Relationships

Don’t Be Friends with Your Boss

October 16, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Don't Be Friends with Your Boss Develop a cordial, constructive, and trusting relationship with your boss. But don’t extend that connection into a chummy friendship.

A boss-employee friendship comes with complications and tensions that don’t exist in other relationships. The boundaries in friendships are softer and more diffuse. In a boss-employee relationship, the boundaries are more pronounced, and rightly so.

When you’ve got a great rapport that comes with a friendship, it’s easy to start expecting to be treated a bit better than everyone else on your team. You’ll be disappointed when some special consideration—a plump assignment or a flexible vacation schedule—doesn’t come your way. Your boss will expect you to abide by the same standards and rules as everyone else.

You also have to be more vigilant about how your friendship appears to other people.

Idea for Impact: Boss first, friend second. Don’t mix the two. Sure, be friendly with your boss, but don’t expect to be treated as a friend.

Undertake Not What You Cannot Perform

July 16, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Each time you break a promise or commitment, even to yourself, you chip away at your claim—and your intention—to be a responsible, reliable, self-aware person.

Making promises and keeping them is how you build integrity, how you foster relationships of trust, and, more importantly, how you learn to trust yourself.

Every time you break a promise, your word has less value.

Giving your word is a serious undertaking, even on trivial matters. Never ever make a promise that you think there is even the slightest chance that you may break.

Idea for Impact: Don’t make a promise if a situation warrants a more open-ended response.

Why Your Employees Don’t Trust You—and What to Do About it

June 25, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you have trouble getting employees to trust you, perhaps one—or more—of the following reasons are to blame:

You don’t model what you say.
You make promises you can’t keep.
You guard and selectively disclose information.
You don’t allow your employees to exercise their judgment.
You ask for input from your employees and ignore them.
You seek to monitor everything—including time spent on social media.
You tend to shift the blame.
You avoid giving credit where credit is due.
You ignore workplace concerns and problems until they become more significant problems.
You have double standards (employees tend to be especially very alert to this.)

Why Your Employees Don't Trust You---and What to Do About it Management scholars have suggested that trustworthiness entails three attributes: competence to perform tasks reliably (your ability,) having benign intentions (your benevolence,) and acting consistently with sound ethical principles such as fairmindedness, sincerity, and honesty (your integrity.) If you can exhibit these three attributes credibly and dependably, all will trust you. Get any of these three attributes wrong, and your standing will suffer.

Here are a few actions you can take to rebuild trust within your organization:

Communicate openly. Listen. Value everyone’s opinions equally. Involve employees in decision-making. Be as transparent as possible.
Empower employees. Encourage them to use their best judgment to identify and solve problems. Don’t be unnecessarily rigid with enforcing rules.
Make everyone accountable. Take responsibility. Invite and listen to feedback. Communicate expectations. Invest in commitments.

Idea for Impact: Trust is reshaped—strengthened or undermined—in every encounter

If your employees don’t trust you, then they won’t do what you need them to, and they won’t stick around long.

Trust is a consequence of your actions, not merely an intention or message. Trust is truly behavioral; it is complicated and fragile. Trust must be hard-fought, hard-earned, and hard-won every day, through actions, not words.

The High Cost of Winning a Small Argument

May 14, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Winning a conflict with a colleague over who’s right may feel good at the moment. But you could lose a future battle when you may need her cooperation and support the most.

Insisting upon being right when disagreeing with your boss could be dearer.

It’s futile to win any argument by overpowering or silencing the other person. Even causal denigration and occasional microaggressions can eventually lead to feelings of alienation and anger.

The High Cost of Winning a Small Argument Conflicts sometimes evolve quickly from simple disagreements into high-stakes battles. So, before it’s too late, consider if taking a step back is wiser. Take the initiative and concede a point—even if you may end up losing the argument.

Seeking small glory now may only spoil your chance of bigger success in the future. Focus on the outcome—often, it’s the result that matters, not your role in it.

Idea for Impact: When you think you can nail someone with a winning argument, take a deep breath, and check if you could control your ego and back down. You may actually lose something small, but avoid losing something bigger.

