Cultivate GREATNESS | Leadership Training & Life Hacks

Building relationships is something that we will do throughout our lives in just about every area possible. No matter where you go, what you do, you will be surrounded by people. (unless you decide to become a hermitt but even then you’ll still have a relationship with your surroundings.) :p

Regardless of whether you work, are self employed, unemployed, a family wo/man etc. you’ll constantly be in a position of being around people and because of that you will want to build strong and lasting relationships that benefit both you while keeping confrontations to an absolute minimum. These 5 tips are generic and can be applied in all situations no matter what they may be. They include spouses, kids, colleagues, clients, or in any other form that you can think of.

1) Clarity: Be absolutely clear about what you want from that you relationship and discuss that with the other person. Clarity brings with it direction and purpose. Without that you’ll be lost and won’t know how to use that relationship to bring equal benefit to both of you. Clarity is power and for any duration there is not you will notice distinct confusion and tension. If you establish the clarity early on both parties will know exactly where to stand and find it hundreds of times easier to bring up issues instantly as they arise.

At anytime you find difficultly establishing clarity and then get to the source reason. Is it just your communication? If so, find some common ground, something that you both appreciate and use that as a basis for future examples and to build your clarity. There will always be something, otherwise you would not both be in the same situation!

2) Honesty: Don’t lie just to please another person and on the same token don’t just disagree for the sake of disagreeing. The hurt that comes from it in the long run far outweighs any benefit. If you agree with someone for the sake of agreeing, you not only undermine yourself and your confidence but you may end up causing tension if a later date you decide to disagree with any previous agreement. Be as honest as you can without being confrontational.

Say how you feel and learn to speak your mind. Honesty is not just about telling the truth but about being open about you feelings. If you don’t like an idea, don’t just say you don’t like it…be a bit more constructive and imaginitive in the way you offer yours without dismissing or undermining the other person.

3) Respect: Respect is pretty self explanatory but I’ll my two cents…people often have a habit of seeing any situation from only their perspective. Open your eyes as much as is humanly possible to see the situation from the other persons view point. Learn to open your mind to new possibilities and expand your horizons to encompass the other persons view. Truly get into their mindset to understand their viewpoint.

There is nothing worse than narrow mindedness and the mindset that; “my way or the high way!” Don’t allow yourself to get into that frame of thinking, it will limit your life for all time and you’ll miss out on some of the truly magnificent and diverse bits of life. Keep it open and keep it flexible.

4) Gratitude and Courtesy: There are many ways of looking at this one but simple gratitude and courtesy in any relationship will go miles and miles and miles, basically a long way! In my native toungue of Gujerati, the languange construct is completely different to that of english…there are no litteral words that equate to “thank you” or “please” however the tones makes an enormous amount of difference. So as well as showing gratitude and being courteous to the other person in words, keep a check on your tone and body language…any falsness will gleam through kinda like wearing a pink jump suit in a forest while trying to remain unseen…quite frankly, it just doesn’t work! :p

5) Gesture: There is always time to show someone as surprise gesture. Whatever the context or relationship, a friendly gesture once in a while will again go miles and miles in developing and maintaining that relationship. If you work with a team of people…treat everyone to some Krispy Kreme’s one day…that will lighten up everyones day. If it’s a partner, treat them to a weekend away! If it’s your kids, take a day off work and spend the day with them doing something fun that they’ve never done before! Whatever it maybe I guarantee that this one action above all will give all your relationships a massive boost and help strengthen them for the future.

Above all I will say that there is a golden rule to apply to all your relationships and that is quite simply: That all relationships will be as productive and successful as you choose to make them. So value them all and enjoy them for the possibly short of long time that they may be part of your existence….as either way, that truly isn’t that long!