationship power is the need to repair relationships in the working environment. Repairing relationships that have been strained over time or not tended to because of the demands of our jobs.

Repairing will require a big amount of swallowing your pride and ego to do the right thing. Relationships are about building a long lasting power base and sometimes you have to subordinate your own ego to get this done.

Like in building relationships, this is not about you waiting for others to approach you. This is about you taking the initiative and responsibility for the relationship and reaching out to those in which the relationship has become strained. This will also require you to apologize for something that, in many cases, you have not done wrong. You are apologizing for the strain or apologizing for the miscommunication or apologizing for the neglect. It is the first step in repair and may not always be reciprocated but it is a starting point.