Katie and Carol talk about Tip 22 from Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership.

Young woman using digital tablet while having meal with colleaguTip Number 22. Establish Strong Relationships at Work.

Becoming friends with many people at work allows you insight into them personally.  Relationships sprout into areas that would otherwise stagnate.  Some relationships may also help you move up to the next level, or develop alliances between departments.

Willingness to know people at a non-professional level also illustrates your willingness to stretch – a characteristic that will serve you well when needing to relate in politically sensitive situations.  This is a feminine characteristic that may be missing in a male-dominated workplace.  Make it your business to see this changed.  What if you were the one reason that someone was looking forward to coming to work?

Be genuine about your curiosity of others.  Get to know what makes them come to work every day.  Is it their kids, their coin collection, or their need to discuss their wine obsession with someone?

The challenge is to learn something new about your closest circle of workmates.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

It’s another podcast of Skirt Strategies for women in leadership.

Katie: Well you know this one’s going to help you a lot because it’s about establishing relationships — we’re covering in our podcast series. Right now we’re delving into the tips within our book, Skirt Strategies, 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership. So we have lots of podcasts to come and many of them around the tips that are in the book. Not all of them are but we’re doing a series of them right now of one’s that are. And this is tip number 22.

Carol: “Tip number 22. Establish strong relationships with people at work.” Why is that important?

Katie: Why is that important?

Carol: I asked you first. Well you know it’s important because you got to enjoy where you are, number one. I think you’ve got to enjoy where you work and you don’t always get to choose the people you work with so establishing nice relationships with them I think makes you happier. And I think that’s important.

Katie: Is it necessary?

Carol: Probably not. I guess you could go through life miserable.

Katie: Somebody could be listening and saying I don’t really want to get to know anybody that I work with.

Carol: Well I’m sure they are, but then do you consider yourself happy at work?

Katie: I would definitely ask that question.

Carol: Uh-huh.

Katie: If you think that way about the people that you work with, then we ought to send you to some of our other training material. If you are the type of women that is saying you don’t want to get to know the people that you work with, I would question whether you’re in the right industry. Wouldn’t you?

Carol: I would and I know they are people who are introverts and who are shy and don’t get their energy from dealing with other people, so I kind of understand that but I’m an extrovert in some ways and other ways I’m an introvert but in more ways I’m an extrovert so you know it would take somebody to convince me that it’s any other way. That you shouldn’t – you have to get along with your fellow employees. It just makes everybody’s life happier.

Katie: What do you get from it?

Carol: If I’m an introvert?

Katie: No anybody. What does anybody get from having better – having strong relationships at work?

Carol: I guess you know you get a sense of camaraderie, a sense of joy, a sense of knowing that you’re going in to do something with people you really like to work with. What else?

Katie: Well you’re more likely to trust them. We just talked about how valuable trust can be.

Carol: That’s true.

Katie: You’re more likely to feel comfortable being open-minded with them.

Carol: Uh-huh.

Katie: You’re more likely to be creative with them.

Carol: Nice.

Katie: All those things. And you can share with them insights and you know things that you wouldn’t with somebody that was more of a stranger or that you kept at arm’s length. I just think it’s great so we put this in here as a tip because we wanted to give women the reminder that you’re probably naturally good at building relationships and is there any opportunity at work that you could tighten up a little bit more?

Carol: So what are some methods that people can use to ask or to get to know people better?

Katie: I believe that one of the strongest things to learn in communication and interaction with others is the skill of questioning others.

Carol: Uh-huh.

Katie: I spent lot of years of my life before I figured that one out, but having a dialogue with someone, the most inviting dialogues are the ones in which you make it interesting for the other person.

Carol: And the way you make it more interesting for the other person is to talk about them.

Katie: Yes.

Carol: Yes, and to experience their life as interesting.

Katie: Exactly. Think about to people that you know that – like my friend Lucia, who is, or my friend Anne who’s – both of them, great conversationalists and they ask these questions, they ask probing questions about me that make me want to say more. They make me think about what they’ve heard. They make me consider, oh, you know, like for example, I’ll say, “Well at Skirt Strategies we’re working on a new book about transitions and change.”

Of course I could just go on and on but when someone else says, “Oh say more about that,” or “Do you know what format you’re going to put it in, or are you going to put it in Kindle this time again?” Questions that really engage me and let me know about something that’s important to me.

Carol: Sure.

Katie: And I feel like I’m important to them.

Carol: Well and we talked about this when we talked about the charisma myth too. Being curious about other people and their lives really makes them feel great and gives you a lot of charisma.

