5. Building a Strong Foundation

It is never too soon to start building a foundation for a strong relationship, as my colleague Gary’s first days working at a new company demonstrated. Without waiting for anyone to arrange an introduction, Gary went to the technical-support group office and introduced himself to the staff members. They chatted for a while and had a few laughs. In the process, these support staff members came to know him before he needed their help; they, in turn, had a chance to explain their services to him. Members of the group later commented to me that this was the first time anyone had ever come by just to meet them. Usually, they explained, employees ignored the support group until they had a problem. Urgency was the defining attribute of most employees who contacted them.

By connecting with technical-support staff members as people first and as sources of support only later, Gary developed an excellent relationship with them. He came to appreciate their issues, pressures, and priorities. They, in turn, were eager to provide him with help when he needed it, even when they were overloaded with other demands. Unlike many people, Gary recognized that win-win relationships develop neither automatically nor instantaneously. He appreciated that a relationship stands a better chance of developing smoothly and amicably if the first contact between the two parties isn’t in the form of “Gimme, gimme!” or “I need it yesterday!” or “I’m stuck! Come help me. Now!”

In this chapter, we’ll see how early and frequent use of direct communication can help people work together successfully. It is in this part of the process that the important foundation for strong relationships is built.

In the dream, I really liked this title. I liked it even more when I woke up and realized that the title had real meaning in the context of this chapter. Indeed, we will be more successful in working together if we work together at working together. (I woke up before I noticed who the author was. I like to think it was me.)

“Working together, together” involves collaboratively and proactively taking steps that will facilitate cooperation. To be successful, relationships must be built on a foundation of understanding, trust, and respect—factors that make it possible to persist and triumph amid the changing priorities, unceasing uncertainties, and confusion that are inevitable in any important undertaking.

Disagreements are rampant in the workplace—how many have you experienced just since Tuesday? But although some amount of conflict is normal in any relationship, and is inevitable in complex efforts, any undertaking can be derailed by prolonged, excessive, or unresolved conflict. Conflict is likely to occur more frequently and to be more difficult to resolve in the absence of a strong foundation. And, difficult as it is to believe when deadlines loom large and the ticking of the clock sounds like a jackhammer, developing a strong foundation takes far less time than repairing a relationship damaged by its absence.

The experience of a project team I corresponded with not long ago typifies what happens so often: At the start of a major project that I refer to as Ramp-Up, each of the dozen team members knew some of the others but only a few knew everyone. Given their shared history in the company and their related project experience, they felt a sense of connection with each other even though they’d never worked together as a team of twelve.

Driven by their enthusiasm for developing the product, all twelve team members dove right into the project, taking no time to compare expectations, find common ground, establish norms, or clarify how they wanted to function as a team. Conflict quickly surfaced, with heated disagreements arising about both the project and the way team members were interacting in carrying out their responsibilities. Tension mounted, increased, and then intensified. These people, who truly cared about each other and about their work, at no point took time to discuss what was happening, how they could learn from it, and how they might proceed differently.

Despite this nearly intolerable experience, the team completed the project on time and, judging from customer feedback, the product was a huge success. But most team members found the experience extremely distressing and one they wanted never to repeat. How different their experience might have been if they had focused on building a foundation to ensure that their relationship would succeed along with their project.

I learned some unforgettable lessons about trust and strong foundations when my husband and I decided to build a small ski house in a rural Vermont town that had a neighborly way of doing business. Although we planned to do most of the construction ourselves, we hired a local fellow to put in the foundation. As a child, I had the concept pounded into me that having a contract is a must for such work, but our builder didn’t present us with one. When I asked him, “Don’t you think we ought to have a contract?” he said, “That’s okay, I trust you.” Here I was, wondering if we could trust him, and he thought we were concerned that he didn’t trust us. Putting our big-city nervousness aside, we proceeded without a contract. In the end, both the foundation and the relationship were perfect.

Normally, of course, just as building the foundation for a house takes time and energy, it takes time and energy to build the foundation for a relationship. We might have built our Vermont house on the cold, damp earth, but it wouldn’t have been long before we’d have needed to put in more time, effort, and expense for repairs to an unstable house than we needed to build the house in the first place. Similarly, undertaking an important venture without building a foundation seems expeditious until conflict and excessive tension disrupt both the effort and the relationship. For both houses and relationships, a foundation confers stability and longevity.

