RELATIONSHIPS Questions

When it comes to work relationships, it's important to understand what a great work relationship means to you. This includes looking at past experiences and identifying what you want from your teammates and what you can offer them. By defining what a great work relationship looks like, you can create a framework for coaching and supporting it. Silos in the workplace, which separate departments, are formed because people are protecting what they know. Breaking down these silos involves fostering conversations and connections between people from different departments, which can lead to stronger relationships and better collaboration. Asking questions about ideal work relationships can help guide coaching efforts. Now, when we get to work relationships, again, one of the best questions you can ask is, what does a great work relationship mean to you? What does that look like in the past? What do you want from your teammates that maybe you're not getting now? What are some things you could offer your teammates as a great teammate that would really facilitate a great relationship? Again, play around with those words, yet start the questions with the word what. Now, if you have a team and you get people to define what a great work relationship is, then you have context, you have a framework, you have a foundation that you can coach to, such as, what are you going to do to support the definition of a great work relationship? See, one of the funniest things that I think we tend to do, and we hear this in the workplace all the time, we hear the term silos. Silos indicate separation between departments, and the reason I bring that up is it illustrates the value of relationships. The reason silos are born isn't because people are arduous or difficult. It's because they're protecting what they know. So, if you're in the marketing department and you're working with people in the sales department, and that has historically been an arduous relationship, what happens? We don't really know what each other does. Yet, when you get people from across departments talking and chatting and conversing and having coffee and sodas together, and sharing, talking about common goals, the bricks of the silos start to come down. Now, again, I go back to the overview where we had people at a company literally get into speed dating, into virtual rooms, and just share who each other was. We had people who said, oh, I didn't know you loved volleyball. Oh, wow, you're a fisherman. Oh, you like to ice fish. And what happens is when you start conversations that are non-work related, the relationships have a better chance to produce the work together. So, ask questions in terms of, number one, what is your ideal work relationship? Once you have that understanding, then you can really coach to it.