Building healthy relationships is important for any organisation to thrive. The strength of this relationship often gets tested when managers address ‘problem areas’ in their employees. There will be some employees who may resent any intervention as they may believe this is an affront to their personhood. Most employees do appreciate such measures. Therefore, it is crucial for managers to learn how to engage employees in a more constructive way to change ‘undesirable’ behaviours. This paves the way for a healthier change relationship.
Intervention Styles
Bringing change to an organisation starts with each individual employee. It requires recognising employee ‘problem areas’ that managers have to address using a specific intervention. Blake and Mouton posited that an intervention is any ‘cycle-breaking endeavour’. The authors observed that behaviour has a cyclical nature. They identified two fundamental intervention styles that can help managers ‘break’ the cycle of unwanted behaviour that their employees may have.
- Prescriptive
Advising is an important intervention mode in the prescriptive style of intervention. Managers advise employees on what they should and should not do. The assumption here is that managers are more experienced and more knowledgeable about the matter being discussed. One issue with this intervention style is that it tends to promote dependency. Change agents who resort to this intervention style do not empower their clients to think for themselves.
- Collaborative
There are several ways in which an intervention can be more collaborative. Supportive interventions allow managers to help employees better express their emotions and feelings. It also helps others clarify their views to make a clearer and a more objective assessment of the problem.
Another collaborative method is theorising. Managers present conceptual models or theories that can help solve an employee’s problem. This provides a framework for employees to determine the best possible course of action based on cause-effect relationships.
Collaborative interventions can also include challenging. The point here is not to attack the employee’s assumptions, beliefs, and values. The role of managers is to encourage the employee to confront his views. It presupposes that a person’s unwillingness to change is rooted in his inability to accept reality.
The last collaborative approach to intervening is information-gathering. Change agents help others collect more information to examine and evaluate a problem situation. It also helps them re-interpret the problem in such a way that finding a more appropriate solution is easier.
The Goal of Intervention
The main goal of any type of intervention is to enable or facilitate change. As already mentioned above, intervening requires ‘breaking’ a certain behaviour that is detrimental to the performance of one’s duties and the overall integrity of the organisation.
Both prescriptive and collaborative approaches to intervention have this goal in mind. They only differ in the way the change is facilitated. Advising tells another what he will need to do without necessarily giving the person the correct tools to manage problems in the future.
The collaborative approaches of theorising, supporting, information-gathering, and challenging equip employees with the right competencies that will allow them to address any issue that they may face.
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How to Develop Collaborative Relationships
Organisations should strive to promote collaborative relationships if they want a longer-lasting and more meaningful change in their organisation.
Managers can do this is by letting employees know that their viewpoint is worthy of the management’s undivided attention. This includes actively listening and understanding what the employees are saying. It shows that managers are committed to helping others. It also underscores the manager’s openness, which can help dissolve any tension that may be present in the manager-employee relationship. Respect is crucial in such instances.
Another way that managers can develop collaborative relationships is by suspending critical judgment. One must avoid making any conclusion before gaining a full understanding of the issue. This is where active listening plays a very important role. It encourages others to also take a closer look at his views. Suspending critical judgment also prevents others from going defensive. It should facilitate the employee’s willingness to change his viewpoint.
Skills that Help Build Healthy Change Relationships
The different modes of intervening to facilitate change require a certain skill set that all change agents should have. Whether it is through collaborative approaches or through prescriptive methods, managers will do well to have the following skills.
- Self-awareness
Both managers and employees should have a certain level of self-awareness about the need for change. If one does not recognise the presence of a gap for which change is necessary, then the relationship will only be superficial at best.
- Establishing Rapport
Becoming self-aware makes it easier to establish and build rapport. This paves the way for the establishment of a more harmonious and a closer relationship with others in the organisation. Everyone understands the ideas and feelings of each other. They can communicate in an effective manner, too.
- Empathy
A crucial skill needed for building change relationships is empathy. Managers must understand the feelings of others in a more objective manner.
- Listening
This requires a deeper understanding of what another person is saying. It lays the foundation for effective communication. The clearer the communication is, the better the change agent is when it comes to identifying potential issues in the change relationship.
- Probing for More Information
Listening alone does not give a person a complete picture of what another is saying. One must ask questions to understand the message being conveyed a lot better. Probing clarifies any misconception one may have about the message.
- Identifying Themes
People can communicate a lot of things. However, one can analyse these messages and group them into specific themes. This helps in the identification of the main problems that need to be addressed.
- Feedback
One can look at feedback as a mirror. It reflects to the person how you understand the message he conveys. This can pave the way for clarification, which can make the message even clearer and the identification of the problem a lot easier.
- Challenging Assumptions
Managers must be ready to challenge the assumptions that employees may have. However, it should be done in a more constructive manner. The point is to challenge the message and not the person delivering the message.
Building healthy relationships is crucial to facilitating change in an organisation. The role of change agents and managers is to facilitate the development of more appropriate competencies for their clients and employees. This will allow people to examine their viewpoints and work on their problems in a more constructive way.
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