This coming week, I am going to start a series of "every 60 days meetings" with the various departments where I work. I have promised a "teaching point" at each of these meetings, with a focus on teambuilding and relationships. Here is what I am planning to talk about this week. I'd love input on whether it makes sense and whether you think it will resonate well with folks. Thanks!

Think about the various relationships in your life. Spouse, kids, work, friends, extended family, clubs or groups you’re in. Now try, in your mind, to rate each of those on a scale from 1 – 10. “1” being a really lousy relationship to “10” being the most mutually satisfying relationship you can ever imagine.

Is anybody a 10 in all of the relationships we discussed? If you think you are then maybe we need to revisit our talk about Ego and Self Esteem from a few weeks ago.

No, none of us can consider ourselves to be at a “10” in every relationship in our life. Wouldn’t that be great though? It is something that we can strive for. And you know what old adage holds true with relationships? “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” We may like to blame relational problems on the other person but fact is, if that relationship is going to be anywhere close to a “10,” then it takes a lot of effort from both parties.

Let’s talk about some potential relationship issues. By the way, what I will be talking about is taken largely from a book called “Leadership and Self Deception.” It’s a great book on learning how to analyze and improve our relationships with others. The title makes almost no sense whatsoever so ignore that – the book is excellent.

Before we start looking at our relationships with each other, let’s look at relationships with our customers. Relationships with customers are always delicate. We probably need our customers more than they need us in most cases so that adds a special dimension as well. Another old adage – “the customer is always right” – may technically not be true but it is how the world operates. Additionally, I can get pretty emotional about relationships with customers. I know first-hand how valuable they are and how hard they are to earn and develop. Some of you may not remember this but I was the company’s entire outside sales department for several years. I would spend weeks at a time on the road, often doing a milk route of two or three thousand miles just hoping to find customers.

Let me look at an example of a situation where, let’s say, you can see a disagreement or issue with a customer brewing on the horizon. All sorts of misunderstandings can lead to this. It could be something concerning pricing, terms, or delivery. In any event, at some point it all comes to a head and the customer confronts me with it. To their way of thinking and from their paradigm, they feel slighted … like we haven’t kept our word or been fair to them. From our way of thinking, we have been very fair and the problem is that they didn’t take notice of a communication from us. Maybe they don’t read their mail from us or maybe they don’t even open it. Maybe they read it and don’t take it seriously. I don’t know but in any event, now we have a problem.

Now, it may look like I have two choices. I can take the hard line and say “Nope, this is how it is, customer. It’s not my fault if you don’t read things.” Or I could also just immediately cave and let them have it their way. This may sound odd but those two choices actually have the same outcome. Let me explain why …

If I draw the proverbial line in the sand, I am throwing up a wall around myself. In essence, I am telling the customer that I am not budging. What will their reaction be? Well, they can either cave in or they can dig in their heels and throw up their own wall. Want to guess which one they will usually do? You know the answer to that.

So, here we are, both us and the customer … heels dug in … two giant walls separating us. What will the outcome of that be? It’s going to be one of two things. We will either lose that customer or we will end up caving at some point, giving in entirely to them and limping forward with a relationship that has been badly damaged. Because of the importance our customers hold for us, you can guess which way we will eventually go. We will do whatever we can to save that relationship.

See why I said that, at the start of this conflict, the two choices – dig our heels in or cave – both actually have the same eventual outcome? Well, technically, digging your heels in – the option that you thought would protect you in the first place -- has the worst eventual outcome because in the end you end up with a very damaged relationship with that customer. Things will never be the same.

So, where does that leave us? Well, let’s look at where the relationship started to break down. It happened as soon as we threw up our wall, didn’t it? As soon as we did that, there was not going to be a good outcome. On the other hand, at that juncture, we had a third option and that was to work to strengthen the relationship with the customer by communicating openly that we had a misunderstanding, that we both were coming from different paradigms of thinking, and how can we find a happy medium to meet in the middle. Do you see how, for us, that is the best option? We save the relationship, and both walk away feeling fairly god about things.

Let’s apply this to relationships with our kids. Often, when they become teenagers, the same thing happens … heels get dug in, walls start going up, and there’s never a good outcome for either party. Now, don’t get me wrong – the relationship between parent and child is a lot different than that between customer and vendor in that there are indeed points where parents need to dig their heels in and take a hard stance but, in parenting, you’re best to choose your battles carefully. Don’t try to win every battle knowing that it will eventually lead to losing the war, if you know what I mean. If you choose to battle on every issue with your child, what happens? You suddenly have the Great Wall of China separating the two of you and there ain’t no way you’re getting through that.

Let’s look at relationships between co-workers. This should be interesting. A common complaint in the workplace is that one team member feels another isn’t pulling their weight. I wish I had a dime for every time that has come up around this place over the years. Unfortunately, because of the walls that are built, that ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let’s take a look at it …

Okay, let’s say that Bob doesn’t feel that Sherry is pulling her weight around the office. What does he do about that? Really, what does he do about it? Well, the first thing he usually tries to do is triangulate matters. He tries to pull someone else into the issue. His thought is something like this: “Well, Sherry and Kate go out to lunch on Fridays. Maybe if I talk to Kate about how upset I am with Sherry, then they can talk about it at lunch and things will be allll happy after that.” Yeah, right! Do you see what just happened? Now instead of just one relationship needing attention – Bob’s and Sherry’s, we have intensely complicated matters by adding two more relationships. Bob’s and Kate’s, and Kate’s with Sherry. Now Bob has even more opportunities for giant walls to be built, communications to break down, and relationships to end badly. Bob has even put his own relationship with Kate at risk because Kate may very well happen to think Sherry is a very good worker.

But, let’s say that, despite the risk, Bob goes ahead and triangulates anyway and gets Kate involved. Kate talks to Sherry and that usually will sound something like “Bob really has it in for you so you’d better watch your step around him!” Holy cow! Is that what Bob wanted to have happen? No, Bob really hoped that things would get better. Instead what’s happened? Sherry has now thrown up a wall between herself and Bob that is equally thick as the one he already built and it’s going to take an Act of Congress to chip away at that wall even the tiniest little bit. If Sherry could indeed stand some improvement in her workplace performance, do you think there’s anyway she’s really going to make an attempt, knowing that that would just prove Bob’s point in the first place? No way. Sadly, that isn’t the way things work.

If, on the other hand, Bob would have reached out to Sherry in the first place – as a friend – and built that relationship before throwing up a wall, then one of a couple of things would have happened. Bob, being an exemplary team member himself, (smile) would have rubbed off on Sherry a bit and improved her performance or Bob would have gotten to know Sherry and maybe decided that he really had misunderstood her and her job and responsibilities. Maybe Sherry does need some improvement in her work habits or maybe she doesn’t. (Well, we all could use some, I am sure.) But Bob is not going to bring about improvement by throwing up his own wall, which results in her putting up a wall and neither is he going to improve things by triangulating the relationship. Triangulation just gives more opportunities for walls and problems.

Now, think about the relationships in your life. Think about the ones that you ranked earlier as being at or close to lousy. Do you see how walls have been built by both you and the other person, resulting in things being where they are today? Do you see how the old adage “If it’s to be, it’s up to me” applies to trying to rescue that relationship? I hope you do.

Some people are going to be very uncomfortable with some of the things I just talked about … to some of us, it is a very black and white world. Usually in relationships that means “I’m right and you’re wrong.” What I just talked about throws a lot of gray into relationships though … but those gray areas are the times when you use your “gray matter” to carefully handle relationships and look for positive outcomes rather than set yourself up for negative outcomes.

I suspect that you all have several questions … let’s talk about them.