5 things you need for a successful relationship

Relationships are harder work than we actually realise, believing that this comes naturally. You share your views and message, hear the other people and then agree. It actually doesn’t work quite like that, does it?

Coaching help with relationships will include understanding key aspects of communication itself, and how you personally communicate and your messages. Then you can send effective messages others can hear and engage with. Then you can both meet your own needs and find ways to flex and adapt so you aim for a win/win. Or compromise as both people cannot ‘win’ and have their way. Relationships are all about compromise and empathic understanding without sacrificing one person’s needs over the other. 

5 things you need for a successful relationship

Positive work relationships – in fact, any healthy relationships, socially and family too – require these five things:

1. Trust
2. Respect
3. Acceptance
4. Flexibility
5. Understanding

It takes awareness, understanding, patience and empathy to see other people’s points of view, too.

At work, there is a shared goal, shared focus, and teamwork to achieve that in your own role and those of your colleagues in the team too. Yet, each person has their own personal goals, values, and needs to meet for themselves alongside the company goals and journey, bringing a third complexity to the mix.

At work this is so important to get someone else’s needs met as well as your own, and the company objectives too – three parts to this situation!

Into this developing relationship (as it continues to develop and deepen with familiarity), you might need to learn to adapt somewhat, which continues, throughout a relationship as you both keep learning, growing, developing and flexing.

Trust

Trust when broken can never be repaired to the extent it was initially - as the relationship flourished. So when trust is lost and it remains, like the metaphor of ‘crumpled paper that cannot be fully straightened out again’, it remains as a ‘warning’ that things didn’t work out as expected before. 

Your relationships build over time and get deeper and more trustworthy so any betrayal is so hard to accept and understand; personally and professionally.

Trust can be restored to some extent but your mind will always raise 'warnings' that things didn’t work out as expected before. (It’s just a normal function of your mind – or we would keep making the same mistakes over and over, putting ourselves in ‘danger’ all the time and never moving forward!)

Work relationships require trust in doing your part of the teamwork and process/project management, having care and consideration for colleagues' needs as well as your own and for customers and suppliers. 

Behaviours like supporting each other and not undermining someone, not taking credit where not due, being open, honest and transparent always, and doing your part reliably for the team. Bullying or pressuring people doesn’t work because of this trust, familiarity meeting mutual needs.

Respect

Respect means that others have the right to their own views. Even if you don't agree with what they believe, accepting different ways of being and doing that may not always suit others, but as long as it isn't actively harming someone else, it is each to their own. 

Ongoing training as part of your role and responsibilities, management being realistic about fair and achievable workloads, negotiating and some flexibility around personal issues that might hinder usual productivity whilst the employee works on this and stays in line with company policy and procedures. It goes without saying no lying or mistreatment because we cannot just ignore this, even if we choose to. 

Acceptance

Acceptance arises from this. Live and let live, keep to the agreed policies and procedures, and recognise other ways might not be yours but are equally valid for them.

Differences are part of life, we are all truly unique with a mix of life experiences, values developed, personal needs to be met and beliefs and expectations from all of these. For you and for others.

Flexibility

Flexibility within reason is part of the human character, we have to adjust, flex, and adapt to changes and new situations often quite quickly. This also applies to personal and work issues getting in the way that requires some level of situational and circumstantial flexibility – emotional intelligence in these events goes a long way!

Understanding

Understanding others arises more easily when you understand yourself and your needs, tendencies, interests, and talents. Then you realise your own quirks mean other people must have theirs too and you become more tolerant and understanding, more flexible and accepting of each other.

When you have these five aspects in your relationships, you will feel heard, acknowledged and understood.

That isn’t to say everyone will agree with your stance but being heard is really important for people; for everyone. You need to matter, to be validated and then begin the negotiation, the reasoning, the adaptation to situations that may not initially be what would be your ideal but can work for everyone – the win/win scenario we can aim for in most or all situations.