Welcome to My Blog - Bhushan Kachru

                         Bring Life to Personal Relationships

                                                                                                                Photo by-ADI

From times immemorial maintaining and developing personal relationships have been your Godsend attainments to survival. But for relationships, you would have been a wild beast roaming in a jungle. Look at animals, birds, insects, and other living organisms surviving only because of others in their gather. Challenges in building, and maintaining relationships both on and off the work are becoming tougher, and intricate. This seems large because of your unending material needs, social comparisons, stepping in other's shoes, and trying to be politically correct, etc. People are looking for ways to create lasting relationships in a world where they internally believe that this is almost impossible. Social networking sites are rolling with platforms for initiating, and maintaining relationships more through networking sites, boosting of number of friends, and likes, etc. and less in person and  meeting of wave lengths. I know of instances where people sitting in the same office room feel convenient wishing each other through what’s up text message/ conveying Hi through Facebook rather than shaking hands across the tables. I feel it has largely become fancy these days to get a branding tag this short lived way? Is this the personal relationships most of you are proud of?

  

Good relationship abilities are an offshoot of your personality dynamics. Have you noticed that conflict often arises because most of you look at the world from your perspectives, perceptions, and often with a narrow image that often may be different than in reality? Fruitful interactions involve understanding, appreciating, and putting up with individual differences. Reaching out to give is the best way to establish a lasting connection. Faith and admiration are very important in building and maintaining a relationship. Give them the right attention they require and devote a portion of your day towards relationship building. Someone has put it beautifully “Instead of maintaining relations in your life... just try to maintain life in your relations...”

  Much of personal relationship attributes are largely picked up from your homes, parental and societal interactions, schools, etc. As you grow these get reinforced further or depreciate depending on your life situations, success, and failures of accomplishing goals and hardships if any undergone. The quality of relationships depends on people's sensitivities. Sometimes poor personal relationship abilities are an outcome of your mind chatter, internal conversations, narrow-mindedness, prejudices, and biasness. The prerequisites for strong and effective relationship proficiencies are suppleness, flexible mindset, control on temperament, and emotions, positivity, empathy, etc. Surely some of you need to work on these traits or else relationships will be on tenterhook, showier, and fake in nature.

 

 The dynamics of good personal relationship abilities call for an attitude of sacrifice, broad vision, and heartfelt feelings. Those of you, who are driven by head and heart characteristic combinations, possess stable emotions and believe in ‘give and take’ generally, do well in people relationships. Remember a good personal relationship is mutual and essentially two-way traffic. You get treated the way you treat others. Relationships cannot be understood by the language of money and richness. Because some investments never give profits but they make you rich otherwise. A great relationship is about two things, first, find out the similarities, second respect the differences. Strong relationship abilities are of great help to manage conflicts, motivate and drive your team members, and others for meaningful engagements at work. 

Let me share a small story to understand the sensitivities of relationships:

 "One day, a ten-year-old boy went to an ice-cream shop, sat at a table, and asked the waitress, "How much is an ice-cream cone?" She said, "seventy-five cents". Then the boy started counting the coins he had in his hand. Then he asked how much a small cup of ice-cream was. The waitress impatiently replied, "sixty-five cents". The boy said, "I will have the small ice-cream cup". He had his ice cream, paid the bill, and left. When the waitress came to pick up the empty plate, she was touched. Underneath were ten one-cent coins as a tip. The little boy had consideration for the waitress before he ordered his ice cream. He showed sensitivity and caring. He thought of her before himself.”

 

If you all reflect like the little boy, show consideration, courtesy, and politeness you would have a great place to live and work.

 

                                                                             Photo-chanonrypayroll.co.uk

Steps to Reactivate Yourself

 I have observed that not all employee team workings are successful. This is essential because of group behavioral issues such as one-upmanship, inter-personal conflicts, communication gaps, bitching, blames games, passing the buck, etc. A relationship works best when parties to it believe that they have got better than what they deserved.

 ‘Maintaining personal relationship is cheaper and easy than repairing and rebuilding it.  I feel personal relationships and water are somewhat similar and on the same platter. Both are colorless and formless. Despite this, both are a must for your being. It is said that one needs to take extra care of three key aspects of life... Promise, Friendship, and Relationship, these don't make noise, but when they break they create emptiness and silence! ‘

 Appreciate Spouse’s Work

 

Appreciate how your spouse manages kids, disciplines them, and helps complete their school tasks. Her hands remain full and she also gets exhausted and worn out. Help her with housework on holidays/evenings if possible. Call on her parents periodically, it helps build relationships. The same off course is expected of her when it comes to your parents, and your near and dear ones. There is no if, but, and excuses of any kind. Help build an environment of trust, equality, and a fair approach in bringing life to your relationships.

