A question: How do you balance getting things done with building better relationships at work? 

Jamie recently explored the need to build trust quickly in the workplace. He shared a story outlining the challenge of gaining people’s help and support fast when you don’t have a prior connection with them.

In this article, he builds on this understanding and examines how to strike a healthy balance between the need to accomplish tasks and the desire to connect with others…

Why finding this balance is more difficult than it seems

We step into every interaction with our own agenda – the things we need, the outcomes we’re aiming for and the expectations we quietly carry into the conversation.

However, it is how we make the other person feel that will determine if they provide for us or not.

To add to the complexity, every culture, every individual, and every situation is unique.

This presents a dilemma: how do we push our agenda whilst cultivating a positive connection with them?

The key is to read the context and behave accordingly.

A simple way to understand how we communicate at work

Think of every conversation as being a series of interactions.

We can classify these interactions as being more transactional (outcome focused) or more relational (connection focused). Classifying them this way, we can map them out on a spectrum like this:

  • Completely Relational
  • More Relational than Transactional
  • Equally Relational and Transactional
  • More Transactional than Relational
  • Completely Transactional.

Everyday workplace example: how this plays out in real life

To put this all into context, let’s take a typical everyday situation that demonstrates ways to balance getting things done with building relationships at work: asking the IT team for help with a technical issue.

Completely Relational
You spend your whole time chatting with the IT technician about their weekend, the latest TV series you’ve both been watching and how their home renovation is going, while your computer issue remains completely unsolved. Neither of you has any agenda – you’re just enjoying a good chat.

More Relational than Transactional
You spend several minutes catching up with the technician before mentioning your computer problem and continue the conversation while they inspect your laptop. Your goal is to fix the issue, but you leave plenty of room for friendly conversation.

Equally Relational and Transactional
You greet them politely, share a few seconds of small talk, then explain your issue clearly and let them get to work. You thank them once it’s resolved and wish them a good rest of the day. You balance achieving your goal with maintaining a friendly connection.

More Transactional than Relational
You send a concise message describing the problem, thank them when it’s fixed, and get back to work. You don’t ignore the relationship – you just keep it efficient and to the point.

Completely Transactional
You log a ticket with minimal detail, never speak directly to the technician and close the case the moment it’s resolved. All agenda, zero connection.

What might be your approach?

Getting things done and building relationships: What happens when we get the balance wrong?

No answer is right or wrong; each approach just has different consequences.

More interactions on the relational side of the spectrum increase your chances of building rapport with the people who can help you.

More interactions on the transactional side improve the efficiency of resolving your problem.

However, problems arise when we interact differently from what the situation calls for.

If we took the first example of being Completely Relational, that IT technician may fall behind on their workload and frustrate other colleagues waiting for help. You had a nice chat, but they didn’t accomplish much.

Let’s take the last example of being Completely Transactional. The technician may perceive you as coming across as cold or demanding, and they might apply the same level of detachment to your request. You achieved your goal of fixing your laptop, but it wasn’t the most positive interaction.

Why the 60-40 split creates better collaboration

We are constantly faced with these kinds of dilemmas in the workplace: balancing getting things done with building relationships. Are we being too transactional? Are we being too relational?

The transactional side of the spectrum often receives a bad reputation, but transactions are indeed important. Working with people is all about getting things done. If we were never transactional, we’d never get things done.

However, the relational aspect is also important. Your relationship with the other person determines how they feel about you, and that, in turn, determines how well they cooperate with you. If they don’t like you, cooperation will generally be a lot harder.

When I’m coaching people, I ask them to think of a person at work who is critical to their success, such as their supervisor, a key customer contact, or a direct report. Then I ask them to estimate what percentage of their interactions with that person are transactional and what percentage are relational.

What I have found is that when they are over 70% transactional, it’s a lot harder to work with people. There’s very little warmth, there is distance, and the seeds of resistance have sprouted (and in some cases are now fully grown!)

So what’s the sweet spot?

The sweet spot appears to be a 60% transactional and 40% relational mix. There will be plenty of exceptions, but generally this number appears to hold in most cases I’ve encountered.

Now, don’t quote me on the numbers; those numbers are entirely unscientific and based solely on the people I have worked with, so take them with a pinch of salt, but they have held true with pretty much everyone I’ve worked with.

Finding your flow in conversations

In practice, the balance between getting things done and building relationships at work seems like a dance. We read the other person, make our moves and flow with them. Sometimes they take the lead, and we follow; other times, we take the lead, and they follow. But whatever happens, when we’ve struck the right balance between transactional and relational for this specific moment in time, we are in flow.

And an area I will explore in another article.