Robust relationships – Nurturing effective relationship for Work Team

Robust relationships

Whether you have regular team meetings or communicate mainly in other ways, like e-mail, you need to nurture good relationships between the members of your team. 

Nurturing effective relationships

Here are some tips for developing good team relationships:

Value your members – make this explicit, for example, ‘Craig, I really enjoy your inputs’ and ‘You’ve made us all laugh again Sally; it’s really good for us.’

Encourage expressions of feelings, for example, ‘Caslav, you’re making some logical criticisms of the suggestion. What’s your gut feeling about it?’

Develop a spiral of trust. Get into the shoes of each of your team members. Really listen. Take some risks. If your intentions are genuine, your members will copy you and trust will develop.

Make sure criticism is confined to ideas, not directed at the person, for example, ‘I have to say I disagree strongly with Bianca’s idea’, rather than ‘I have to say I disagree strongly with Bianca’.

Address misunderstandings and conflict as they arise, otherwise, just like in personal relationships, they fester, leading to mistrust, anger, etc.

Now do this
What are the strengths of relationships in your team?
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Which aspects does your team need to work on?
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