Relationship Management: This is How to Build Better Bonds

Welcome to the 5^th and final part in our 5-part blog post series on emotional intelligence.

In the first post, we discussed emotional intelligence and why it’s important and we discussed the 4 skills that comprise emotional intelligence.

We then discussed the first skill, self-awareness in the second post, and discussed some strategies for improving self-awareness.

In the third post, we discussed self-management which deals with how we act or don’t act in response to what we feel.

In the fourth post, we discussed social awareness which helps you recognize and understand the moods and emotions of others.

Today, we will bring the first 3 skills together to discuss the fourth skill of emotional intelligence: relationship management. We will then discuss some strategies that we can use to improve relationship management in our lives.

We will also conclude our example on how the late, great Steve Jobs used emotional intelligence to deal with a very public attack. If you missed part 1 where we introduced emotional intelligence, part 2 on self-awareness, part 3 on self-management, or part 4 on social awareness, you may want to go back and read them before you continue.

Before we get to the strategies to the relationship management part of our EQ, let’s first discuss the concept of relationship management in a bit more detail.

Relationship Management – The Fourth Skill of Emotional Intelligence

Creating great relationships takes time, hard work and know-how.  We will need to make the time and put in the hard work and emotional intelligence will give us the know-how. The cool part is that we can learn some relationship management skills as you will see today.

As we said in a previous post, the first three skills – self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness all build upon each other and the final EQ skill of relationship management will draw upon all three of them.

Our self-awareness skills will help us get a handle on our emotions to help us understand if our needs are being met. We then use our self-management skills to express how we feel and to behave in a way that benefits our connection with the other person. Finally, we will use our social awareness skills to better understand what the other person is thinking and feeling.

Relationship management is all about being able to communicate both clearly and convincingly while building great personal bonds with others.

We will now review some of the relationship management strategies that Bradberry and Greaves discuss in their great book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0.  The key is to find the strategy or strategies that work for you to help you improve your relationship management skills.

Strategies to Improve Relationship Management

(1)  Be an Open Book to Build Rapport and Trust

Being open and curious with others is a great way to build rapport and build relationships. Being open means sharing information about yourself, being curious means seeking information about others. Clearly, you don’t want to ‘overshare’, so you will need to use your self-management skills to help you figure out how open you would like to be. Being open allows others to get to know you better which decreases the chances they will misinterpret you. Being curious about them will help you get to know them so you can manage the relationship better, plus people love when others take an interest in them.

(2)  Don’t Give Mixed Signals

Sometimes we say one thing and our body language says something else. It is very frustrating to others when this happens, and people usually trust what they see rather than what they hear. The idea is to observe both your body language and your tone of voice to make sure it is in sync with what you are saying.

(3)  Don’t Forget About the Important Little Things

I remember reading somewhere that simply being thanked and recognized for doing a good job was one of the biggest things people wanted more of in the workplace. Noticing the little things and responding with ‘thank you’, ‘I appreciate it’, ‘please’ can go a long way with others. You can also show appreciation by sending a thank you note or doing something else that is inexpensive yet meaningful to show that you care.

(4)  Be Good at Receiving Constructive Criticism

The last thing you want to do when you receive feedback is to explode or overreact. It is very important to use the first 3 emotional intelligence skills to ensure you handle feedback well. First, you need to use self-awareness to understand your emotions and how they are making you feel. Then you will need to use your social awareness skills to try to understand what the other person is trying to communicate. Finally, you will need to use your self-management skills to decide how you will respond.

(5)  Be Available

Whether it is literally having an open-door policy at work or making yourself more available to friends and family. Being more accessible helps foster direct communication by making people feel more valued and respected.

(6)  Stop Avoiding the Inevitable

There are always things in life we have to do that we don’t want to do. For example, working with someone we don’t care for on a certain project. While you may not want to be friends with some of the people you work with, you will need to work with many you don’t like. What a great time to leverage your self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management skills to better manage the relationship.

(7)  Acknowledge the Feelings of Other People

While you may not share the feelings of someone else, it is important not to dismiss them and instead to acknowledge them as important and respect them. By listening to someone, summarizing what you have heard, and then asking if there is anything you can do, it shows you are taking an interest in them and that you care. A simple “I’m sorry you are feeling that way, is there anything I can do?” can go a long way.

