Build Strong Relationships by Sending Positive Micro Messages

As I mentioned in my birthday post, and as members of my career mentoring site know, relationships are an important key to your life and career success.

Tweets 121 – 140 in my career advice book Success Tweets deal with the importance of relationship building. You cannot create the life and career success you want and deserve if you don’t build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.

All too often however, your interaction style can have a negative impact on your career success. JT O’Donnell is a friend of mine and founder of Careerealism and Career HMO. You should check out her sites – she has some great life and career success advice there.

A while back I received an email from JT called “10 Signs Your Interaction Style Is Messing With Your Career:” JT really nailed it with this one. I asked her if I could post her thoughts here and she graciously agreed. Check out JT’s 10 signs that your interaction style is messing with your career…

1. You feel like nobody is paying attention to your requests at work.
2. Colleagues have informal meetings without you and then tell you the results and how they directly impact your job.
3. Your boss dismisses EVERY idea you present to her.
4. Co-workers always agree with you when you voice your concerns, but then you hear they said something entirely different to your boss.
5. You have no close friends at the office.
6. You’ve been told you aren’t “management material” yet.
7. People get really quiet and don’t have any answers or comments when you speak.
8. You don’t get selected for any team projects or special assignments.
9. People love to tease you about how “honest” and “funny” and “shameless” you are at the office.
10. You’ve been fired.

JT provides some great guidance here.

If you want to build strong relationships at work, start with your existing relationships. Tweet 123 in Success Tweets says, “Use every social interaction to build and strengthen relationships. Strong relationships are your ticket to success.”

I have found that little things make for strong relationships. In other words, sweat the small stuff.  It’s the small stuff that will help you build and maintain strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the people who can help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

A couple of years ago, I had an opportunity to preview a DVD on relationship building called, Little Things Mean a Lot. The DVD highlights the importance of sweating the small stuff when it comes to relationships.  It comes form the point of view that we send micro-messages in our interactions with other people. While micro-messages are often small, their impact can be enormous.  They can help or hinder your relationship-building efforts.

Micro-affirmations help you build and maintain strong relationships. Micro-inequities hinder your ability to build and maintain strong relationships.

These are important concepts that deserve a closer look.

Micro-affirmations are micro-messages that we send to other people that cause them to feel valued, included, or encouraged.

Micro-inequities are micro-messages that we send to other people that cause them to feel devalued, slighted, discouraged or excluded.

Ask yourself, “When do I feel excluded, disrespected and devalued?” In most of these cases, you have been the recipient of a micro-inequity. The way you feel when you experience a micro-inequity is the way others are likely to feel when you engage in micro-inequity behavior. That means you should refrain from using these behaviors in your interactions with others.

Then do just the opposite. Ask yourself, “When do I feel included, respected and valued?” In most of these cases, you will have been the recipient of a micro-affirmation. Work hard to incorporate behaviors that are micro-affirmations into your daily interactions with others.

When you focus on sending micro-affirmations and avoiding micro-inequities, you will be better able to build solid, lasting relationships with the people in your life. And strong relationships are an important key to your personal and professional success.

The career success point here is simple. Successful people build strong relationships with the important people in their work lives. They adopt an interaction style that facilitates, rather than hinders their relationships. They send positive micro messages – the small things that show another person that you value him or her. They avoid sending micro-inequities – messages that demean people in small ways.

Your career mentor,

Bud

PS: I write this blog to help people create the life and career success they want and deserve. Now I’m going one step further. I’ve created a membership site in which I’ve pulled together my best thoughts on success. And, as a reader of this blog, you can become a member for free. Just go to https://budbilanich.com/join to claim your free membership. You’ll be joining a vibrant and growing community of success minded professionals. I hope to see you there.