People have garbage. If you’re going to build enduring professional relationships, never forget this fact. Just like the systems we implement have technical debt, people have relational debt. And unlike our technical systems, we don’t have the tools we need to understand our colleagues’ inner workings. In truth, we shouldn’t try. People are sovereign over themselves, and many coworkers relish the relational distance and clear objectives of work. Many enjoy respite from otherwise chaotic lives and have no desire to build relational ties.

The analogies we embrace have a powerful impact on how we view the world. Professional relationships are more like farming and less like engineering. Farmers do their best to create circumstances in which crops can grow. Well-timed fertilizing, planting, harvesting, crop rotation, and care increase the chances of a bountiful harvest. However, even if the farmer does everything right, crops fail. Drought scorches. Waters rise. Pests invade, and fire rages. Just as a farmer cannot force crops to grow, we cannot force great professional relationships.

What tools do we use to create space for meaningful professional interactions? Begin with reciprocity. Reciprocity is a relational give-and-take whereby individuals come to know one another and understand the relationship’s boundaries. To be effective, you will need a degree of self-awareness, patience, and careful observation undergirded with competence and respect.

It’s not about you

Pay attention as you’re interacting with colleagues. When you ask a question, how does your peer respond? Do they offer a simple one-word answer, do they keep it strictly professional, or do they respond with personal detail? These are clues. Follow them and mirror the behavior of your peer. If they are strictly professional, stay professional. If they share stories about their cats or their kids, respond appropriately. The key is to respect your peer’s cues and to allow any relationship to build organically.

Focus on reciprocity more than you focus on being heard. You will have a chance to make your case — eventually. Interact with peers at the same relational level they interact with you. Know where you’re comfortable and where you’re not. Don’t overshare, even if your peer does. Stay in a realm where you can be authentic. You’re growing a garden rather than digging a trench.

You are not in control

Another important quality you need to build lasting professional relationships is open-handedness. Open-handedness is the act of accepting a person and relationship as-is. It’s a willingness to have productive interactions with a person on the level with which they’re comfortable. Open-handedness resists the urge to control, force, or manipulate. It comes to every conversation clear-eyed.

Most importantly, open-handedness doesn’t demand any relational depth at all. If your peer wants to do their job and go home, you’re okay with that. You don’t expect anything other than excellent work. Let people be and don’t judge them for it.

To be genuinely open-handed in your relationships, you must relinquish control and expectations. Engage with others in ways you are comfortable, do your work, and let the seeds that will grow, grow. Many won’t.

Don’t look for short-cuts

For those of us who spend our careers working with systems that behave prescriptively in every conceivable scenario, people are hard. We rarely understand ourselves, and we certainly do not understand our colleagues. We may want stronger relationships or more indirect influence within our organizations but do not know where to start. There are no short-cuts. We can begin today by building a respectful foundation for growth with reciprocity and open-handedness.

Of all the topics that captivated my thoughts during 2020, the power of professional relationships was at the top of my list. Many have expounded on the value of a personal network to build their career, their business, their brand. They’re right to do so. My thoughts, however, have taken a different path. I’ve had the gift of great friendships that have grown out of my work life. How do we, as individuals, work well and cultivate productive, healthy, and flourishing relationships in the context of our professional lives?  I have some ideas.

I’ve seen two opposing themes as people consider work relationships. The first elevates working relationships to holy grail status, believing that one must be great friends with as many people as possible such that friendships extend beyond work. The second can be described as an I just work here mentality that includes strict professionalism and cold distance and can lead to unhealthy isolationism. Between these poles are scenarios as varied as each of us driven by background, culture, the nature of our work, and previous work experiences.

Over the next several weeks, I want to explore the topic of professional relationships. We’ll talk about foundational topics underpinning healthy, productive, and meaningful working relationships. We’ll discuss mistakes that I’ve made and how I would do things differently given an opportunity. We’ll talking about coping under challenging situations and how to decide it’s time to move on.

All told, I want to flesh out a mental model for how we think about professional relationships and how we can be most productive and most fulfilled in our professional lives.

Competence First

Simply put, nothing else matters without professional competence. If I were to create a hierarchy of professional fulfillment modeled after Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, professional competence would be the foundational pillar. Competence is the bedrock on which all professional success rests. Without it, no honest, long-term success is possible. Of course, we all know incompetent people who have risen to high levels of influence, but that’s not who we want to be. 

If you’re like me, your inner monologue will immediately begin to scrutinize your accomplishments and failures and perform several comparisons with those you admire and respect. In my experience, if you care about these questions, you are already further down the path of competence than you realize.

Competence does not require expert-level capability. You do not need to be an expert to be competent. In truth, one can stay too long as an “expert” in a single discipline and experience diminishing contributions over time. Real competence requires character as much as skill. In technical roles, competence demands habits of character: effort, mental engagement, documentation, consistency, attention to detail, and growth. You must have the capability to solve problems, to learn new things, and to communicate clearly. With the commiserate level of time and effort, expert skills will emerge. It takes years. If you’re in a role where you’re stretching, learning, and contributing, that is enough.

Why does competence matter so much?

In the absence of competence, professional relationships devolve into cronyism, disdain for others, rejection of great ideas, and a painful embrace of mediocrity. Rather than the work, the process becomes the primary focus and only the mediocre participate.

In the early years of a career, the lion’s share of effort must be focused on building skills, learning the industry, and understanding how you can contribute. You will build relationships in this time, some of which may endure your entire career.

In truth, some professional relationships will always suffer strain. You will not have great relationships with everyone with whom you work. There’s a degree of personality match, skill alignment, and mutual respect required. Many times, these pre-conditions will not exist. You will have to do your job and do it well anyway. If you want fulfillment in your work life, start and end with competence.

Next week, we’ll talk about reciprocity in working relationships and an open-handed approach that fosters growth organically.