We can’t do without building relationships either for business, marriage or for whatever reasons. What we pay less attention to is relationship management.
Relationship management is crucial both on individual and organizational level to maintain an ongoing smooth engagement with audience or customers.
This skill is hinged on our interpersonal communication skills, and ability to elicit the best out of others, to inspire and influence, interact, build bonds, and help others grow, change, develop and be competent in conflict resolution.
Those could be too much for a newbie in emotional intelligence as relationship management is one of its components.
What is relationship management?
Relationship management is managing your relationships with people you interact with in your life. It means maintaining good and positive relationships either in your family, workplace or with a random person.
Though the definition traditionally focuses on the corporate world – the boss-employee relationship or colleague relationship, it goes beyond that. It extends to interaction with all the people in your life.
Relationship management focuses on creating a positive environment in all your relations with people that can support growth and improvement, especially people you spend quality time with frequently.
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A competent relationship manager must have to influence people effectively by employing useful interpersonal skills which can be acquired by learning.
Your competence in managing the relationships in your life whether at home or workplace would depend on how better you are at relationship management skills.
In the corporate world and other workplaces, it is crucial for the growth and success of an organization and investing in such a venture brings returns as expected.
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Here is a relationship management video by University of Edinburgh Careers Service:
Benefits of relationship management
Below are some of the benefits that can accrue from being competent in relationship management.
1. Lasting relationships
Whether with customers in the corporate world or with a friend, successful relationship management would enhance long-lasting relationships.
In the case of an organization, its growth and success depend on its relationship with customers.
Also, the relationship between employers and employees has a significant effect on the organization. This is why they have a team of relationship managers.
2. Relationship management enhances creativity
Creativity can be enhanced with competent relationship management at work by creating light moments to ease off the stress and overly corporate confinement.
A lot of people feel lighter when things are casual and having such a moment once in a while is not in bad taste as it could serve as recess for the brain to better creativity.
3. Enhances career growth
Having and maintaining a good relationship with people builds trust and opens new opportunities for growth.
When you are in a loyal relationship where you are trusted, you could get recommendations outside your cycle.
Most skilled people who are service providers grow through referrals because of good relationships built.
When a person is only known for fights and arguments, there is no way he would be recommended by past or present associates.
Becoming a competent relationship manager
A competent relationship manager knows that people do not leave their emotions behind or at home when coming to work.
Though many organizations place a premium on traditional intelligence without emotions, the emotions of man are many times more powerful than the intellect.
Your emotions prompt you to dangers that are crucial to your personal, interpersonal, and organizational survival.
That is why instead of shoving them aside, you lean in on them and see how you manage them no matter how uncomfortable it might be.
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A competent relationship manager understands perfectly that people’s work and performance suffer when they are angry, depressed, alienated, anxious, or afflicted by any of the negative emotions that haunt humans.
Common shifts in the level of hormones could trigger unexplainable emotional feelings.
They can’t think as clearly, imbibe information as fully, understand it as deeply, or respond as effectively as they could when they are upset.
So, it’s to their own advantage and everyone around them to cultivate as many positive emotions as possible instead of ignoring the feelings.
You should understand that it is easier to be motivated, builds trust, increases confidence as well as increase the speed taken to analyze data when you have positive feelings.
This shows that there are huge benefits when feelings and emotions are known, understood, and managed as needed.
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Salespeople would corroborate that too as they would relate that the success of a customer care person requires his ability to use empathy to check a customer’s mood to know when to pitch a product and when not to.
It doesn’t end there, making that assessment also requires choosing the most appropriate interpersonal or relationship management skills to employ to introduce their product.
How to build long-lasting relationships with people and customers
Building lasting quality relationships requires that you sharpen your skills and be deliberate about it.
It’s not something to wish away and see it happens, work has to be done. Below are some of the skills needed to have quality rewarding relationships.
Show clarity
For you to become competent either in the corporate settings with your customers or at home, you need to know exactly what you are up with and against.
Having a clear motive will leave you with a clear approach to achieving it. When you don’t have clarity, you can only grope without direction.
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In an organization that wants to become a brand, they must know their customers’ needs and the customers must know what is being sold to them.
The message has to be crystal clear in order to build relationships with customers.
Same with other building relationships with teams, employees or friends; the message should be conveyed with clarity.
Be Consistent
Consistency is key to building trust in whatever relationship you value. It’s a key skill in relationship management that tells the other person that you are reliable and can be trusted.
Such elements as timing, stable opinions on issues, matching words with action are simple but powerful signs of consistency.
And for organizations, if your brand is not consistent, customers would have a plan b for their needs. Brands that are not consistent don’t stay around much longer.
Effective communication
Relationships are built and sustained with communication and this requires time, energy, and effort to maintain. Whether in the workplace or family, this is the key to all relationships.
For organizations, it is important that company representatives are available always for the customers who seek to make inquiries.
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In the wake of businesses moving to the internet, there should always be a company representative available at all times for customers.
In another light, if you as a leader or subordinate feel a colleague offended you, there is every room to politely communicate your feeling to them and see how things improve. Communication can never go wrong in relationships.
Always be positive
Always being positive does not mean you don’t have some down times. Everybody does, but when you cultivate the habit of overriding negative feelings with the positive, you soon do it effortlessly no matter the situation.
Nobody wants to spend time with anger-prone toxic people. Staying positive with yourself and others is a charming attitude that infects others.
It helps you to build friendships and connections that would be relevant throughout your life.
Interpersonal skills
Interpersonal skills are skills employed every day to communicate with people that crisscross our lives, both individually and in groups.
Skills like listening, empathy, and effective communication are some of the skills that make up interpersonal competence.
How we employ these skills is dependent on our emotions and feelings towards these people. So, it’s safe to say that emotions also play a role in interpersonal skills
Ability to connect with strangers
It might sound strange, but friendship and every relationship start with meeting people for the first time. They could be your biggest ally or customers in the future.
There are people who are not comfortable with strangers. Inasmuch as that is understandable, connecting and being conscious of their disposition to know if it is worth it is in good taste, especially when in seminars or conferences.
These are the places you meet like minds.
Establishing conversation with strangers is not easy, but you have to do what has to be done. You have to overcome anxiety and be in control.
You are the one who has the desire to enrich your relationship base, so you don’t leave the job for others.
Friendly disposition
I know a few people whose lips curl back in smiles all the time. You can never meet them without a smile. I do not know how they achieve that but I know it’s infectious.
Infectious in the sense that you would mimic their energy when with them.
Being able to project this disposition with people would set up a friendly atmosphere for relationships to sprout. Of course, friendliness is capable of opening doors that unruly behaviours cannot.
Friendly behaviour is not limited to personal relationships. When you do business with an organization, you are not doing it with the structure or the property that houses the organization, but with the people.
Moving closer to them in friendly communication is encouraged.
Conclusion
The capacity to establish new relationships and service old ones is what distinguishes great managers from the average.
Exercising relationship management would enhance your climbing up the social and corporate ladder, or whatever ladder you are on very quickly while building connections that would be relevant in time to come.
Remember also that being able to have a grip on your emotion is key to establishing a good reputation as a relationship manager.
You will also be able to understand people’s emotions and the reason for their behaviours and use the information to treat them accordingly.
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Thank you for reading.
REFERENCES
Relationship Management: The Key To Achieving It All – Forbes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Personal Development Content Creator and an author. I write about life ethics and love to document and share life hacks and experiences of people to help others make good life decisions.
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