Building a foundation for a relationship is worthwhile even for interactions that are transient, trivial, or infrequent. People who invest in future relationships stand to benefit, as Gary did when his need for technical support materialized. And sometimes, that investment requires little more of a person than stopping by to say hello, as Gary did, or showing someone some thoughtful attention. While taking little effort, such gestures often have a huge impact on those on the receiving end.

Early in my career, a wise colleague advised me, “Be nice to everyone; you never know who your next boss will be.” How valuable this advice proved to be when a major reorganization at the company where I worked created unimagined combinations of reporting relationships. For months thereafter (or so it seemed), most of us walked around saying to each other, “I know that either I work for you or you work for me, but I’m not sure which.” Those who had previously taken some small steps to develop understanding, trust, and respect had an advantage in coping with the new organizational relationships.

In other situations, though, the people involved in a work environment gradually and imperceptibly (or, in some cases, quickly and visibly!) become mired in faultfinding, blaming, and other incongruent behavior. When that happens, gaps between what people hope for and what they experience on a project emerge sooner, become bigger, and take longer to close. Even if people achieve their project goals, their sense of gratification is often diminished by the turmoil they experienced—as the Ramp-Up team learned firsthand. It is precisely to avoid this turmoil that starting the foundation-building as early in the effort as possible is just plain good sense. If you’re already in a relationship that’s immersed in conflict, “as early as possible” means now.

One of the flaws in the Ramp-Up project was that team members didn’t appreciate the importance of creating a foundation. Because they weren’t complete strangers when they came together, they erroneously assumed that they could just dive into the project—and perhaps they could have if their first project had been a simple Donut Acquisition and Distribution effort. But they had never even tackled a trivial project together, let alone a complicated one. They had never worked—or even played—as a group.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that your next group undertaking can avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, and serious stress in the absence of a foundation. It’s not impossible that you can do so, but it is unlikely.

At the heart of foundation-building is communication that helps the parties do the following:

• Make contact.

• Find common ground.

• Laugh together.

• Build rapport.

• Establish group norms.

• Manage expectations.

• Develop understanding.

• Make time to talk.

• Meet face-to-face.

Depending on the nature of your work, your foundation-building efforts may focus on all of the above, or just a few.

Select the ones that fit your unique circumstances, and you’ll be well on your way to creating a strong foundation.

These imaginary duffel bags can help us grasp the complexity of establishing meaningful connections. In her writings, the family therapist Virginia Satir emphasized that connections must be made in a way that enables understanding, trust, and respect to emerge within a context of safety. To provide a starting point for creating meaningful connections, Satir offered three questions that are readily adaptable to organizational settings and that serve as a catalyst for “making contact”:

1. How did you happen to come here?

2. What do you expect will happen here?

3. What do you hope to accomplish here?¹

¹ Virginia Satir, Conjoint Family Therapy (Palo Alto, Calif.: Science and Behavior Books, 1983), p. 141. See also Virginia Satir, Making Contact (Millbrae, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1976) and www.satir.org.

Notice that the first question elicits information about events from the past; the second, the present; and the third, the future. All three questions provide a starting point to help you determine what’s important to the person or group with whom you’re trying to communicate.

What appeals to me about these questions is that they allow people to reveal as much or as little about themselves as they wish while establishing, at the least, a rudimentary connection. For example, suppose that a group of people who have never met before are waiting for a class to begin, and someone asks, “How did you happen to come here?” One person might explain that he has applied for a new job that requires the kind of background this class could supply. Another might talk about a major life-transition that made this the right time to attend the class. A third, not wishing to disclose personal information, might simply say, “United Airlines, by way of Chicago.” People can respond to the questions based on their own level of comfort and safety.

These questions can be adapted to fit a variety of situations. For example, suppose you’re a new member of a team and you are trying to connect with your teammates. In chatting with one or another of them, you might ask,

1. How did you come to join this team?

2. What is it like being part of this team?

3. What are you hoping the team will accomplish this year?

If you’re already comfortable with a teammate, you might ask more probing questions that elicit deeper insight into the person and the context, such as,

1. What surprised you most when you first joined this team?

2. What’s the best part of being a member of this team?

3. Is there something you’d like to see this team achieve that you doubt will ever happen?

Keep in mind that these questions are only intended as a guide. You can skip some, add your own, ask them in any sequence, or pick just one and let the conversation flow from there. If you find these questions helpful in initiating dialogue, use them; whatever emerges creates an initial connection and may also provide the context for extended discussion.

