The Importance of Relationships

Relationships are the foundation of achievement. And, because an inherent co-dependency always exists among humans, it is important for leaders and individual contributors to understand how to work well together. To achieve success, defined as either a process or an outcome, knowledge and potential are necessary ingredients. How then are relationships imbued with knowledge and potentiated for achievement? The key to both knowledge and potential is respect for the unknown. This means being intellectually precise always. This responsibility is required of leaders and individual contributors alike. But, what does it mean to be intellectually imprecise? An intellectually imprecise person plays from false data of their own making, their own preferences. They overlay assumptions over what is unknown and then proceed often forgetting or intentionally denying that part of their thinking is still presumptive. A stance, such as that of the intellectually imprecise, disrespects the nature of knowledge, limits and/or harms relationships, and therefore potential. To be intellectually precise is, therefore, absolutely critical. If one’s role is to work in and via a community or corporation(s) to accomplish a task or set of tasks, repetitive or innovative, the only obstacle is the inability to BE a team. What does it take to be a team leader or contributor? MAINTAIN the integrity of your mind. *Be willing to challenge and/or let go of your own assumptions at any time. **Be present, meaning leave the past in the past and the future in the future. The past and future are merely preferences, not good, bad, right, or wrong but the intellectually precise understand that now is all there is. ***Understand that both knowledge and potential are always present. The knowledge, for example, that the right talent resides among those in your present makes that talent visible to you and empowers the relationship. LISTEN. *Understand that there is nothing random or accidental and that assuming there is denies your intelligence. What you deny in yourself, you deny in your relationships. **Understand that your relationships, as you see them, reflect exactly what YOU WANT to see, not partially, exactly and in totality. Pay attention. Open your mind to the idea that every person in your scenes are entirely relevant to YOU. Does knowing this make you want to smile with gratitude? It does for me and, when I’m smiling, it is easy to be myself. ***Understand that if you do not like what you see or hear, it is YOUR responsibility to change YOUR thinking. You are showing yourself something ON PURPOSE, not randomly or accidentally, rather to catalyze your thinking in one direction or another.