Work relationships are key to your success as an entrepreneur.
But how do you create space for all those people vying for your valuable time?
There probably won’t be an end to the demands for your time, but you can do something about how you process and handle the situation at hand.
The key lies in being mindful of those relationships and creating intentional containers in your calendar to honor them.
In this article, you’ll learn about how you can improve your business work relationships through the lens of time management.
You’ll learn about different types of work relationships, why you should care about them, and the benefits of cultivating such relationships.
You’ll also learn about how business work relationships affect your productivity and ultimately ways you can improve your time spent with others.
What are Business Work Relationships?
Business work relationships are the interpersonal relationships within the day-to-day operations of your business.
You may not consciously think about it, but you most likely interact with a lot of different people on any given day.
While interacting with people isn’t anything new, it’s important to understand that your work relationships are key to the life of your business.
Let’s take a look at some common business work relationships.
Clients and Customers
Clients and customers are the backbone of any business.
You cannot run a successful business if you do not have clients and customers to purchase your services or products.
How you service and interact with your clients and customers can have a big impact on whether or not your business thrives over the years.
Vendors AND CONTRACTORS
Vendors and contractors are the lifeblood of commerce.
Your business cannot function if you don’t have the support of other businesses in your daily, weekly, and yearly operations.
From professional service vendors like lawyers, bookkeepers, accountants, and graphic designers to service vendors like materials vendors, delivery services, and office suppliers, you’ll need a team of vendors and contractors on your side in order to run your business.
Staff
Your work staff are the true beating heart and pulse of your business.
These folks are the ones interacting with clients and customers, as well as managing vendors and contractors. They keep everything moving on a regular basis.
Staff are a valuable resource. When you spend time cultivating your staff, both you, your business, and staff benefit.
Why Should You Care About Investing Time in Business Work Relationships?
We’ve all heard about personal relationships and how important they are to our overall happiness, health, and satisfaction.
Business work relationships are different because they are related to the running of your business. You must work with others in order to reach an agreed-upon business goal.
Sometimes, you can directly choose with whom you do business. And other times, you are unable to change, adjust, or modify your relationship.
No matter which type of relationships you have at the moment, it’s always a good idea to maintain your professionalism and be respectful of others.
As the old adage goes, you don’t want to burn your bridges. Yes, you may have a less than stellar work relationship. But you never know if and when your paths may cross again.
For instance, you may find yourself in the exact same position as you previously were. Or you may find yourself on the opposite end of the business work relationship.
Another reason to care about investing time in your business work relationships is that a business’ reputation spreads quickly.
A poor work relationship with a company, organization, or individual, or one that is otherwise negative in some way is bad for business.
The last thing you need is a poor advertisement of you and your business out in the world!
What Some Benefits of Spending Time Cultivating Positive Business Work Relationships?
Work relationships don’t magically cultivate themselves. They require time, patience, and effort.
You must spend quality time and energy building solid and fruitful work relationships.
But why would you want to do so in the first place?
Here’s a few benefits of cultivating positive business work relationships that I can think of:
- Positive reputation amongst clients, customers, vendors, contractors, and staff
- Solid professional connections with others in your business’ industry or sector
- Sets your business apart from your competitors and shows you care about others
- Gain trust and respect amongst your professional peers and other organizations
- Better understanding of the needs of others within your business’ daily operations
How Do Business Work Relationships Affect Your Productivity?
After reading the above, I bet you’re super keen on cultivating positive and strong work relationships with others.
But did you know that your business work relationships can affect your productivity levels or your ability to get things done?
It all goes back to working with people and strengthening your relationship with them.
People are more likely to do business with others that they know, like, and trust.
If you have a positive relationship with someone, then this will positively influence your work flow.
Let’s say you’ve cultivated a rewarding relationship with a business vendor over the years. You both enjoy working together. You know, like, and trust one another.
What’s more, you regularly work with them, are satisfied with their work, and refer them to others in your network.
