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I have been focusing this year on relationships, influence, persuation, etc.

Any recommendation on how to measure the health of a relationship you may have in the organization? I can think of words to *describe* a relationship ("good", "bad", "cordial", "non-existent", "hostile").  

How would one measure the effectiveness and progress on improvement them?

Another possibility - in the spirit of MT measuring outcomes, activities, etc. could to measure activities related to a given relationship:

- Peer O3 (yes, no)

- Peer Feedback (yes, no, frequency)

- Pre-wires

- ???

Thanks,

George

 

naraa's picture
Training Badge

 I am not too sure. I might be going on a tangent here.... I am thinking out load as I write this answer as I am myself looking into something different but in a way similar.  I am looking into how to measure effectiveness of managers and supervisors within the company in terms of their relationship with their directs.  Basically I am trying to assure we don´t lose talents or underutilize them specially as the company grows in size, and I am also exploring ways of reducing the dead end in the labyrinth young woman engineers have to go through before they can get to the management positions (Woman and the Labyrinth of Leadership - HBR).

I recently finished reading the book First Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (recommended in this forum).  The authors started investigating what great managers did and report it in the book after another research by Gallup which shows that "how long employees stay and how productive they are is determine by their relationship with their immediate supervisor".  They suggest the strength of the organisation, and if the managers-direct relationship is responsible for the productivity of the directs, the strength of that relationship can be measured through 12 questions (bellow).  If you are looking into influence, persuasion and relationships in general, perhaps you can add a question 13 asking the person to name say up to 5 people whom they perceive as having had the greatest influence on the positive responses they have had to the questionary.

 
Nara
 
Measuring Stick from First Break all the Rules
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the equipment and material I need to do
my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do
best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to
care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at  work who encourages my
development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make
me feel my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality
work?
 10.  Do I have a best friend at work?
 11.  In the last six months, have I talked to someone
        about my progress?
   12. This last year, have I had opportunities at
         work to learn and grow?
 
 

AspirationM's picture

The simple, and probably unwise as it walks a line depending on how you do it, answer is "Test it."

The smarter thing is probably just to have confidence.  My experience (exceptions made for romance, especially during HS/College years) is that what you feel towards another is probably pretty close to what they feel towards you.  Do you like them?  Do you trust them?  Do you think you'd feel comfortable doing a favor for them?  Even a big one?  If you're getting yes answers that aren't fueled by "Because I want to develop a relationship" then you're probably in good shape.

That's not to say you can't quantify and measure these kinds of things to some degree... but I think that most people trying, without a VERY good understanding of themselves and the other person, will fall into manipulation territory and destroy what they have.  Even those with that understanding could easily do it.

DISC 6127

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freemindguy's picture

Hello

I now work as a sales trainer for Related Vision so want to get that bias out of the way.

Regardless of who I work for I personally think they have a very good online tool that measures the type of relationship and score out of 100 for that type.

See http://www.relatedvision.com/Relationship-Measurement/measuring-relationships.html

and free assessment tool at:

http://www.relatedvision.com/Resources/meetingassessment.html

If you have any questions you can contact me at http://www.balancecoach.com.au

Regards

Anthony

mtbfarmer's picture

Hi George,

You could make a record of things like:

 

How often they call you,

do they return your voice messages, and how quickly?

do they reply to your emails, and how much effort do they put in?

do they make time for you in person?

do they call or come and see you just to say hello?

Assign 1-5 , average them out over a week or a month to end up with a score per person.

Some will vary depending on what else is happening in their lives.

Over time I think it would give an indication and comparison of your relationships with them.

 

And you could do it in reverse too.

Ie record how you do the above when others reach out to you.

You would tend to be quicker and put more effort into a response to someone who you have a better relationship with.

Although you're likely to change your behavior as a result of knowing you're recording it.

Which would probably be a good thing.

 

Don't forget "John the gate guard"... how often do they smile when they see you?

Cheers, Chris - in Melbourne

 

 

 

 

Comm4Life13's picture

I totally agree with what Chris and all the different factors he listed but I also think it all depends on the way you want things to end up and the effort that you put into the relationship. Its crazy because this is exactly what I learned in college while getting my communication degree in a class I took called Relationship Behavior.  In my opinion it all depends on how you feel and act while you're together and the progress that both sides can see as times go on. As corny as that sounds I think relationships now days whether its in a professional setting with a manager and co-worker or in your own personal relationship with your bf/gf. Yes all of the factors Chris mentioned matter and they are all positive ways to judge how a relationship is going, but I still think its all on your perception and gut feeling about how you feel towards someone and being able to make it work. Too much time is spent thinking about what you should or should not do and not enough time is being spent enjoying the other persons company while you're together. There have been a ton of studies on this and one that I found was very interesting was http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/Norcross.aspx which talks about therapy relationships and multiple other subjects involving different kinds of relationships. If you're interested in learning more about this and different relationship behaviors and also relationships within families and friends I would check out http://www.degreeincommunications.net which offers programs in the Comm field that can specialize in things like relationships and behavioral tendencies. 

GlennR's picture

Will all this work provide a good ROI, or will you spend more time on metrics than you do on the actual relationship building?

How much time will this require? Is your time better spent on building relationships rather than measuring your results?

If you develop detailed metrics around this, what happens if you select or omit the wrong ones or put too much emphasis on one over the other?

I am not trying to imply you are wrong to do this. This may, in fact, be a good ROI for you. It would not be for me. I do this by thinking about the individual and what I expect of him and what I think he expects out of the relationship. Rather than rely on metrics, I trust my instincts. I do think there is value in reviewing key professional relationships on a regular basis. That speaks to networking.