You can also pose these questions to customers you’re meeting for the first time, such as by asking,

1. How did you come to be in this department?

2. What is it like doing this kind of work?

3. What will be your biggest challenge during the next few months?

Such questions are part of people-first relationship-building; they show your interest in the customer as a human being, and many customers respond enthusiastically to this attention. As a result, these questions can help to build a connection before the more formal work-related communication begins.

To gain insight into a customer’s mindset at the start of a project, you might ask,

1. What kinds of experiences have you had with projects of this nature?

2. How is it for you to be undertaking this project?

3. What concerns do you have about this project?

Granted, these might not be the questions you would want to lead with in your first conversation with a customer, but when the time is right, these questions can help you understand the customer’s history with past projects and fears regarding the current project. Knowing of a troubled history might suggest a different way of proceeding so as to improve your chance of succeeding with the current effort.

You can also adapt the questions for use in assessing customer satisfaction. For example:

1. How would you describe the service you’ve received from us this past year?

2. What are you currently most pleased about and most frustrated about in working with us?

3. Can you identify something you’d like us to keep the same and something you’d like us to change over the next year?

The Ramp-Up team might have begun its project by holding a discussion revolving around these three questions:

1. How did you come to be on this team?

2. How is it for you to be part of this project?

3. What are your expectations and concerns about this project and your involvement in it?

In some of my classes, I use a quick exercise to demonstrate how much people have in common. I invite participants to form groups of four-to-six people. I then give each group ten minutes to come up with at least three nonobvious things that all members of the group have in common. The more clever and creative, the better.

At first, people look stunned at the thought of detecting anything at all in common in only ten minutes. Then they get to work, noisily comparing notes on their favorite foods, movies, hobbies, travel destinations—you name it! They later report similarities such as obstreperous kids, a fondness for take-out, an addiction to auction Websites, or exasperating experiences with their Internet-service providers. I remember one group whose members said they all spoke at least one language. Another reported discovering that none of them could sing on key (I challenged them to prove it, and they were right!). My favorite was the group of five people who each had feared my seminar was going to be a dreary, lecture-oriented class—no one was happier than I when they confirmed their fears were unfounded. Whew!

In only ten minutes, these groups identified numerous shared interests and experiences—both serious and zany—as well as many more things that were interesting, even if not common to everyone in the group. Although I challenge people to find three things they have in common, most groups come up with many more than the three. When put to the test, people accept the challenge. They abandon their defenses and strive to find ways in which they’re alike. The very process of being silly together gives them something in common.

Invariably, while searching for what they have in common, people learn a lot they didn’t know previously about each other—even if they’d been coworkers for years. How amazing it is that people who work together can be so connected, yet remain so disconnected. Discovering similarities helps not only in building or strengthening good relationships, but also in repairing damaged ones. What do you have in common with the person at the next desk? the managers with whom you interact? your least favorite customer? You probably have more in common than you think. Find out, and watch your foundation develop.

² Bernie DeKoven focuses on the art of bringing more fun to work and play. See www.DeepFun.com.

Laughter is very high on my list of ingredients that are essential to building strong relationships. Indeed, a workweek without some fun, playfulness, and lightheartedness will strain even the most committed worker. In the right atmosphere, laughter can make communication easier even among strangers, as I observed during a Weinberg & Weinberg “Problem Solving Leadership Workshop” that I led with Jerry Weinberg.³ As everyone sat in a circle during the opening segment, a participant commented on the difficulty he had remembering other people’s names. Jerry suggested we try a memory technique, and asked the person to his left to state his name and something he considered interesting about himself. Then Jerry asked the person sitting to the left of the first speaker to repeat what had just been said, and then to add her own name and a tidbit about herself, and so on, around the circle. Get the picture? Each successive person had to repeat what each preceding person had said and then add his or her own information until the last person had repeated the names and interests of everyone in the circle—and then added her own.

³ Problem Solving Leadership (PSL) was a week-long experiential workshop designed by Jerry and Dani Weinberg, of which I was a faculty member for many years.

This delightful technique provided a quick way for strangers to learn about each other. Without it, I might never have known that this group included a wind surfer, a wine connoisseur, a soccer dad, a painter, and a motorcycle enthusiast.⁴ But as it turned out, this technique did much more than merely help people identify names and hobbies. An amazing thing happened. We began to know each other, laughing with each other as we learned about each other. By the time we had gone around the circle, we were no longer strangers. We felt connections that we didn’t have at the start.

