Developing Relationship Competence in Organizations
Summary: Work relationships are the most powerful and least utilized factor in achieving extraordinary results with organizations. An organization that develops relationship competence has a substantial advantage in its market, and in the success of its initiatives.
But work relationships are ordinarily invisible and taken for granted. Developing organization-wide relationship competence requires:
- Making relationships visible, and thus available for goal-setting, assessment and precisely targeted action.
- Developing conscious, specific competence in building and utilizing work relationships.
Specific, tested methods for fulfilling both of these requirements are presented in this briefing.
Outline of Methods:
Developing an organization’s relationship competence:
- Develop and institutionalize the organization’s Relationship Description.
- Establish customized Relationship Descriptions for each client, and quarterly relationship goals.
- Put in place metrics to assess relationship goals and achievement, individually and/or for team.
- Put relationship metric on executive dashboards.
Developing individual relationship competence throughout career:
- Begin with first year professionals – learn Relationship Description, basics of how relationship links to behavior. (Relationship formula). Practice standard and basic Move 1 and Move 2.
- At manager/ senior manager develop “Fundamentals of Relationship Competence”: Relationship and Relationship Change formula, Social Practices, Move 1, Move 2. Training/practice with follow-up practice and coaching. Group coaching on live clients monthly for six months.
- New partners: “Building High Quality Relationships” – Ally Relationships training/coaching: strategic linking of service to client success; strategic conversations (not presentations or interviews); getting outside your expert box; launching and leading a deep dive; etc.
- First 8-10 years as partner: Mentoring by senior partners or outsourced mentors.
- Major engagement partners: 1-1 coaching on specific clients; shadow consulting on coaching/mentoring of team partners.
NOTE: This paper was written to be read carefully and thoughtfully – more like a book chapter than a web article. You may find skimming it frustrating.
Briefing begins here – under construction