Katie: Yeah. So somebody could argue I suppose, “Well that’s kind of boring. Why do I always want to talk about them?”

Carol: Oh well because the real bore is talking about you, sorry.

Katie: (Laughs)

Carol: And we also talked about this in relationship to networking. How important it is when you’re – especially if you’re an introvert, how you can use your shyness to actually ask other people about themselves. So tell me about you, you know, are you married? Do you have kids? Have you ever traveled? Do you travel? You know what other things can you ask? I’m always — I always ask the wrong question. If there’s a wrong question to ask I will ask it. How’s your wife?

Katie: Beep!

Carol: We’re divorced.

Katie: Beep! Wrong.

Carol: Wrong.

Katie: No.

Katie: Well I’ve asked somebody before how her husband was and he died.

Carol: Oh yeah. I did that when they just came back from the funeral. I’m like, “Where’s your wife? We’re missing her today.”

Katie: I know.

Carol: Yeah?

Katie: I know.

Carol: “Well we were just at her funeral.” Oh my god.

Katie: I just found out today that a friend of, well I’m going to disguise who it is, a friend of a friend was back together with his girlfriend, close friend, and I didn’t know about it. And so I felt kind of stupid that I hadn’t, and this girl, this girlfriend is back in this person’s life and I felt like I should have known because she and I had a connection and I would have talked to her or I would have brought it up last time and I didn’t and now I feel like I was just kind of out of it.

Carol: Right, so establishing relationships, strong relationships means that you know something about the person. You know what makes them tick. You know what makes them come to work.

Katie: Uh-huh.

Carol: You know – you have a depth of feeling for what they are going through.

Katie: I would suggest that if you wanted to be better at this, keep the word – you use this word – curiosity. Keep that word in your mind when you are talking to others.

Carol: Nice, yeah.

Katie: I walk away from conversations quite often and I wish I’d asked more.

Carol: Sure.

Katie: I don’t know if I’m often in a hurry or I was afraid they would go on and on or whatever it might be. But I wish I had asked more. I wish I had been curious in such a way where I delved into it a bit. When you look at it that way, with the benefit of them liking talking about it because now you’re sending them a message that you care about them, then it becomes kind of a “what’s in it for me?” for you.

Carol: Interesting.

Katie: Uh-huh.

Carol: Yeah.

Katie: Do it.

Carol: And it’s not always what’s in it for you. It’s – I don’t know, again, I get back to you have to be joyous at work. It is where we spend the bulk of our time and it is an important part of what you’re doing so you might as well absolutely love it and love the people you work with and really have some joy around all of that.

Katie: What do you do if it’s somebody that tends to rattle on and you don’t want to ask them too many questions?

Carol: (chuckles)

Katie: Or they really are boring.

Carol: Oh interesting. Uhm… I remain curious and ask them more because obviously I’m patient and it depends on how much time I have. Sometimes I’ll go back to my desk and start working and they are still talking. Got to get this done! Got to get this out!

Katie: Carol, I’m leaving the room now.   Maybe those aren’t the relationships that you build more strongly then.

Carol: Well I think you can and I actually think that those people who are over-talkers really need people in their lives and I think that’s why they are doing it. They hunger for somebody with a lot of curiosity about what they are doing and about who they are and why they are showing up every day.

So I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it’s just – it’s you’ve got to balance it a little bit with productivity and getting back to work. But you should take the time to get to know the people that you work with.

Katie: Well because women are naturally social – that’s a generalization I understand, but because women are naturally social I think this is something we can bring to a workplace, especially if it’s a male dominated workplace, bring the relationship building part of it that shows the interaction, shows the care, shows the sensitivity about what somebody else’s life is like, without it being – you know maybe it’s not in your workplace because it’s a lot of men? That doesn’t mean it’s wrong to bring it into the workplace.

Carol: No.

Katie: It just means it’s not what they did. And maybe you’re holding back on it because they are not prone to being social and you’re – now we challenge you. Be the one that introduces that to the workplace.

Carol: Yeah. Interesting.

Katie: Do it. Do it now.

Carol: Do it. Well and I do think – that the charisma part of this is really important you know just getting back to being curious about other people and having that be what you take your next step on. This is a rung in a ladder you know and you can take your next step on being curious about other people because that really does make you look like you are a leader when you have a curiosity about other people.

Katie: Doesn’t it though?

Carol: It does.

Katie: It shows initiative.

Carol: It does. I mean some of the best leaders I’ve ever known – there’s a gentleman that I worked for when I worked at the New Mexico State University, he was the President there. He had a curiosity about everybody in the room. It was, “So, tell me about yourself. How do you do that? That’s just amazing! That’s just. . .”

