Relationships check
Here we have focused on relationships and their fundamental importance to the running of a community pharmacy. We have sought to describe the role of building and maintaining a healthy level of trust in your most important business relationships.
We looked at the trust equation and its components, which give a focus to your efforts to build trust within your relationships. Then we examined the emotional bank account.
As with a financial bank account, we can make deposits and withdrawals. This useful metaphor is helpful to gauge the health of a relationship. Those that have a low balance will need you to make regular deposits to ensure they have a healthy and sustained level of credit.
Understanding the state of your most important relationships and maintaining a healthy balance is critical to the purpose of this module but, more importantly, to the health and sustainability of your business.
Build up your working relationships bank account
We have discussed the emotional bank account and how it represents the level of trust we have in our relationships with others. You can make deposits and improve a relationship or make withdrawals and worsen it.
So how do you build a healthy and rich emotional bank account? One deposit as a time is a good start.
A word of caution though, is that what may be a deposit to you may not be a deposit to the other person. Deposits are very personal, so make sure you judge them well and that they are meaningful to the person for whom they are intended.
Below are examples of six deposits and withdrawals.
Deposits
- Keep promises
- Be loyal
- Do small acts of kindness
- Listen
- Say you're sorry
- Set clear expectations and objectives
- Provide honest and constructive feedback.
Withdrawals
- Break promises
- Gossip and break confidences
- Be self-centred
- Don't listen
- Be arrogant
- Set unclear expectations and objectives
- Don't provide feedback.
ACTIVITY
Where are you in the relationships at work that matter most to you?
Be honest and think of key relationships that need improving. Write the names of the people on a sheet of paper and enter whether you think you have either a positive balance (+) or a deficit (-) for each person.
If you were to share the information with the people on the list and ask them about the state of your emotional bank account, what would they say? Would they feel the balance was correct? For each person, make a list of potential deposits that you could make to ensure that the relationship becomes healthier and has a more positive balance.
References and further reading
- Covey, Stephen R, 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People', 15th anniversary edition, Simon & Schuster, 2004.
- Acuff, Jerry, and Wood, Wally, 'The Relationship Edge in Business: Connecting with Customers and Colleagues when it Counts', Wiley, 2004.