Your best chance of bouncing back, sorting it out, and getting things rocking again lies in the practice of social contracting, a discipline that management thinker Peter Block introduced in his terrific book Flawless Consulting.
But to make it easier, here are five fundamental questions to ask and answer. You don’t need to ask them all. I’m sure you’ll find your own best combination for the person and the situation. Just make sure you ask some of them before things get rolling. You’ll want to remember that any good contract is a mutual exchange. So don’t be fooled into thinking that your job is just to ask the questions. You need to be willing to answer them as well, so you and your collaborator both know where you each might stumble. What do you want? (Here’s what I want.) This is a question that almost always stops people in their tracks. It’s deceptively difficult to answer and incredibly powerful when you can define clearly what exactly it is you want from this relationship. Of course you’ll want to articulate the transactional nature of things: I want you to get this done and get that completed. But see if you can go beyond that. What else do you want? (“I want this to position me for my next promotion.”) What else would make this relationship one to truly value? (“I want this to lay the foundations of future work together. Where might you need help? (Here’s where I’ll need help.) This turns the “What do you want?” question over and comes at it from a different angle. You might want to specify where you’ll trip yourself up (bold), how you might fall short in the relationship (bolder), or even how you might get in the way (boldest). When you had a really good working relationship in the past, what happened? (Here’s what happened for me.) Tell a story of a time when you were in a working relationship similar to this one, and it was good, really good. What did they do? What did you do? What else happened? What were the key moments when the path divided and you took one road and not the other? What else contributed to its success? When things go wrong, what does that look like on your end? How do you behave? (Here’s how I behave.) Tell another story, this time of when a working relationship like this one failed to soar. It might be when it all went hellishly wrong or it might be when it disintegrated into mediocrity. What did you do and what did they do? Where were the missed opportunities? Where were the moments when things got broken? When things go wrong—as they inevitably will—how shall we manage that? The power in this is twofold. First, you’re acknowledging reality: Things will go wrong. Honeymoons end. Promises get broken. Expectations don’t get met. By putting that on the table, you’re able now to discuss what the plan will be when it does go wrong. I’ve done everything from creating a code phrase (“I need to have an ‘off my chest’ conversation with you…”) to inventing a process (“I’m hitting the Mission Pause button”), to simply agreeing that we have permission to talk about things when we feel we must. Maximize Your Potential: Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks & Build an Incredible Career (The 99U Book Series) Comments are closed.
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