He had everybody captured. You know and you just wanted to follow him to the ends of the earth because he captured your –

Katie: That’s charismatic.

Carol: It’s very charismatic. And he never talked about himself. I don’t think I know anything about him and you know –

Katie: Isn’t it funny how somebody not talking about themselves and it attracts you to them.

Carol: Uh-huh.

Katie: I think it sends the impression that they are really good listeners. Like my friend Lucia and my girlfriend Anne, I think they are – I know they are great listeners.

Carol: They also make you feel smart. They make you feel confident. They make you feel like your life is very interesting and so use that. If you’re going to move yourself up in whatever situation you are in, use that to move yourself. Use a curiosity about nature and human nature and people.

Katie: That’s a nice little challenge, a nice reminder of something that you can do daily. Be better at.

Carol: Yeah.

Katie: It makes you a better listener.

Carol: It does.

Katie: It makes sense. Establish strong relationships with people at work. I want to go back to – just a minute – to what the benefit in the workplace, for the workplace is. Now a lot of our listeners are in small offices or in their own businesses.

If you had to put yourself in the middle of a circle and draw a little network of what was around you, who you interacted with, and it was like you were the middle of the wheel and they were the spokes going out to other organizations or somebody that’s a support personnel or somebody that’s a contractor, or somebody that’s a customer, whatever it might be, what do those relationships look like for you?

How strong are they? How critical are they in getting done what you need to get done?

If you were to draw the lines from you to them, with different weights like a light, they are not as strong – it’s not that strong a relationship, or it’s a dotted line, you know, it’s just kind of –

Carol: Periphery.

Katie: Periphery, a little bit here and there – interact with them every few months – vs. really strong, like with a management school at the university that I use, I have a strong relationship with them. I would like to have a stronger relationship with them because they are key to me getting the outreach for Skirt Strategies.

You and I started a women’s leadership certificate program at the management school, here at the university where we are.

Carol: Uh-huh.

Katie: And that’s become a great venue for helping women listen to what they need to be doing strategically and tactically to get better as women leaders. That would be a relationship that I will look at as a – it could have been a dotted line but I made it a stronger line.

Carol: Nice.

Katie: I’d like it to be an even stronger line.

Carol: Ah.

Katie: I should be working on it. I should be over there more often. I should be taking Audrey out to wine more often.

Carol: Right.

Katie: Not to whine, but to drinking wine.

Carol: Either or – but that’s an interesting – we’ve been kind of coming at this tip as a – from the point of the people who are in your immediate work space but you are broadening that to say, “No, we need to take this out to establishing good relationships with many others in our circle.”

Katie: Many, yes.

Carol: Absolutely yeah that makes a lot of sense too. It’s that we really do need to establish great relationships. And I’ve got to say, be careful about how you are perceived by people because you can make a first impression that’s really not good.

Katie: Huh?

Carol: And – not you but – you never know when somebody is going to come back into your life –

Katie: Oh yeah –

Carol: And they are going to have influence other something that you are doing.

Katie: Yes.

Carol: I’ll give you an example of that. I just the other day I got a phone call from an ex-politician and he wanted something from me. Well he had treated me very, very badly.

Katie: Oh.

Carol: When he was a politician. And I remember that. I’m sure he did too because he was a little hesitant to ask me for a favor. I didn’t hold it against him because that’s not what I do. You know, like you say, “I give grace to people.” But I think you’ve got to be really careful about how you treat people because you never know when you are going to – what that’s going to come back around.

So do establish those strong relationships. Find out about people and what makes them tick and then when you go into that relationship or when you have to ask them something later on in life, you can do that with grace.

Katie: Love it. Just lovely.

Carol: Yeah, interesting.

Katie: I wish I could give you names. Shoot.

Carol: You’d love it. I’ll tell you offline. He used to be a mayor.

Katie: Oh let’s have people send in ten bucks to find the name.

Carol: Actually I would like to mention that we would love to hear from folks in our comment section on our podcast. Show notes, love to get your comments, love to get you to share our podcasts with others and you can just push the share button on our website.

Katie: It’s easy.

Carol: It’s easy.

Katie: Let other people know that you are listening to this podcast and that you think it’s worthy of others listening as well.

We are having a lot of fun bringing you these tips from Skirt Strategies, 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership. We hope you are having fun too.

(Music plays)

That’s it for this episode of the Skirt Strategies podcast. Thank you for joining us and please be sure to leave a question or comment at Skirtstrategies.com. Remember that success comes when you lead using your natural female strengths.