Have you ever been in a situation when someone you are trying to help has a concern about how you’re helping them? Maybe you are coaching a manager and he says, “This isn’t working for me.” Maybe a few members of your team believe that you are favoring part of the group over others. One member says something like, “I think you’re not listening to half of us.” What do you do in these situations?
You have three options:
- Simply ignore the comment and hope the issue goes away (don’t bet on it).
- Try to minimize, reassure, or refute the issue, by saying something like, “Don’t worry, I don’t think that’s a problem.” (This is likely to make the situation worse).
- Explore the comment and learn more about the underlying concerns. The third option is the only one that will get you out of “relationship check.”
What’s relationship check? When you are in check in the game of chess, the only move you are allowed to make is to get your king out of check. Until you do that, you cannot make any other move. You can’t ignore being in check or say to your opponent, “I’m not really in check.”
It’s the same with working relationships. If you are working with someone and the person expresses concerns about how you are working with him, you are in relationship check. If you move ahead without addressing the issue, you are likely to be moving backward: your credibility, their commitment, focus, and, ultimately, their results will suffer.
In general, our clients recognize, to some degree, when they are in relationship check. However, they usually don’t know what to do when faced with it. And their anxiety often gets in the way. Here’s how you can get out of relationship check:
Get your mindset.
The first step is to get in the right mindset. Remind yourself that ignoring, dismissing, or refuting the comment doesn’t make the issue go away, it just makes it harder for you to be effective. This means shifting away from thinking about defending yourself to becoming curious. And that means seeing your vulnerability as strength.
Ask the person to elaborate.
Start out by asking the person to say more so you can better understand what his concern is. You might say, “When you said ‘I wasn’t listening to half of you,’ can you tell me specifically what I did that wasn’t listening? That will help me better understand.”
Explore how broad and deep the issue is.
You’ll want to find out how others in the group (assuming there are others) see the situation and if there are other things that you have done that led them to be concerned.
Find out what needs to happen to make it right.
If you agree that you have done something that was less effective than it might be, say so, and see what people need to continue the work you were doing with them before this issue arose. You might say something like, “My intent wasn’t to favor part of the group and I agree that I did that. Here’s what I think led me to do this … I’m curious, what needs to happen for you to be able to continue working on topic we were addressing?” For this to work, you must, in your heart, be open to the possibility that “making things right” means the end of your involvement or a different kind of involvement.
Make a commitment and ask for more feedback.
Assuming that you can meet their request (and understand the reasons for it), make a commitment to do so. Also, ask the group to continue to give you feedback about whether this issue is arising again for them.
In some situations, a brief conversation may be sufficient to find a way forward that meets everyone’s needs. In other situations, especially when the comment reflects a history of concerns, several conversations will be necessary.
At some point, we all find ourselves in relationship check. The key is to recognize it when it happens, explore what has happened and why, and jointly design a way to move forward that works for everyone involved. You will be offering your team, colleagues, clients, friends and family a gift by taking this approach.
Originally published June 2008
