Interpersonal Relationships

Whenever two or more people come together, they share something. Connections between humans – of any size and shape – are each woven together with common threads.

The puppies in the image are playing, not fighting. The stakes are low. No ground rules, just play. If you are going to go toe-to-toe with a peer on an issue where the stakes are high, it’s best to have some rules. In professional settings, conflict management skills are trained and practiced regularly. Often deemed “conflict resolution,” there is an assumption that the outcome will include peaceful understanding and strengthened relationships. Not always. Not everyone fights fair. Here are 10 rules to consider the next time you decide to engage in a fight.

We have many teachers over the course of a lifespan, both formal and informal. Some become secret role models even as they remain unaware of the impact they’ve had on our personal and professional trajectory. Others are selected and ordained with a formal responsibility to guide insight and discovery. Whatever the reason for the relationship’s formation, the ideal teacher-student relationship has distinct qualities. This connection embodies the smallest, and often most important, team.

There’s a way of viewing the many partnerships that make up a team while looking at the whole team as a unit. The fingerprint-level uniqueness of the group is stamped by the distinct individual connections between teammates. As each internal partnership morphs, the team evolves either toward or away from wellness. Here’s how to take a snapshot of today’s state of affairs.

Below the tip of the iceberg, down beneath the surface where the secrets live, you’ll find the original source of today’s team dynamics. Although usually invisible in day-to-day interactions, the ways we relate to our teammates have their roots in the families where we were raised. The earliest connection with our parents, siblings, and extended families quietly shapes the way we treat others and expect to be treated. These powers are always in play.

Some motivations come from external sources. Power and money are quick examples. They drive decisions and behaviors with enticing promises. Other motivations come from within. Attachment, for instance, provides intrinsic fuel to engage with others. Connection is the most reliable glue that holds teams together. If you are looking for a strategy to strengthen your team, start with an honest appraisal of the quality of each relationship. Here’s a quick 5-step method to enhance what is working and repair what’s not.

It’s hard to break free of your own perspective. Teammates see the same event and experience different interpretations. Each believes his or her view is the truth. Of course, each truth is correct. There are many truths. The challenge is to get behind the eyes of your teammates and understand their truths. Here’s how.

Times of crisis separate those who need care from those who provide care. Beyond the obvious healthcare application, anyone delivering professional services is thrust into the role of managing pain of some variety. Teachers, counselors, ministers, attorneys, accountants, advisors and consultants make a living by helping navigate uncharted waters. Each of them carries the weight of the impact of the crisis in their own lives but must stay sufficiently focused to attend to client priorities. So, who takes care of the caregivers?

Sometimes the influences of team behavior are in the here and now. Teammates are responding directly to each other and managing present day challenges. Other times, teammates behave in reaction to historical patterns and traumas. Colleagues become siblings. Bosses, managers, and supervisors become parents. This can get messy.

As complicated as team dynamics can be, effective teamwork usually begins with simple relationship wellness. Teams are built on a foundation of interpersonal interaction. Communication is the action that multiplies the energy of the group. The health of the team is dependent on the quality of the exchange between its members. While some teams devote valuable time to the politics that often resemble the cliques in a high school cafeteria, other teams opt for clear, adult, mature, and productive give-and-take. Consider these seven drivers of constructive relationships:

Relationships share similar dynamics whether small or large. We are most familiar with the exchanges that are traded in interpersonal settings since the majority of our connections are one-to-one partnerships. When you expand these interactions to a team, the complexity multiplies. What if the model for successful partnerships was the same regardless of the size or scale of the team?

The Team Clock Institute’s upcoming release, Useful Pain: Why Your Relationships Need Struggle, was written as an enticement for growth. Based on a simple concept, interactions between partners are viewed in necessary cycles of meaningful challenge.

When Team Clock was published in 2009, we offered up a simple model for creating and sustaining effective teams. As I shared the Team Clock concept with business leaders, time and again people asked me how these principles applied to interpersonal relationships. Could the conflict resolution and team building strategies applied in the boardroom also work in the bedroom? Does the cycle of investment, trust, innovation, and distancing play out between friends and management teams alike?

The eyes of the 21-year-old college student lit up as she raised her hand. She had experienced an epiphany. Suddenly, the theory of effective teaming crystallized when she applied it to a current romantic relationship. “I have a personal responsibility for my contribution to the relationship I’ve joined,” she observed. “The entity itself needs to be nurtured and cultivated.” Not surprisingly, the same “ah-ha” moment had occurred in a recent executive coaching conversation in a global telecommunications company with a senior leader twice her age.

At its most basic core, what is your contribution to your team? I’m not talking about the easily visible actions. I’m asking about the themes and patterns that define your life and, as a result, get played out in your professional role.

Often, workshop participants ask whether someone can exist at two times on the Team Clock at once. Recently, I found myself at 12:00 and 6:00 simultaneously.