How to Improve Your Relationship

May 12, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

We all want to have a healthy relationship. Sometimes we come across a scenario and are unsure if this is a “make it or break it” issue, or maybe there are other issues that need to be cleared up or improved. Whether married or in a new relationship there are some simple steps you can take to improve your relationship so that neither of you feels either “rushed” or “stuck” in your partnership.

Be the best you

The role of your partner is not to make you happy, but rather for the two of you to be mutual support for each other, to be the best you can be so you can become a better version of yourself. Yet we each like to be appreciated and speaking each other’s love language adds to the satisfaction felt in the relationship. This means showing your love and affection on significant dates.

Whether Valentine’s Day or a wedding anniversary, you can improve your relationship with a gift you know your beloved will appreciate. Even if you are not great with choosing gifts, there is a traditional anniversary gift list that can give you ideas from a framed photograph for your first anniversary represented by paper or a gold dipped rose for your 50th anniversary (or your 14th anniversary.) Your gift is a chance to celebrate the love and affection that you share each day.

Timescales

There is no rigid timescale for any relationship. You may meet, start dating immediately and be engaged in six months if you know yourself well enough to know what you want and don’t want; what works for you and what doesn’t. Simply put, the more you know yourself, the easier it will be to determine if a relationship is healthy and can be improved.

In contrast, waiting too long for relationship milestones can flag up a fear of commitment, which can be based on past hurts or other issues that need looking at. If the timing of relationship goals is different between the couple, there is a possibility now is not the right time for the couple to be together, since resolving past issues is critical so they don’t hurt the relationship in future.

Respect each other’s dignity

See your partner as an individual in their own right, and not simply with you to take care of your every wish. Honour each other’s history and unique story and ask questions of each other to find out something new. It can be easy for some people to see their partner as being in the relationship for their benefit, which kills a relationship over time.

Be considerate of your partner, honour their boundaries and be affectionate in a way you know they appreciate, from holding hands in public or going to bed together at the same time each night. This could as simple as deciding about your next monthly date night, whether you let her have her horror movie fix or instead share a new experience at a new local restaurant.

Keep your friendship

Within your romance, maintain your great friendship. It is your friendship that will weather all storms, being more important than physical attraction, personality matches, and shared values. Be grateful when they buy your favourite ice cream or clean your car and don’t see it as an expected duty.

Friendship is about being interdependent rather than independent or dependent and it is important to nurture that connection whilst maintaining our own unique identities within our coupledom. This means that you can tweak your schedule for dates that are important to them, leaving the gym earlier so you can see a movie premiere for example. Actively listen to what your partner is saying and if there is a challenging meeting coming up, make a note of the date and set a reminder for yourself so you can ask on the day how it went.

Have realistic expectations of each other. Accept that in relationships, mistakes will be made by both parties. Let go of old wounds and forgive mistakes that did not mean to cause hurt or harm. If you feel a bit stuck, talk with friends to resolve your feelings, they can also offer critical insights to help you on your way.

When One Person is More Interested in a Relationship

May 9, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The American sociologist Willard Waller coined the term “Principle of Least Interest” to describe how differences of commitment in a relationship can have a major effect on the relationship’s dynamics.

In The Family: A Dynamic Interpretation (1938,) Waller noted that, in any relationship (romantic, familial, business, buyer-seller, and so on) where one partner is far more emotionally invested than the other, the less-involved partner has more power in the relationship. In a one-sided romantic relationship, for example, the partner who loves less has more power.

Principle of Least Interest - One Person More Interested in a Relationship Moreover, appearing indifferent or uninterested is a common way by which people try to raise their own standing in a relationship. Recall the well-known “walk away” negotiation tactic—tell a used car salesman, “this just isn’t the deal that I’m looking for,” and he may call you the next day with a better offer.

An imbalanced relationship can only last for a while.

A nourishing relationship shouldn’t involve a constant struggle for power.

Idea for Impact: Watch out for relationships where the other seems to care less about the relationship than you do. Such relationships can drain you dry.

