The Importance of Relationship Building
As we generate this coequal ownership of the mission and of the path forward, we must remember that relationship building is a big part of strategic planning and successful execution. One key to planning in widely unpredictable times is to commit to the importance of relationship building and community building. We need to find new partners, and maintain old partnerships. Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky in their book, Leadership On The Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), remind us that “partners provide protection, and create alliances with factions other than your own.” From my perspective, these partners also help us understand and respect complexity.
Yet, when we grasp the importance of building relationships and finding partners, we must recognize that there are currently three problems that are tripping us up as we build our plans to cope with complexity. First, many leaders believe that all the intelligence is centralized near the top of the organization, and not equally distributed throughout the organization. Second, many leaders start with the premise that change is predictable, and implementation of these plans are scripted on the assumption of a reasonable degree of predictability and control during the time span of the change effort. Right now, this is so far from the truth of the current reality. Third, many leaders assume that all their communication is resulting in clarity being cascaded deep into the organization, and that all who hear it are clear about the company’s strategic intention. The problem here is that many leaders assume that the message sent means the message is understood. This myth results in many leaders believing that buy-in has been achieved.
But, when we step back from these current problems, we realize that the overall challenge before us is a high degree of organizational amnesia. We have forgotten our history, our roots and our our story up until this moment. We also have forgotten our past strategic choices, which results in weak, non-authentic relationships and ultimately weak communities within the company. Furthermore, this land of forgetfulness creates relationships which do not have the capacity to trust, deal with risks, or generate creative responses to extraordinary and complex challenges.
Moving Forward Together
So, how do we proceed once we grasp the importance of understanding our history?
Ron Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky in their book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Harvard Business Press, 2009), encourage us to engage people “above and below the neck,” namely head and heart, plus “remember that people prefer status quo to doing things differently. In an earlier book called Leadership On The Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), Heifetz and Linksy remind us that “the lone warrior myth of leadership is a sure route to heroic suicide .... you need partners [and] relating to people is central to leading and staying alive.”
Building on this framework, I would add four things based on my experience and observations. First, we must create time and space for dialogue and sharing. This choice to slow down before speeding up develops a deeper level of clarity. It is not just clarity at the abstract and conceptual level. instead it is clarity at the relational levels which transforms the depth of commitment from I need to do this into I want to do this. And that is a powerful distinction.
Second, we must engage in proactive coaching and mentoring rather than reactive problem solving. Coaching and mentoring take time. It can not be rushed if we want it to be successful. And at times, the practice of coaching involves a degree of wandering around and among a diversity of issues and problems. Yet, for the person being coached, the choice by the coach to respect a person’s internal process make them continue to move forward rather than simply to choose to maintain status quo no matter what are the external signs and symbols that it is not longer viable, but actually dangerous.
Third, we must focus on creating experiences that build confidence. Years ago, John Kotter wrote about the importance of short terms. They empower people to keep moving through the difficult stage of implementing change. And, at the same time, they energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics, and build momentum for the effort. This is huge when we want to be successful
Finally, we must praise in public and give feedback in private. This is an old, slightly modified Vince Lombardi statement that has it’s roots all the way back to Roman times. This is not a statement that encourages leaders to yell at people behind closed doors. Instead, it is a reminder that motivating and empowering people begins on many different levels. And the respectful actions of a leader reverberate through the halls of the organization for a very long time.
Stories Are The Bridges
“Stories are bridges from past to present,” writes Greg McKeown. “They make history come alive. They expand our sense of self.” Every day, we are creating experiences that become history. Every day, we are telling stories about the past and what happened that created the reality we are experiencing. Every day, these stories about our shared history are bridges that have the potential to expand our understanding of the world in which we live and work.
Yet, in midst of this story telling, and in this bridge building from past to present, we must understand that what we share and how we share it has tremendous short and long term impact. As Meggan Watterson reminds us, “How we see anything, changes everything.” So, our work as leaders is to make sure we share the full story of our history, not just the part that tells a skewed or incomplete story. This is why we need to create and maintain time and space for the collective sharing of history, namely remembered history, lived history, and shared history. And we need to have a wide variety of people in the circle so that the sum of our sharing generates the full story of what happened and what is happening now.
C.S. Lewis grasped this perspective when he wrote: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” When we recognize the importance of understanding our history, we are empowering people to start where they are and to change the ending. For, as we all know, people want to make a positive difference in the world, and people what to know that their work matters. In essence, they want to know that they matter. For when we grasp this deep insight, we then remember that history and personal biography are connected. They always have been and always will be.
© Geery Howe 2025
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