Are you sacrificing your relationships?

The quality of your results is determined by the quality of your relationships. From customers and clients to staff and suppliers, if you don’t maintain good relationships your results will suffer.  In fact, good relationships are no longer enough.  As pressure and competition rise we need excellent relationships.  This will become even more important if we want to take advantage of the tender green shoots of recovery. 


But building relationships takes time and time is a resource few people have enough of. In fact, many clients are complaining that they don’t have the time to have the important conversations like keeping in touch with clients, doing appraisals and managing suppliers – not to mention honing and developing the new skills required to succeed in the post-recession environment.

Can you afford not to do it?
There are some things that are simply too expensive not to invest in and relationships probably come top of the list.  But what we need to address before focusing on how to build extraordinary relationships is that “Something has got to give . . .” 

Isn’t it funny that all the books, seminars and audio programmes always talk about what you need to do more of, but nobody ever tells us what we should do less of!  “Sounds great” I hear you say    “. . and how exactly are we going to do that?”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to create an exciting new expectation, to add another ‘to-do’ to the list, to make the plans . . . but then ‘reality’ takes over and another 3 months go by without getting to all that ‘important’ stuff.

So looking ahead to 2014, the question is perhaps not so much “What do you want to do?”, but “What will you want to say ‘No’ to?”

After all, if we cannot say ‘No’, what value does our ‘Yes’ have?

What Do You Want To Do Less Of In 2014?
Here is a menu of 21 options that might be helpful. If a conversation about implementing any of them would help, you are welcome to contact Gloria at admin@InspiredWorking.com to arrange a call.

I appreciate the choices involved are not always easy ones.  But making lots of tiny changes will often produce a bigger and longer-lasting positive result than attempting one perfectly-executed grand gesture.  Taking a small step with 10 of the following will produce a greater effect than doing one completely.

1. Holding shorter, more focused meetings
2. Deleting more emails, perhaps via someone else, or an automated filtering system
3. Answering fewer emails, perhaps only in the afternoon
4. Automatically deleting any emails more than one month old (they will be in deleted-items if you need them, but check your settings first!)
5. Minimising travel, working more by phone
6. Not writing proposals until you are certain you have the business or you are at least down to the last two
7. Holding fewer speculative meetings, until there is a clear-cut budget and timescale
8. Allowing more elapsed time for projects that are important but not urgent, e.g. writing, brochures, web-site changes etc.
9. Dropping difficult, demanding, unappreciative clients
10. Simplifying administration e.g. charging a one-off fee up-front
11. Getting someone else (virtual assistants or Interns?) to do things that are not getting done now e.g. admin, arranging appointments, website additions, planning projects, compiling case studies, filing, making travel arrangements, etc.
12. Culling one marketing initiative: the one that is bringing in least results
13. Performance Managing non-productive team-members, so there are real consequences for them
14. Giving yourself time-limits to make decisions
15. Having your laptop completely mirrored onto another machine, so that you lose no time if it crashes or slows down
16. Asking “if this is a real priority, what can I displace to accommodate it?”
17. When asked for comment or feedback, doing so verbally in 10 minutes rather than taking hours to read or write a detailed critique (or use a voice recorder)
18. Reprimanding “waiters” i.e. those who, when asked what they are doing about x, reply that they are “waiting” for someone else to do something first. Waiting is not an action, and “waiters” increase the burden of real do-ers
19. Putting up a barrier to distractions so people know not to disturb you, e.g. having some “focus time” every day when you can get some real work done
20. Saying ‘no’ to all form of energy-drainers: whether fatty foods, critical people, complainers, poor lighting, inadequate space or an untidy environment

If there are any more things you think should be added to this list please let me know by Clicking Here.

Ultimately, our actions are driven by our motivation and our motivation is primarily driven by our desire for pleasure or our avoidance of pain.  If the pleasure or pain are great enough we will change our behaviour.  But most of this motivation is below our conscious awareness so you may want to ask yourself the following questions:

- What will happen if I did the activity?
- What will not happen if I did the activity?
- What will happen if I did not do the activity?
- What will not happen if I did not do the activity?

The more honestly you answer, the more you will clarify your thinking and be able to make wiser choices about what you do less of, so you can achieve more.

Get Committed
Once you recognise that ‘good relationships’ are not enough and you really commit to developing ‘excellent relationships’ it is often surprising how you notice new opportunities and it becomes easier to implement more of the list above.
 
Consider this . . .

“The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love.  The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation.  To commit is to remove your head as a barrier to your life.”  Anne Morriss

- What are you currently committed to?

- What are you actually spending your time doing and what is not getting done?

- Are you doing the things that only you can do?

- Are you doing the things that only you should be doing?
(Or are you failing to delegate or perhaps mopping up for others because they are letting things slip?)

- Are you sacrificing your relationships? 

- What do you really need to be committed to in 2014?

I’d be very interested to hear some of your thoughts and ideas . . .

Drop me a line at David.Klaasen@InspiredWorking.com or contact Gloria to arrange a chat about how to rapidly build even more effective relationships with clients, staff and colleagues in 2014.

Wishing you and your team all the very best for the festive season and may you develop even better relationships in the New Year.

Remember . . . Stay Curious!

With best regards
David Klaasen 
www.InspiredWorking.com