⁴ My thanks to the PSL class of September 2000 for a memorable experience.

This experience could easily fit in several of the other sections in this chapter—it illustrates a way to make contact, find common ground, develop understanding, and so on. But this is a section on laughter. And I’ll never forget all the laughing we did that week. I don’t mean an occasional giggle or chuckle. Laughter filled the room during our opening go-around and continued throughout the entire week. With no prodding on Jerry’s or my part, this group had made levity a defining characteristic. Participants may not have viewed that laughter as communication, but it was. Furthermore, not only did the heightened levity not diminish learning, it seemed to enhance it. At the end of the workshop, participants described how deeply they had learned important lessons about themselves, about problem-solving, and about leadership.

The laughter that characterized this unplanned opening activity contributed greatly to the ability of this group to connect quickly, to interact readily, and to build trust rapidly. We had created the beginning of a foundation on which to spend the week together. Did this activity prevent conflicts, disagreements, and personality clashes? Certainly not, but foundation-building entails doing a variety of things, and this one thing called laughter contributed to a remarkable experience.

When you laugh with a stranger, you begin to know each other. When you laugh with a friend or colleague, your relationship deepens. And when you laugh with a person you’re angry at, it’s difficult to hold onto that anger.

While we were chatting, I noticed that Max’s walls featured several framed photos of little kids happily engaged in little-kid activities. I stopped probing for details about the work challenges he was facing and asked, “Who are all these adorable kids?” Instantly, his demeanor changed from cool and distant to warmly paternal as he transformed from a serious professional into a proud papa. Max beamed as he told me that two of the kids in each photo were his (of course!); the rest were cousins, neighbors, and friends. He loved kids, he told me with a broad grin (the first smile I’d seen from him), adding that he hoped in the not-too-distant future to find a way to work with them, instead of being trapped in what he referred to as “a stifling corporate dungeon.”

This glimpse into the human side of Max gave me insight into what he cared about, and that information helped us to connect. From time to time thereafter, I inquired about his kids, sent him articles about interesting kid-doings, and pointed out clever kid-toys that I’d discovered. He remained reserved, downplaying the challenges he faced at work, but any mention of kids—especially his own—brought a huge smile to his face that told me where he really lived.

Building rapport is often as simple as looking around, noticing what you see, and commenting on it. Some people know intuitively how to do this. If you do, you have a powerful communication tool at your disposal. But even if you aren’t lucky enough to have this intuitive sense, just keep in mind that people love to talk about the things that matter most to them. Give them the opportunity to do so, notice how their eyes light up, and you’ll know you’ve connected.

The process of establishing group norms at the start of a major undertaking is crucial in foundation-building because it allows people to express what’s important to them. Conversely, when groups neglect to establish norms, they lack the context for discussing concerns about individual and group behavior—and they suffer the consequences. Jean McLendon, a therapist and trainer in the teachings of Virginia Satir, notes, “If we don’t set norms up front, we tend to not do them later on till there’s a crisis. Without norm-setting, disconnects occur, feelings are not recognized, vulnerabilities are not accepted, and more dysfunction occurs in the group. We must learn to do this work on the front end before we get into trouble.”⁵ It has been my experience as well that establishing norms as early in the relationship as possible is a key to its future success.

⁵ Jean McLendon, Year-Long Satir Systems Training, March 30, 2001, sponsored by the Satir Institute of the Southeast (www.satirsystems.com).

Some people use terms such as “ground rules” or “guidelines” rather than “norms.” My own preference is norms. To me, the term “ground rules” sometimes sounds like a mandate, a way that people must be; whereas “norms” suggests a way that people will strive to behave—a desired state rather than a must-do command. And guidelines, for me, seem akin to a list of how-to’s. In your own context, use whatever term fits best; you’ll have a better chance of successfully introducing and implementing processes such as this one if you adapt the terminology to fit your own culture.

A group can create norms in several ways. For example, one approach is to have each person in the group identify a norm to be listed on a flip chart, going around to each person as many times as needed until no one has any other norms to suggest. Another approach is to split the group into teams of two or three people and have each team create its own list, which later can be compiled into a master list. A third approach is for each person to prepare his or her own list of desired norms to be submitted to a facilitator for compilation and posting.

