Investing in Relationships: The Key to Getting the Best Out of Your Team

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Around 10 years ago I attended a training. In this training, the instructor asked us to form 4 groups of 4 people each. And then he asked the 4 groups to sit at the 4 different corners of the room, as the room was small.

After this, he chose one of the attendees and asked him to sit on a chair in the middle of the room and not to speak to anyone at all.

Then he asked each of the four groups to act as if they were four different departments in a company and to treat this person as if he is a new hire who has a great resume and to try to convince him to join their departments.

The only condition was that the 4 groups could talk to that person, but in return, he could not answer them or talk to them back. He can only listen.

If this person in the middle of the room was influenced by the words of a specific group to join their department, then he should move with his chair and without talking towards this group.

And, for example, if he moves towards a group 1 meter and another group 2 meters, then this means that the impact of the message of the 2-meter group is higher and that they influenced him better.

So, we started, and to regulate the exercise and manage time effectively, we decided that each group should choose one person to represent them and to speak on their behalf to the person sitting in the middle of the room. And from our group, this person was me.

So, I started preparing some points and structure on a piece of paper, then I energetically looked at him and I started confidently telling him ''with us, you will achieve greatness. We will work together as one team, and you will face a lot of challenges. And if your performance is great, you will get recognized, and you can climb the career ladder fast. On the other hand, I am sure that we can find financial compensation for you that will make you feel happy''.

This was just a summary of what I told him.

However, after I finished, I was expecting that he would ‘’jump’’ directly with his chair into our group after this motivational speech.

But I was wrong!!

I found him slightly moving towards us with his chair, to the extent that I barely saw his chair moving.

And even though it was just an exercise, I was disappointed. After our group, the other groups also tried the same scenario with him, but in the end, he did not move his chair toward any group.

After we finished the exercise and the instructor asked him to speak to tell us what motivates him, we discovered that it was totally another factor that no group mentioned.

He didn’t care about climbing the career ladder or earning extra money to buy a house or something. He just cared to earn what was enough to cover his family expenses and to have a stable life. From his perspective, this will provide him with an adequate level of work-life balance.

Now let me stop this story here and take you on another journey.

Have you ever watched a movie or a series and found yourself feeling empathy towards the villain or the bad character in this movie, to the extent that you became a big fan of his or her actions and behavior?

Several years ago, I was watching a series. In this series, the main actor was embodying the character of a villain, or in simple words, he was doing the evil role in this series.

The story starts with him brutally killing a cop, and in the next few episodes, he kills six other cops until the police find him and shoot him dead in the final episode.

What is your opinion based on what I just told you? Do you feel empathy towards this killer? Or do you feel happy that he was shot dead by the police, and you will say that he deserved it?

Before you think about it or mention your opinion, I want to mention something I forgot to tell you.

This main evil character who killed the seven cops was a cop himself!!

In fact, he was a very successful policeman with an expected bright future. He was living a stable, happy life, and he was married and had a beautiful daughter until one day everything changed.

Seven corrupt cops from his colleagues approached him and asked him to join them and work in selling illegal weapons, and when he said no, they wanted to teach him a lesson, so they entered his home during his absence and slaughtered his wife and daughter.

After this incident, he changed forever.

He looked alive only from the outside, but he was a body without a soul. And he used to remember in each second the scene of his wife and daughter in their blood.

So he decided that he would never rest until he took revenge on the seven policemen who did this to his family. And that’s why he killed them. Not because he was a serial killer, but because he was seeking revenge.

What do you think now? Do you still feel happy that he was shot dead at the end of the series?

And if you said ‘‘yes’’, then I want you to imagine this situation that happened to him happening to you and tell me how you would feel and react.

The feeling of losing your whole life in just a few seconds because you said ‘‘no’’ and you did not want to do anything illegal.

I shared with you now 2 stories with 1 clear outcome…You must know your people.

You cannot influence someone without knowing them or knowing how they think and what they want. And you cannot feel empathy towards someone if you do not know some details about this person and how they think and feel.

And empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of someone else, and it is a fundamental characteristic of great leaders.

So, if you are a person leading a team or a company, be careful about falling into this trap.

And if you want to get the best out of your team, you MUST invest time and effort in truly knowing them. You have to know their motives, what drives them, what they are aiming to achieve, their backgrounds, and what they passed through as well as how they feel each day.

But you know what is the problem?

To know all of this, you need to build a bridge between you and them, and this bridge is called ‘’trust’’. Without trust, they will not share with you any useful information, and they will not open up to you.

And trust is not built overnight. Trust is built by doing the ‘’right’’ small actions and repeating them over and over. The key here is to know what small actions to choose, to be consistent, and to give yourself time.

And this itself is a big problem for a lot of managers. Because they want things to happen fast, or they claim that they are busy enough with what they have on their tables, and they do not have time to develop these types of relationships with their team members.

So let me tell you this. It is fair enough for me if you are claiming that you are busy or focusing on something else. It is your life, not mine, and life is about choices and what you choose to focus on each day.

So, if you, as a manager, decide that you are too busy for such actions, then accept the consequences later without complaining and accept that you will rarely if ever have a strong and healthy relationship with your team members.

You cannot just look at an empty piece of land and expect that this land will yield later the best fruits or vegetables, and you cannot grow a tree in just 1 week. You need to decide to put in the time and effort because you expect a return on your investment.

So again, you cannot influence your team members, and you cannot form a strong connection with them and understand their feelings and positions except if you really know them and unless you are running the right discussions with them and asking the right questions.

But you can come and tell me ‘’Mohamed, you said that I cannot influence someone without knowing them. Then home come that politicians influence people to vote for them, and they do not know them personally?’’

And I will answer you by saying ‘’because what you are talking about is ‘mass influence’ and this is different’’.

Let us say that you are a politician, and you want to be elected, all that you need to do is speak about some of the standard basic needs of human beings such as food, shelter, security...etc., and the people who prioritize these needs will be attracted towards you and your message. Exactly Like fishing.

And this is different from what is happening in companies because in companies, in most cases, you know the person or the people that you would like to influence, and you want to influence a limited number of people.

In mass influence, it is not a must to know the people, but inside teams and companies, you must know them to be able to influence them.

So why don't you stop saying that you do not have time and start building this bridge between you and them?

Why don't you set this goal for yourself in 2024? For example, and as a starting point, name 5 people and say to yourself ''I will do whatever it takes to build a REAL relationship with them in 2024, and I will spend time to know them more''.

This is just a proposal, of course, or you can keep your current style and routine and say ''I do not have time for this''.

In the end, and as I said previously, the choice is yours.

I wish you happy holidays 😊

I work with leaders and teams as a consultant and advisor...

1- To help leaders, gain clarity regarding their next steps, transform their organizations, and amplify their influence, without working extended hours.

2- Boost the performance, motivation, and engagement levels of teams (such as sales teams, marketing teams, engineering teams... etc.).

3- Improve cross-functional collaboration and redesign the workplace culture (especially in cases of restructures, and mergers and acquisitions).

If you need advice regarding any of these topics, send me a message or a direct email: mohamed@mohamedhanbal.com