This is the Career Kiss of Death, according to Lee Iacocca

April 2, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Auto industry icon Lee Iacocca wrote in Iacocca: An Autobiography (1986,)

There’s one phrase that I hate to see on any executive’s [performance] evaluation, no matter how talented he may be, and that’s the line: “He has trouble getting along with other people.”

To me, that’s the kiss of death. “You’ve [the evaluator] just destroyed the guy,” I always think. “He can’t get along with people? Then he’s got a real problem, because that’s all we’ve got around here. No dogs, no apes—only people. And if he can’t get along with his peers, what good is he to the company? As an executive, his whole function is to motivate other people. If he can’t do that, he’s in the wrong place.”

A significant predictor of success in most professions is being easy to get along with. People who’re well-liked, work well with others, and help them do their jobs well will advance in any organization. Those who don’t usually don’t get as far.

Idea for Impact: Interpersonal relationships in the workplace are at the heart of the matter

Leadership is influence. Leadership isn’t about titles, positions, pedigree, distinction, or corner offices. A leader who can encourage, inspire, and direct others’ efforts will be effective in any endeavor.

If you’d like to exert more influence on your boss and inspire more cooperation from your peers and colleagues, work on being genuine, pleasant, sincere, easy to talk with, and friendly—without becoming desperate to please others.

Too, develop the antennae for what motivates people by respecting their ideas and values. That may sometimes necessitate holding back your own.

Read Dale Carnegie’s masterful manual on people skills, How to Win Friends & Influence People (1936.) Jeswald Salacuse’s Leading Leaders (2005; my summary) can help you expand your persuasive skills for situations where you may not have much influence over others.

Let’s Not Talk About Trump

March 9, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you feel like you’ve been overdosing on news and conversations related to politics and Trump, much to the exclusion of other meaningful subjects, try the “No Trump Rule” evoked by essayist Joseph Epstein in the Wall Street Journal:

Every Friday I meet for lunch with three or four friends from high school days. I instituted at these lunches what I called the No Trump Rule: ‘No’ not in the sense of being against Trump’s politics but against talking about him at all, for doing so seems to get everyone worked up unduly. The rule, I have to report, has been broken more than the Ten Commandments. No one, apparently, can stop talking about our president. The Trump talk quickly uses up most of the oxygen in any room where it arises, and can bring an argument to the shouting stage more quickly than a divorce settlement.

Look, I understand that everybody has been amped up to eleven since Trump emerged as the Republican Party’s nominee in May 2016, but some of us don’t want to talk about him—or politics.

I, for one, don’t think it’s a good idea for so much of our news, talk shows, and social media feeds to be devoted to a single subject for this long. Yes, Trump is a polarizing figure, and our country is so divided. But we don’t need to let him, and the anger he provokes, besiege every moment of our lives.

Awareness and activism are vital to civic duty, but hatred isn’t meaningful activism

I’m happy to listen to everybody’s opinions, but I’m fatigued by the extent to which politics dominates present-day exchanges. Ordinary conversations about routine topics tend to degenerate quickly with any evocation of the current state of affairs. Even banter about the weather (“the last refuge of the unimaginative” per Oscar Wilde) can quickly spiral into climate change, the environment, fossil fuels, oil, Russia, Putin, and so on.

More than anything else, I can’t bear the way most people currently think about politics—in particular, how ill-informed they tend to be. I am dismayed at people’s shallow understanding of the significant issues of the day—immigration, trade, nationalism, economic inequality, healthcare, etc. The stakes are high, and, given the depth of people’s political convictions, their anger is understandable. Nevertheless, the propensity to lash out against those with different views and dehumanize them is deplorable.

I will talk about politics with people who aren’t as much interested in winning an argument and convincing opposing people of the wrongness of their positions as they are about understanding more fully why others hold a particular conviction.

Our values, not politicians, should mold the policies and positions we support

Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers’ commendable I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations (2019) proposes a framework for having productive political discussions with those you love and yet disagree with.

Somewhere along the way we stopped disagreeing with each other and started hating each other. We are enemies, and our side is engaged in an existential battle for the very soul of the country. We are no longer working toward common goals. We are no longer building something together. Our sole objective is tearing the other side down. Nothing short of total victory is acceptable.