It’s important that group members create their own list from scratch rather than relying on another group’s list. Using a preexisting list may make group members feel that the norms have been foisted on them rather than selected by them. In any case, the process of creating norms together is a valuable team-building activity.

One typical list of norms created by a group I worked with included the following:

• Respect each other’s views.

• Withhold judgment and hear each other out.

• Try to resolve problems without blaming.

• Let everyone have a say.

• Don’t interrupt while someone is talking.

• Start and end on time.

• Ask for help if you need it.

• If you don’t understand, ask questions.

• Offer help if you think it’s needed.

• If asked to do something you’d rather not do, feel free to say no.

• If you have an issue with someone, address it directly with that person.

• Appreciate others for their efforts.

• Notice what we’ve done well, not just what we’ve done wrong.

• Accept all group members’ views as real and important to them.

Norms such as those listed above are appropriate in most group settings. You may also want to identify norms that are unique to your own situation. Writing about his determination to banish jokes and teasing among colleagues during end-of-project review sessions, Project Retrospectives author Norman Kerth notes, “Sometimes, humor can be used to communicate endearment, but sometimes it is used to humiliate. As a facilitator from outside the organization, I can’t always tell the difference. Furthermore, there may be times when someone in the retrospective is feeling vulnerable and even gentle kidding might be taken as an insult.”⁶ Therefore, when working with members of a retrospective group to establish norms, Kerth adds to the list an item about refraining from using humor at someone else’s expense, and invites everyone’s cooperation.

⁶ Norman L. Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews (New York: Dorset House Publishing, 2001), p. 21. See www.retrospectives.com.

After collecting everyone’s proposed norms, group members can discuss their reactions. In addition to eliminating redundancies, they also may note some items that seem to be contradictory. In one group, for example, one norm stated,

We’ll respect and adhere to the agenda we’ve set.

Another one said,

We will not cut off the resolution of important issues simply in order to stick to the agenda.

Discussion of this apparent contradiction revealed that the two people who had suggested those norms weren’t as far apart as they had thought. The fellow who wanted to adhere to the agenda was tired of meetings in which the direct route through the agenda regularly gave way to side trips, detours, and rest stops. The woman concerned about resolving important issues had just come off a project in which discussion of such issues was repeatedly cut short simply to preserve the schedule.

After the two described their concerns and the experiences they didn’t want to relive, they agreed to combine the two norms to read: “We’ll adhere to our agenda, provided we don’t arbitrarily cut short the resolution of important issues.” In subsequent meetings, when the schedule was occasionally scrapped in the interest of resolving important issues, no one was upset. They had established a norm that permitted them to both honor their schedule and allow for exceptions to it.

Contradictions among norms can often reveal people’s individual preferences. For example, during the first meeting of a particular project team, one attendee said that when he appeared to be distressed, he wanted help from others in reducing his distress. Another person quickly responded that when she was upset, she wanted to be left alone to work it out for herself. She asked that people not try to help her unless she requested their help. In effect, one person was saying “Help me when I’m down,” while the other was saying, “Don’t help me when I’m down.”

The discussion that followed created awareness that asking others to identify their preference is better than assuming that what they want matches your own preference. A group can post seemingly contradictory norms, recognizing that they represent the views of different people. After noticing several norms that seemed to contradict each other, members of this particular group posted one final norm: “Let’s remember that we are unique individuals with unique perspectives and preferences.”

In practice, people can often lose sight of these norms. But the very process of establishing them enables group members to publicly acknowledge and remind each other of the behavior they value. Furthermore, the very existence of these norms—particularly if they are posted as a reminder to all—gives everybody in the group permission to gently point out any deviation. Changes and additions may be made at any time, as long as the entire group agrees to them.

⁷ For more on the subject of expectations, see my book Managing Expectations: Working with People Who Want More, Better, Faster, Sooner, NOW! (New York: Dorset House Publishing, 1994).

The most serious flaw I see in the way people manage expectations is that they don’t. That is, people move forward without talking about what is expected from and by each person involved, and why. Down the road—sometimes far down the road—they discover that they’ve embarked on different, even conflicting, missions. No amount of communication will help people become 100 percent in sync if they’re determined to remain apart; even in the best of cases, 88 percent might be as good as it gets. But if the parties are unable to create shared, or at least compatible, expectations, they’ll be much better off if they discover this fact early on.

