Relationship Intelligence
by Belinda Gore, S4 Consulting
“Relationship,” writes Joseph Jaworski, “ is the organizing principle of the universe.” At the most basic level, Jaworski is describing the relationship of molecules to atoms. At the highest level, he could be noting the relationship of Earth to the solar system and beyond, and somewhere in between those two is our focus today: managing business relationships. We believe that in order to manage such relationships effectively, a person needs “Relationship Intelligence.”
The best way to see the power of Relationship Intelligence (RI) is to note what happens in its absence. When executives and managers lack RI, a business can suffer from miscommunication and misunderstanding. Receiving the incorrect signals can cause individual and team performance to suffer. It can sink firm-to-firm alliances and could also lead to lessened firm profitability. When strategic and business plans have not accounted for the interpersonal impact on employees, suppliers, customers, or the community, they often run aground. We’ve seen this occur too many times.
Leaders with RI can maneuver with assurance through these challenges because they know how to pay attention to and solve issues requiring sensitivity to the needs of the individuals who make up the firm. What are the requirements to cultivate Relationship Intelligence? RI primarily includes the capacities for:
- Accurate self-assessment;
- Appropriate self-management;
- Empathetic understanding of other people’s needs and behavior; and
- Effective communication skills.
ACCURATE SELF-ASSESSMENT
When over 60% of Americans polled say that they are “very good looking,” it’s easy to see that people tend to operate with some degree of selective perception. Because people tend to see themselves according to the self-image they have been developing for years, it is usually necessary to use assessment tools to provide feedback to individuals seeking a more accurate self-awareness. Reliable and valid inventories such as Myers-Briggs, Social Styles, the Enneagram, Brain-Dominance, and DISC are widely used as models for understanding personality styles. They each provide a way for organizing information about individual preferences and tendencies. Each instrument also creates a language that members of an organization can share in identifying needs and behaviors.
The value of accurate self-assessment in RI is that it can help us recognize how we tend to respond to situations. Everyone has preferred behaviors and patterns. With more accurate self-awareness through assessments, though, we can learn to respond as the situation requires rather than according to our automatic patterns. The better we understand ourselves, the more effective we can be in any given situation.
APPROPRIATE SELF-MANAGEMENT
Self-management is the foundation for all effective management. It requires that we first be aware of our automatic or conditioned responses, and then it requires learning to pause and choose the best response rather than simply reacting as we might normally do.
The effectiveness of too many people, for example, is undermined by emotional reactions. Anger is the most common source of poor self-management. We react either to defend ourselves from perceived criticism, to protect ourselves from being controlled, or to get what we want without concern for the consequences. In all of these cases, anger may relieve our needs for the moment, but rarely solves anything in the long run.
The first step to appropriate self-management is learning to recognize these emotional impulses as they arise. Learning to pause and consider a response—channeling that emotional energy into appropriate expression--requires lifelong practice.
EMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING OF OTHER PEOPLE’S NEEDS AND BEHAVIOR
There are three unconscious assumptions that can sabotage RI. These assumptions are:
Everyone is like me; that is, they have the same needs as I do and I can interpret their communication and behavior as if it were my own. Therefore, I do not have to check out my impressions but can act on my assumptions.
- If everyone is not like me, they should be. The best solution to a problem is to get others to think the way I do.
- My way is the best way to handle things because my experience has proved that to me. Never mind that other people are relying on their life experiences as proof that they are also right.
Because everyone is not like me, I have to learn to continually check out my assumptions and gather new information. On-going information and clarification are two keys to intelligent relationships. The best solutions to problems tend to arise in the sharing of information and perspectives. Everyone has had experiences that proved the wisdom of certain approaches. Combining those approaches offers a wisdom greater than any separate approach. Although it is substantially easier to describe than to achieve, such wisdom comes about through greater self-awareness and empathy.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS
The essence of effective communication is to be able to state clearly how we see things, to give and receive appropriate feedback, and to identify what we would like from others.
One key to effective communication is framing our communication by making statements that explicitly express that we are giving our perspective on a situation or problem: “What I believe we are dealing with here is a misunderstanding about your expectations and our offer.” or “Thank you for meeting with me today. From my perspective, we are here to review what has happened over the past six months and to identify our strategy for the next six months.” Effective communication requires that we not assume too much about a given situation—that we make sure that we are trying to solve the same problem.
Feedback means making statements about how a situation is affecting you, using non-judgmental language. Feedback should not offer a challenge, such as: “Why do you keep sending me all these emails after we already discussed this?” A far less judgmental way of giving feedback is to say, “When you send me repeated emails about a problem we have already discussed, I sometimes don’t understand what you want me to do.” Feedback should be a sharing of information and a willingness to hear information offered by the other person. Only then can true questions be asked, such as “I am not clear what additional information you are wanting me to hear in these later emails. What would you like from me at this point?”
Practicing these four basic elements of Relationship Intelligence is an investment in what Torbert (need full name) calls “mutuality,” a recognition that the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Through mutuality, we trade our entrenched ways of doing things to arrive at Relationship Intelligence, becoming more powerful through accurate self-assessment, more appropriate self-management, greater empathy and improved communication skills.
© S4 Consulting