…

The reality is that we never stopped talking politics altogether—we stopped talking politics with people who disagree with us. We changed “you shouldn’t talk about politics” to “you should talk only to people who reinforce your worldview.” Instead of giving ourselves the opportunity to be molded and informed and tested by others’ opinions, we allowed our opinions and our hearts to harden.

The authors, hosts of a popular discussion-podcast, invite readers “to hear each other’s thoughts, to test our own beliefs against each other’s philosophies, and to better appreciate our own core beliefs by having to articulate and challenge those beliefs.” They emphasize an earnest curiosity for the counterargument and the open-mindedness to leave room for nuance:

Engaging with other people is never easy, but it always will be worth it. Engaging with other people about politics is no different. Let yourself take that chance. Let yourself rise to the challenge. Your ability to stretch and grow will surprise you, and so will the people around you. Once people see you as a person willing to have thoughtful, curious, calm discussions, you will have all kinds of interesting conversations that seemed impossible a year ago.

Postscript: Things are far more awkward in the workplace. Politics has always been a sensitive topic—but in today’s contentious climate, such conversations can rapidly escalate into arguments.

Don’t One-up Others’ Ideas

October 15, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

A manager who has the tendency to put his oar in his employees’ ideas ends up killing their ownership of ideas. This diminishes their motivation and performance.

When employees feel disrespected or unappreciated, survival instincts will kick in—employees turn inward and stop participating fully in their teams. It will only erode their commitment and led to poor results.

People Tend to Reject Ideas Offered by Others in Favor of Their Own

In the bestselling What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (2007,) the celebrated leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith describes this behavior as the tendency to “add too much value.”

If you’re inclined to get wrapped up in adding your two cents and improving the quality of an idea a little, you may devalue an employee’s commitment to execute the idea:

Imagine an energetic, enthusiastic employee comes into your office with an idea. She excitedly shares the idea with you. You think it’s a great idea. Instead of saying, “Great idea!” you say, “That’s a nice idea. Why don’t you add this to it?” What does this do? It deflates her enthusiasm; it dampers her commitment. While the quality of the idea may go up 5 percent, her commitment to execute it may go down 50 percent. That’s because it’s no longer her idea, it’s now your idea.

Don't One-up Others' Ideas

Effective Coaching is Helping Others Discover Insights

Focus on helping others discover insights—not by solving the problem for them, but by helping them improve how they’re thinking about the problem.

If you have an idea that the other must hear, don’t tell them immediately. Use Socratic questioning to tease the idea out of them.
Examine how you hand out ideas. Resist the temptation to add your advice. Before you propose an idea, pause and ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”
Avoid declarative statements such as “you should …” or “I think … .”
The higher up you go in an organization, the more your suggestions become interpreted as orders.
Don’t marginalize the concerns of your team members in the interest of moving your ideas forward. Ignoring employees’ inputs can send a message to the entire team that you’re not actually looking for their creative ideas, but that you’ve got your own agenda and just want them to rubberstamp it.
Get your team involved early. People are more motivated to do the things they have to do if they are part of the planning and strategy.

Idea for Impact: Improve your team performance by encouraging better thinking, not by handing out advice.

Don’t give unsolicited advice. Don’t make team decisions to which you—but nobody else—is committed. Learn to persuade others to see things your way by tapping into their talents, passions, and abilities.

Remember, being an effective manager is not about winning yourself; it’s about making other people winners.

Relationships

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Idea for Impact: Trust is reshaped—strengthened or undermined—in every encounter

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Be the best you

Timescales

Respect each other’s dignity

Keep your friendship

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Idea for Impact: Interpersonal relationships in the workplace are at the heart of the matter

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Awareness and activism are vital to civic duty, but hatred isn’t meaningful activism

Our values, not politicians, should mold the policies and positions we support

Wondering what to read next?

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People Tend to Reject Ideas Offered by Others in Favor of Their Own

Effective Coaching is Helping Others Discover Insights

Idea for Impact: Improve your team performance by encouraging better thinking, not by handing out advice.

Wondering what to read next?