In one scenario that I observed, two groups—let’s call them WeHaveIt and WeWantIt—were surprised to discover how far apart they were in their vision of a joint venture they had agreed to undertake. WeWantIt had a desire to implement in its domain a product that WeHaveIt had developed for a domain very different from that of WeWantIt. To use the product successfully required extensive training and experience, a requirement met by none of WeWantIt’s personnel. Nevertheless, driven by enthusiasm about its potential, WeWantIt immediately focused attention on logistics: the implementation date, the selection of the initial users, the design of a pilot, even the rollout to a larger user base once the pilot was complete.

The WeHaveIt representative had a very difficult time focusing the dialogue on WeWantIt’s expectations. It eventually became clear that WeWantIt envisioned a financial and ownership arrangement that the WeHaveIt management had no interest in offering. It also became clear that WeWantIt seriously misunderstood the customization, marketing, sales, and support implications of implementing the product in its domain. No wonder the members of WeWantIt were so focused on logistics; they believed the product’s implementation entailed little more than deciding where to plug it in. The two groups had vastly different expectations about what was feasible, desirable, and achievable. Fortunately, they discovered their irreconcilable differences before spending real money, although the effort had cost them in terms of time. Not everyone is so lucky.

Comparing expectations at the outset of a new relationship can be difficult. The context may not be well enough understood to allow you to even know what to ask. But even in such a situation, there are some questions you can ask that can help you compare expectations, such as,

• What will you be looking for when this work is completed so that you feel it’s been successful?

• What is the most important aspect of this product for you?

• What is important to you about how we work with you on this project?

• What do you expect of us?

• What are your criteria for success?

People don’t often consider these questions before embarking on an effort, but visiting and revisiting them can help you determine whether people are able to work together. It’s equally important for people within an existing relationship to discuss their expectations before setting forth on a new venture. Otherwise, they may discover, after they’re well on their way, that they differ both on the goal and the process they want to follow to achieve it.

Managing expectations isn’t just about responding to the needs of the other party; it’s also about what you want, need, and hope for from the effort, both professionally and personally. It’s hard to meet the expectations of others if you can’t meet your own. Writing in Coping with Fuzzy Projects about being powered by objectives that excite him, David Schmaltz notes, “. . . I am not so depleted by my effort to conquer them. When I forget to dedicate the effort to my own best interest, these encounters just exhaust me.”⁸

⁸ David A. Schmaltz, Coping with Fuzzy Projects: Stories of Utter Ignorance, Theologic Wars, and Unseen Possibilities (Portland, Oreg.: True North pgs, 2000), p. 14. See also www.projectcommunity.com.

A key to success in foundation-building is for people to begin to know each other outside the context of their daily responsibilities. Accordingly, the activities and discussions I scheduled for the first day were designed to allow the participants to work in various groupings to compare ideas, solve problems, and laugh together. These sessions enabled individuals to connect with people they didn’t know and to strengthen their connection with those they did, including, as is common in these sessions, coworkers they knew, but knew little about.

On day two, I focused attention on ways to foster a deeper level of communication, emphasizing what the participants could do to strengthen their ability to work together. Midday, I invited the information-technology personnel to form one group and their clients to form a second group, and then instructed the two large groups to divide into smaller groups to discuss the following questions with regard to the other division:

• What don’t you understand about their policies, responsibilities, and activities?

• What puzzles you?

• What have you always wanted to ask, but never had the occasion?

I then invited each subgroup to report back to the entire group and to engage in whatever discussion the reassembled IT and client personnel thought appropriate. What followed was fascinating. For each item that the clients described as puzzling or confusing, someone in the IT group eagerly offered an explanation, clarification, or source of information. Similarly, the clients willingly responded to the IT group’s questions and sources of confusion. If you were a fly on the wall, you would have heard people saying things like, “I can explain that,” or “Let’s schedule some time next week so I can step you through the procedure.” In a few cases (and usually with a laugh), people said, “It’s no wonder you don’t understand—we’re pretty confused about it ourselves.”

For the first time, it became permissible to publicly admit that they didn’t know everything about the other’s environment—or even their own. Within a strikingly short period of time, members of both groups felt safe revealing to each other the things they had always wanted to know about the other, but felt too uncomfortable to ask. Their rule for commenting had changed from “Don’t reveal what you don’t know,” to “If you don’t know, ask.” In short order, both asking for and offering help became unspoken norms.

