re·la·tion·ship (noun)

The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.

It is incredible to think how developing, cultivating, maintaining, and leveraging personal relationships has dramatically changed just in the last decade.  The ease of communicating is replacing the fine art of relating.  Each of us now will receive over 35,000 messages a day, both directly and indirectly, from various input sources.  In addition, did you know the average person speaks over 16,000 words per day!?  Now that is a lot of communicating going on with potentially little to no relationship established.

This ability to communicate anywhere, anytime is the new norm no matter your generation, gender, work environment, or position in life or work.  It is easy to lose the art and practice of developing relationships and rely strictly on communicating.

In this important series of blogs we will explore the three (3) types of relationships and how we can lead our way back to developing and maintaining meaningful and impactful relationships; moving past just the bits and bytes of communicating.  We will highlight the strengths and pitfalls of each.  It is important to note, that with limited time to devote to cultivating relationships it is important to recognize their differences because not all relationships are created equally!  We have to focus more on those that have meaningful impact.

Lets start with transient relationships. This relationship type has exploded on the scene over the last decade or so due in part to the acceptance and usage of social media.  Facebook, LinkedIn, SnapChat, et cetera, and those that will follow, have drastically changed how and who we communicate with.  People range from having a few “friends” and “connections” to millions of “followers” depending on how you use these communication tools.

The Strengths of Transient Relationships

• Ease of contacting a large number of people
• Search individuals from the past
• Connect with people that have mutual interests or roles
• Good initial contact point

The Possible Pitfalls of Transient Relationships

• Can become a distraction and time-waster
• Easy to mistake for a deeper level of relationship
• Difficult to determine how real or genuine the connection is
• No commitment, little accountability to actions or words

Be cautious with your transient relationships, they do have their usefulness but can easily become another distraction that saps valuable time away from developing your more truly impactful relationships. 

Next week in the series, leading your transactional relationships!

Cornerstone Learning is a performance and leadership consulting organization that has worked with clients all over the world. Our focus is working with individuals and organizations to create performance solutions that deliver top-tier results by inspiring, enabling, and developing employee-led, leader supported, and organization enabled performance. We are able to successfully deliver this through multiple products and services such as employee surveys, online training, performance assessments, and performance coaching. The goal at Cornerstone Learning is to assist our clients in developing a dynamic and customized blue print to deliver role model organizational and personal performance.