Belfry &
Studer ConsultingBelfry &
Studer Consulting
Welcome! This is the first installment of what will be a regular feature of Belfry & Studer Consulting's Web Site.
This feature is intended to peak your interest and to stimulate some interaction between us and whoever happens to visit our site. We hope some of the ideas will at least be interesting, and hopefully will stimulate someone's synapses enough to talk back to us. We believe, as probably do the majority of regular users of the web, that it is the perfect medium for ideas. We hope you will stop back regularily. Our plan is to put out something new about once a month.
As you can probably tell from our web site, we think that interpersonal relationships are involved in just about everything. If you're in business, it doesn't really matter what the goods or services are, in some way or another, people have to interact with other people on some level, somehow, to get the job done. Even if people deal with one another only via e-mail or invoices, there's somebody on each end of the transaction, and that's a relationship. This is so basic that it gets missed, more often than not. This installment, of 'At Work', will focus on that idea, to start talking a little bit of how we've come to see relationships at work.
To begin with, people can't help but be what they are, whatever the behavior, whatever the circumstance, if someone does it, it has to be part of human nature, whether it be the most selfless, altruistic act, all the way to the most heartless and brutal of acts. This isn't to say that every act is valued in the same way, but only that if it wasn't a part of our make-up, we couldn't do it. Whatever people engage in amongst themselves is basic human behavior. How could it be any different?
People naturally form relationships, it comes with the territory. We can't help it. That said, understanding these relationships, how they operate, is important, if we're to understand any particular situation. For example, it's easy to see that not all relationships are equally useful or contribute equally to constructive or functional behavior. Just ask the parents of an adolescent, who's gotten into trouble, whether or not all relationships are constructive, especially those involving their child and his or her friends, if you have any trouble getting this part! Or, ask the mother about whether she thinks things might be different, if her relationship with their child was different. These family relationships are made of the same stuff as all other relationships. Actually, it is more accurate to say that all other relationships are made of the same stuff as family relationships.
If you happen to be a manager, and also a parent, think about the kinds of things you see happening among your staff at work, compared to what you see going on around home. I challenge you to find any real differences. Is there any conflict? Does everyone, in either place, function the same or at the same level? Is each individual equally comfortable with the same amount of closeness to others? Is each person equally healthy, or does everyone react the same to every situation? Do you find yourself equally concerned about each individual, for the same reasons? Do you get along equally well with everyone?
Think about it. I don't think you could find any fundamentally different behavior. That's not to say that the details would be the same, or that the impact on you would necessarily be the same. The kinds of problems that would arise in a work setting may be organized around different content, different issues, than those at home. Maybe, at work, there's some conflict around who's responsible for that botched order, when, at home, it might be over who left the oven on overnight. But, what's the difference?
Relationships are the pathways. If it weren't for interpersonal relationships none of us would even be here, to be thinking about such things, in the first place. They are so important, that doing anything significant, in your business or your family, without paying attention to the interpersonal side of it, is like turning your back on a billy goat, who's just noticed your posterior: You might forget he's there, but probably not for very long!
It's a fact that human beings are hooked on other human beings, that being in relationships is as automatic for people as eating. It is not a fact, however, that all relationships are the same, or that any old relationship is as good as any other. This is very simple to see. What's not as simple, however, is knowing what's going on in those relationships that you are in!
This is where, I think, many leaders, whether in business, organizations, or in families, lose their way. Interpersonal relationships are so much a part of being human, that they snag us in unseen ways. It's the unseen, emotional or instinctual snags that make relationships so interesting and so important. Understanding these interpersonal reflexes opens the door to more flexibility in dealing with those important people-issues, to say nothing of the more mundane, day-to-day challenges we all face.
Having a choice is truly liberating!