I posed another question for them to discuss in their subgroups and then report to the full group:

• What can you do to help them better understand your policies, responsibilities and activities?

The responses of the IT and client groups were remarkably similar. For example, each group invited members of the other group to attend their staff meetings and visit their department to observe work in progress. Each offered to review their procedures with the other, to set aside time to answer nonurgent questions, and even to pair up so that anyone who needed clarification of a particular issue could call on a designated member of the other group for help.

Furthermore, some major insights surfaced regarding each division’s priorities. For example, when an IT project manager challenged the client’s responsiveness, he was shocked to learn the reason as the manager of the client group replied, “Information technology is one-hundred percent of what you do. But it reflects only ten percent of what we do. We have many other priorities that you’re not aware of.” What an eye-opener! This revelation led to a discussion of ways the IT division could work to make better use of the client’s limited time. Such a discussion would have been most unlikely in the normal course of events. But now, even though no one told them to do so, the two groups began to communicate on how they could work together more efficiently.

In fewer than 48 hours, the two groups made great strides in building a foundation for a strong relationship. A year later, the division managers reported that the foundation stood strong. I firmly believe that all groups have it within themselves to do the same.

It’s difficult to build or strengthen relationships amidst the projects, problems, and chaos of daily work life. It’s even harder to fix a broken relationship while the parties are bogged down in troubleshooting, priority-juggling, or crisis resolution. At such times, the immediate need is to respond to the situation. But most people would really prefer to get along with each other rather than do battle, and when given the opportunity, they will find ways to help each other. In the process, they are likely to find ways to help themselves.

When I suggested using this type of informal communication to a group I was working with, a network specialist said he didn’t have time to meet with all his customers. His point was indisputably true if the idea was to meet with every customer every day, or even every week or month. But did he have time to meet with one or two customers each week for a brief conversation? He certainly did! His office was located on-site at the customers’ plant, barely a one-minute walk from their desks!

A manager in one of my conference workshops voiced a similar concern. He said he already worked nine-hour days. How could he possibly find any additional time to spend with his customers? I put the question to the rest of the group: “Can he afford to spend time with his customers?” The response was immediate: “He can’t afford not to.”

The network specialist and the manager had valid concerns: Who among us has an abundance of free time? But they didn’t understand that checking in periodically with customers and spending time with them is an investment in a relationship that ultimately saves time. And happily, the challenge isn’t to do a lot of it, but to do a little of it systematically and regularly. In building relationships, every little bit helps.

How much time together do the parties to a relationship need? In the essay “Life as a Software Architect,” Bob King offers a way to think about this question: the Visibility Ratio.⁹ King describes this ratio as the time you actually spend with a given party in comparison to the time you ought to spend. You are the judge of the latter. At the start of a relationship, you might not know how much time is appropriate, and certainly, this amount of time is likely to vary over the course of a project or the delivery of a service. But if you’re spending an hour a month when you ought to be spending something closer to one day a week, the disparity ought to attract your attention. What is the ratio in your situation?

⁹ Bob King, “Life as a Software Architect,” Amplifying Your Effectiveness: Collected Essays, eds. Gerald M. Weinberg, James Bach, and Naomi Karten (New York: Dorset House Publishing, 2000), pp. 48–49. See also www.rc-king.com.

King notes that the Visibility Ratio can also help you gauge whether you are spending time with the “wrong” people, relative to your responsibilities, or whether you are failing to spend time with the “right” people—customer management, for example, rather than with frontline users; or with your teammates rather than with your superiors. Let this Visibility Ratio be your guide.

Not only do people rarely take the time to talk with each other when they are discussing problems and projects, they rarely take the time to talk about anything other than the project or problem. As a result, communication gaps form as each individual or group feels misunderstood. Yet something magical happens when people cease to view each other strictly as roles and titles, and start to view each other as people who have needs, fears, and hopes much like their own.

This kind of magic occurred among three groups I worked with. All three needed to interact with each other to support their customers, but they were mired in conflict. Members of each group saw the other two groups as major impediments to their ability to get the job done. To help them improve their relationship, I had them split into small groups, with each made up of people from the three original groups. Their assignment was to discuss various issues that I specified that revolved around their support challenges, and then to reunite to discuss the topic as one group.