(8)  Let Other People Know the ‘Why’

One of the most frustrating things we have all had to deal with is being told to do something without being told ‘why’ we need to do it. It is much easier to get behind an idea if we know the intention behind it. So, instead of asking someone to do something or making a change and expecting others to accept it, explain the ‘why’ behind the decision or whatever you are asking them to do first.

(9)  Think Before You Act

This has to do with making sure your words and actions line up with your intent. We have all been in situations where someone said something that was meant to lighten the mood but had the opposite effect. To make sure you don’t stick your foot in your mouth, use social awareness to understand the situation and those involved and then use your self-management skills to think before you speak or act to ensure you come across in an appropriate manner.

 (10) Use ‘Fix-It’ Statements When Something Has Gone Wrong

As the authors say, ‘No matter who said what, or who “started it”, it’s time to refocus and fix it. The idea is to step back, quickly assess the situation, and begin repairing the conversation with a fix-it or resolution to the problem.

How Steve Jobs Used Relationship Management

To quickly recap our story, recall that Steve Jobs was publicly attacked by one of his employees at an Apple Developer Conference after returning to the company after over a decade away.

Instead of immediately getting hijacked by his emotions and flying off the handle, he used self-awareness to understand his emotions and then used self-management by pausing for 10 seconds and taking a sip of water.

Then he made a funny remark and took another long pause which allowed him to maintain his composure to plan what he was going to say.

Next, he then used social awareness by putting himself in the other person’s shoes by agreeing with some of what the man had to say which was disarming and helped to find common ground to show he understood what the man was feeling.

Which brings us to how he used relationship management to conclude his amazing response by using some of the strategies from above:

(1)  He Tried to Help the Audience Understand the ‘Why’

He reiterated that his job as the CEO made him responsible for big-picture thinking and not getting too much into the weeds. Then he went on to explain part of that vision:

“The hardest thing is: How does that fit into a cohesive, larger vision, that’s going to allow you to sell eight billion dollars, 10 billion dollars of product a year? And one of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it.”

(2)  He Touched on the Little Things

He then took the opportunity to give praise to those who were working really hard by naming a few names and then praising the entire team, “There are a whole lot of people working super, super hard right now at Apple…They’re doing their best”, he said.

(3)  Acknowledging the Feelings of Others

Lastly, he returned to the guy who asked the question and said to great applause, “Some mistakes will be made, by the way. Some mistakes will be made along the way. And that’s good. Because at least some decisions are being made along the way. And we’ll find the mistakes, and we’ll fix them,”

That concludes, in my opinion, one of the most impressive public displays of emotional intelligence that I have ever seen.

If you would like to watch it, it’s only 5 minutes, I have embedded the YouTube video:

That Also Concludes Our 5-Part Series on Emotional Intelligence

As Daniel Goleman says in his article called “Primal Leadership”:

“An emotionally intelligent leader can monitor his or her moods through self-awareness, change them for the better through self-management, understand their impact through empathy (social awareness), and act on it in ways that boost others’ moods through relationship management.” ⁴

But none of that will happen unless we put these strategies to use on a consistent basis!

As we said in an earlier post, pick 3 of the strategies that we have covered in whatever of the 4 skills that you would like to improve the most and then practice, practice, practice. Remember, ‘neuroplasticity’ or the ability of your brain to make new connections takes time, so you need to be both consistent and patient with your practice.

And If Worse Comes to Worse…

You can always use this sage self-management advice that Jerry gives George in one of the best Seinfeld episodes ever!

“If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right”

Until next time, keep working on your relationship management and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It

The relationship management strategies we discussed in this blog post are:

(1)  Be an open book to build rapport and trust
(2)  Don’t give mixed signals
(3)  Don’t forget about the important little things
(4)  Be good about receiving constructive criticism
(5)  Be available
(6)  Stop avoiding the inevitable
(7)  Acknowledge the feelings of other people
(8)  Let other people know the ‘why’
(9)  Think before you act
(10) Use ‘Fix-It’ statements when something has gone wrong

When to Use It:

Use these strategies when you want to improve the relationship management part of your emotional intelligence.

What Do You Think?

Do you currently use any of these relationship management strategies? Are there are any other relationship management strategies that you use which we didn’t discuss? Please share in the comments below!

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References

1 Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.

2 Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart.

3 Bradberry, Travis. (2005). The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work. New York: Simon & Schuster.

4 Primal Leadership http://www.e-russell.com/images/Primal_leadership.pdf