Small change: get the relationship right

In business, strategy tends to get all the attention. But the deciding factor in whether anything gets done in an organisation is the quality of the relationships between the people responsible for doing it.

Two leaders with a strong working relationship will find a way through ambiguity, disagreement and pressure. Two leaders with a poor one will struggle to deliver even the most elegant plan. The strategy might tell you where you’re going. But the relationship determines whether you’ll get there, because it’s the thing that holds when everything else is uncertain.

Most organisations overinvest in the plan and underinvest in the connections between the people executing it. This is a mistake. Relationships are not a nice-to-have sitting alongside the real work. They are the real work on which progress depends.

Something to consider: which relationship, if strengthened, would have the biggest impact on what you’re trying to achieve right now?

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