The behavior of these three groups was fairly typical: Once people started talking, they came to see that the problems they’d been experiencing were due, at least in part, to the fact that they had never before spent time together to share and compare perspectives. They realized that they had much more in common than they had differences. They also discovered that there were valid explanations for many of the problems they had blamed on each other. Furthermore, some of these problems could be quickly and easily resolved; others required more effort, but were far from insurmountable.

For their final small-group activity, I suggested that they discuss what they saw as their next steps. Members of each subgroup independently decided that they wanted to continue their conversations on their own. In a full-group debriefing session, they compared ideas on how to make that happen.

The initial discussions among the three groups marked the starting point in smoothing the bumps in their relationship. Despite the success of their discussions, one fellow in the group lamented, as he left, “We spent all this time together and all we did was communicate.” Indeed, if only more groups would spend time together in which all they do is communicate!

¹⁰ Ellen Gottesdiener, Requirements by Collaboration: Workshops for Defining Needs (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2002). See also www.ebgconsulting.com.

In the absence of trust, a relationship can become adversarial before it has ever had a chance to become mutually supportive. Unfortunately, this is an exceedingly common scenario. For example, a customer group had a nagging problem that could be eliminated by means of some straightforward programming modifications. When I asked group members why they didn’t just contact their IT group for assistance, they unleashed a stream of invectives to describe the IT group. In their view, the IT folks were untrustworthy, undependable, disagreeable, and for the most part, inconsiderate, incompetent ignoramuses.

Granted, these customers had experienced a significant amount of frustration in their interactions with the IT group. Nevertheless, to hear them tell it, the IT group did everything wrong and nothing right. But this reaction was merely the symptom of a larger problem. When I inquired further, I discovered that most of the people in this customer group had never met anyone in the IT organization. Some of them had communicated with IT personnel by phone, fax, and e-mail, but because the IT group was located several states away, face-to-face meetings between most of the people in the two groups had never occurred.

Still, the vehemence with which customer group members spewed negatives made me wonder whether their description could just possibly be accurate. I began to visualize a group of people aggressively plotting to make their customers’ lives difficult. That was my image, at least until I visited the IT group myself. Fearful of what I might find, I arrived wearing an emotional coat of armor, just in case these folks decided to be as nasty to me as they’d apparently been to their customers. I looked around cautiously. Where were the nasty people? Where were the plotting masses?

I met numerous members of the IT organization. They were good, decent, hardworking people who wanted nothing more than to do right by their customers. They admitted that their service quality had slipped badly following a wallop of a reorganization, and that the impact on both humans and technology had indeed been colossal. “Our service stinks,” one member of the IT division told me frankly.

Yet, even when they had corrected some of their blunders, they never heard a positive word from their customers, nor did they ever get recognition for what they did well. They felt dispirited. As I listened, they poured out their own litany of negatives about their customers, calling them demanding, unyielding, unappreciative, and on and on. Both parties suffered from the same problem. Although some of them had communicated with each other by phone, fax, and e-mail, they had ever met face-to-face. As a consequence, each group saw the other in the worst possible light.

This tendency to view those you’ve never met and whose faces you’ve never seen as being responsible for what has gone wrong is a familiar human pattern. Once conflict has emerged, people tend to see those who are located elsewhere as being at fault. It doesn’t matter whether that location is the opposite side of the globe or down the street; when something goes wrong, many people’s instantaneous reaction is, “It’s their fault.” This faultfinding seems most acute when the parties have never met. Conversely, when people finally meet face-to-face, they usually discover that the other parties aren’t the mean and malicious monsters they might have seemed to be.

Obviously, geographic distance can make face-to-face meetings difficult. And yes, travel can be both time-consuming and expensive. But even when the parties are located far apart, they would do well to arrange to meet face-to-face at least once, because the time and expense required to repair a damaged relationship are always greater than the cost of building a strong relationship at the outset. Perhaps in the future, as technology increasingly enables virtual face-to-face contact, people will cease to be strangers to each other. For the present, people must make the effort to arrange to meet face-to-face.

In the situation of the IT organization and its customers, the introduction of face-to-face contact both helped them repair their damaged relationship and strengthened their understanding of and empathy for each other. They began to visit each other’s sites, tour each other’s facilities, and engage in direct conversations. Establishing this personal contact was a necessary step in building the foundation for a relationship that they had failed to build at the start.

Working
Together,
Together.