Two Things You Must Have To Build Strong Relationships

Hi, I'm Kevin Eikenberry, and I'm here to help you reach your potential as a leader and a human being. Welcome to Remarkable TV and the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. If you happen to be finding us on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes, like today, when I'm telling you two things you must have to build strong relationships. Are you ready? Let's get started. Having strong working relationships is really important, and it's not always easy, and it's even harder if we happen to be at a distance. So whether we're talking about working to build strong working relationships at work, or even in the rest of your life, these two factors will absolutely help you build stronger relationships. And so here those two things are, relatedness and interaction. You may say, Kevin, those sound interesting, and maybe I've heard those words, but I don't really know what you mean. So let's talk about it this way. Relatedness and interaction, the more of each you have, the stronger the relationship will be. So let's talk about each one. First, relatedness. Relatedness, if that word doesn't make sense to you, the idea here is the more related we feel, the more connected we are, the more things that we have in common, or even the fact that we understand the interests of others, the better off we are. Like, I don't have to love something that you love, but if I know you love it and show interest in it and are actively wanting to know how that is going for you, it will be stronger. But when we can find common interests, and they don't have to be big things, they can be little things, areas of relatedness help build relationship. And the second one is interaction. Interaction. Now at work, a lot of times we have transactions. We transact the business. We talk about the issues, we talk about the stuff, we talk about the work, and maybe we talk about the weather. But I'm not talking about work and weather. With interaction, I'm talking about when we actually talk about things beyond that. When we talk about what's going on with us, about the things that matter to us, about the things we have interest in. The more interaction we have, the better. Now, doing those two things, finding those two things, making time for those two things, is sometimes harder if we're working at a distance because we feel like if we're having the email or having the conversation, it should be about the work. And I'm saying you've got to find ways to create more of these things and make it a priority to find these things if you wanna build stronger working relationships, especially at a distance, which means make time for the connection, which means make time to interact and not just transact the business. And yes, I'm talking now to both you if you are a leader, but also to you as a member of teams because these ideas work regardless of whether we have positional power with the folks we're working with or not. Relatedness and interaction. Let me close with today's remarkable reminder. The greater the relatedness and level and frequency of interaction, the stronger a relationship will become. If you found this useful, if you're looking to figure out how to build stronger relationships and get more and better work done, especially if you're working at a distance, well, you probably need a copy of the brand new second edition of the Long Distance Leader and you can get your copy by going to kevineichenberry.com slash LDL, Long Distance Leader. And by getting your copy, you'll get the very latest ideas. All of the updated thoughts that we've had since the first edition came out in 2018, we'd love to have you get your copy. That's how you can get your copy and I hope you'll come back next week for more tips. And next week specifically, more tips for you as a long distance leader and teammate. Hope you'll do that and we'll see you next week.