Building Relational Alliances

ADMINOLOGY SKILL SET

Building Relational Alliances

Success in the work place today relies on your ability to build great relationships with people. As an Adminologist you must build good relations with leaders and teams. Joan provides some simple, practical tips in this episode to help you build these relationships.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Past
In the past, this was really easy because it was all about ‘human moments’ we didn’t have all the technology that we have today. So while our technology is wonderful it takes away from that human experience you would otherwise be using.

Present
So, let’s take a look at the present. Success in the work place today relies on your ability to build great relationships with people. Now, this isn’t always going to come easy because as you know you’re going to meet difficult personalities or what we may consider to be difficult. They’re just being themselves, and in that, it may take a little more effort on your part to build those alliances.

You need to break down any barriers between Adminologist and management. This is going to be vital to any success in this profession and being taken seriously. Every opportunity you have should be geared towards talking about your great profession. When you build an alliance with management you get away from the old ways when management was on a “higher” level and administrative professionals were at the bottom. Our goal is to pull ourselves together and work together as a team.

Future
With that being said, the future can be created by you by tapping into others; that’s what building an alliance is all about. The change cannot be made by us!

I had written an article about the power of 10, and if you haven’t read it yet I hope you do so, it’s available on the Adminology website. (www.adminology.org) One person can make a difference by initiating the idea, YOU can be a catalyst for change; except you need at least 10 others to help you create that change. This is why building your alliances is pivotal to your success.

Art, Science, Optimize

Art
Let’s take a look at the art side; of course, the art side there is a vast amount of information, which is the art side. If you think about it I’m talking about building alliances the people side, the human interaction that couldn’t possibly be covered in this short series or for that matter even in five days. So this will be disused in numerous videos and articles but I want you to do some homework and some studying on your own. However, I have 4 golden nuggets that may help you along:

1. Study people: Really get to know the people you work with. It isn’t just the people you see on the outside that define people, it’s really what are they all about? What makes them tick? What are their missions, goals, or objectives? Then figure out how you can help them.
2. Build re-pore by studying people and then adapting to them. A good example I can give you is when we talk about communication styles I have what we call a ‘red’ style. To elaborate, that means I like information short, to the point, precise, I don’t need all the personal stuff, just say what you need to say. An opposite side of ‘red’ style would be the ‘yellow.’ The ‘yellow’ wants all of the personal information; they want every detail of ‘what you did on the weekend’ etc… They’re very warm and friendly. So in terms of relational alliances, it’s important to understand how they want to be communicated to and approached so we can be effective with them.
3. Compliment your leader style. Now, I don’t mean pat them on the back, it’s the C-O-M-P-L-E kind of complement. What I mean by that is you will build alliances when you compliment their style. For example, if you have a leader that is a strong ‘red’ you would try to balance that with some of the characteristics from the other colors and then you build relations with each other. (To find out what communication color you are go to http://www.positivelymary.com/ColorCommunicationQuiz.htmland take the short quiz)
4. Be in the moment; this is a REALLY good one. What I mean by that is pay attention to some one’s emotional cues. The analogy I can give you is, a speaker was speaking in front of an audience or maybe in front of a small group of about 10-20 people in a work shop. I want you to imagine this speaker is going on and on, not taking notice of the yawns in the audience or that people are getting fidgety and need to take a break. That speaker is just thinking about their message! Well, it’s kind of the same thing, when you’re speaking and interacting with others be in the moment and pay attention to the physical or facial cues their giving you, adapt accordingly, and you’ll see how you begin to build strong alliances.

Science
Now, let’s look at the science side. Now, because we’re talking about relations and relationships the art side is the stronger more dominant side of this but there is still some science to it as well. Let me share some with you:

1. Formally study behavioral, communication, and work styles. There is a lot of information readily available on the internet and I encourage you to get some of that information. In some of our workshops, we have a communication style work took we use and I can tell you some of the administrative professionals that attend love that! It’s one of their favorite activities.
2. An example of science side would be, if you know someone with is very time disciplined, then it would be very important to them for you to show up to meetings on time. Now you probably say what does this have to do with building a relationship? If I’m time disciplined, and you’re always attending my meetings late, do you think I’m going to be very happy with you? The answer would be no, and that’s where the science side plays into this equation.

Optimization.

1. Strategically align yourself in front of people who can advance you and your goals. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about using people but actually building serious relationships with these people.
2. Step out of your little circle of friends. I see this every single time we host a workshop or hold our annual conference for administrative professionals. As they come in they tend to want to sit with their circle of friends and I understand that it’s fun to be with the people you know best and that you’re comfortable with. But if you truly want to grow and advance in your career, you will step outside that circle.
3. Purposely approach your leaders and mind share with them. Not only is this fun but it’s a great way to build great relationships with them. To be able to accomplish that you will need to read articles, papers and magazines such as USA Today (one of my favorites) occasionally the wall street journal, any trade journal or industry magazine that your leaders read. That will help you know what to talk to them about and because of that you’re going to build alliances with them

That’s it for today, thank you so much for watching this video! Watch more from this series here.