You consistently receive materials, goods, and services from the vendor on time. It’s a business match made in heaven.
But if you had a less than stellar relationship with this vendor, things may look different. You be less inclined to work with or associate with them on a regular basis.
You aren’t satisfied with their products or services. And you may find you trust them less.
You may even find it difficult to communicate clearly with them because there is too much friction between your businesses.
The latter situation will most likely cause stress, headaches, and frustration. This will eventually affect your personal productivity, as well as the overall productivity of your business.
The former situation, however, will most likely be smooth, fluid, and seamless. You’ll be able to get things done in your work, and your business’ productivity will be steady.
Having a positive work relationship can mean the difference between streamlined business operations and work flows, or not.
4 Practical Tips to Improve Your Business Work Relationships
Now that you know about business work relationships, how can you go about changing things for the better?
If you want to improve your business work relationships, one of the top things you can do is to learn how to better manage your time spent with others.
Different work relationships require different aspects of your time and energy. The better you can identify and create this time for others, the better off you’ll be.
This shows that you are actively caring about others and thinking of how you can help and work with them over the long term.
Here are four ways you can better craft your calendar to create space for the different people entering your world of work.
Examine meeting patterns
You may not realize it, but there’s a regular pattern to your meetings.
Seeing these patterns requires you to take a giant step back from your daily affairs and take an objective look at your meetings.
Think about the regular meetings you attend.
With whom do you meet? For what reason or reasons? What are the session durations? How about session frequency? What types of meeting variations exist?
Alternatively, you can pull this information directly from your work calendar. Review the past several weeks, months, and years for clues.
Once you have this information in hand, you can use it to your advantage to make adjustments to your meetings.
Mix up available meeting types
Not all meetings are created equal, nor does every meeting need to be two hours in length.
Think about ways you can adjust or modify the types of meetings you hold on a regular basis. You’re only limited by your imagination.
How might you make slight adjustments or improvements to the type of meetings held?
Be sure to take into consideration attendee roles and responsibilities, the number of attendees, and the information discussed.
Could you shorten or lengthen a meeting? Add or remove attendees? Hold a meeting virtually instead of in person?
You may also want to set some form of meeting type standardization to help you with your planning.
This not only allows for simpler scheduling but you’ll know what to expect in advance of a meeting.
For instance, you may decide internal brainstorming meetings are held for two hours in person on Thursdays every quarter, while one-on-one staff meetings are held via video call on Monday mornings for 30 minutes at a time.
Create open office hours
Depending on your business size and needs, you may wish to dedicate some of your monthly time to urgent on-the-spot questions.
The idea here is to create a sense of connection and a forum for conversation in a way that’s open and natural.
You can set regular open hours in your calendar where people can stop by for a chat.
Be prepared to actively speak with others during these hours so you can be fully present in your time together.
Another variation of this type of office hours is a weekly or daily walk-through in your place of business.
Doing so allows you to stay current and with the concerns and needs of your employees and staff.
Embrace the standing meeting
A standing meeting, otherwise known as a recurring meeting, is held on a regular basis at a particular date and time.
If you’ve not set regular standing meetings for yourself in your business, consider this your wake-up call.
The standing meeting can be useful because it is predictable. You know exactly with whom you are going to meet and what you going to discuss.
Standing meetings are perfect for those individuals with whom you meet on a regular basis, such as assistants, vendors, clients, and anyone else of importance in your business.
You can add standing meetings to your calendar on either a daily, weekly, monthly, bi-weekly, quarterly, or yearly basis.
What is most important is that you have the meeting scheduled so you have adequate time to prepare in advance.
Learn How to Improve Time Management Skills In Work Relationships
Work relationships are built on trust and respect, no matter your business’ industry, field, or sector.
Solid time management skills can help you improve your work relationships because they help you to be punctual, timely, and focused on the present moment.
If you want clarity around improving your time management skills in your business when it comes to working with others, schedule a free 30-minute video strategy session with me today.
A version of this post originally appeared on Inc.com.
0 Comments