 

Communications

 

The art of communicating is essentially a preface to your relationship abilities. The way you generally communicate reflects your feelings.

 

1It is imperative to have stable emotions i.e. normal behavior without anger, and preconceived notions, etc. before the start of important communications such as resolving conflicts or counselling, etc.

 

2 Plan the contents i.e. what to convey and mode of delivery in advance. Often you communicate through nonverbal clues. Be careful of your body language. The less you convey through it, the better it is.

 

3Minor disagreements at times result in blocking the communications such as stopping communicating for days together. This is a sign of immaturity and inflexibility. Give a long pause say few hours to cool down tempers before resumption. The other party sees your point of view and normalcy is restored.

 

 Effective Listening

 

People are generally poor listeners, and half the trouble is resolved if you make others comfortable by listening to them patiently. But often you jump the gun in drawing your conclusions based more on perception rather than facts.

 

1Be patient, listen carefully and don't interrupt. Don't make facial expressions even if you are already aware of information not being satisfactory. Don’t interrupt with counterarguments. Verify the facts in advance.

 

2 Your mind processes information much faster than the normal rate of speech and you often half-listen, do other things simultaneously and think about what next. Try to discipline your mind to pay full attention.

 

3 Listening with empathy i.e. putting you in other's shoes help to understand the emotions of the speaker and makes understanding of contents easy.

 

Rigidity

 

Inflexibility and apprehensive personality traits are the biggest enemies. These are generally offshoots of your thinking patterns and are often linked to your genes and lack of proper childhood training. People with such egoistic traits are a loner and have a problem in relationships.

 

1Improving attitudes require patience, perseverance, and determination. Self-assessment and carrying suitable corrections gradually works. Start from home and make notes each time you are inflexible and think how you could get over this.

 

2 Control your emotions slowly and discipline your mind. Ask your spouse or friend to act as an auditor. I promise you would improve gradually and feel satisfied when people start observing changes.

 

Honest Emotions

 

Sincerity, reliability, and positivity are the soul of people's relationships. Let people know this by your actions and not by self-publicity.

 

1 Nobody believes in what you say in the first interface. It depends on your convincing capability, confidence, expressions, and abilities of communication.

 

2 People are smart enough to see through the pseudo behaviour and duplicity. You are on to a good and long-drawn relationship, what you project in the beginning carries you through.

 

3 Duplicity is a double-edged weapon. Believe in yourself to believe in others. Relationships based on suspicion and doubt always remain on tented hooks and disturbs the mind.

 

Assertive or Aggressive

Generally, aggressive people are not liked in social and work environments. Unfortunately, aggressive people often forget this and continue with their negative personality traits. Aggression sooner turns to anger and results in dysfunctional relationships. Aggressive individuals are usually novices in relationships, impatient, and want the results yesterday.

 

1Assertiveness as an alternative may be used when instructions are not obeyed; Assertiveness often is a result of balanced usage of your head and heart attributes. It is an art and can be learned by repeated practice, experience, patience, and stable emotions.

2 In management parlance assertiveness essentially means 'firm and fair. 'It is a leadership trait followed by most business leaders.

 Ego

Most relationships go on rocks because of ego hassles and the attitude of unbending. Ego is a hard nut to crack and appears early in your lives either due to genes or uninterrupted successes, beauty, physical attributes, and pampering. Keep a constant check on your ego; you don't have to be right always. Try to accept criticism from others if you are wrong. If someone asks for personal advice or help, extend your hand even if it means putting your work to hold. While doing daily prayers, request 'His' benevolence to help conquer your ego.

 Other Useful Tips

1  Personal relationships are bound to hit the rough patch once in a while due to misunderstandings/ miscommunications. However, it is equally important that you mend and maintain relationships even during tough times.

2  Maintain positivity as a habit. The aura generated draws others to you.

3  You all have positive and negative traits. Get out of suspicion. Make a habit to believe others unless proved otherwise. Be generous with praise and kind words.

4 Resolve conflicts and disagreements by initiating a positive dialogue. Sitting on false prestige or unbending ego attitude distances relationships.

5  Depending on the situation, resolve differences by use of humor/ laugh and give practical examples/situations to create a tension-free climate.

6 Avoid talking at the back, bitching, or criticizing people. Someone can do the same for you.

7 Do not judge people at the first meet. Take time to understand them inside out.

8 Avoid the blame game. Both parties need to discover and accept their share of responsibility.

 

To bring life to relationships, you need to have a big heart and be magnanimous enough to walk an extra mile to create a congenial and positive climate of 'made for each other'.

 

  

Bhushan  Kachru

 

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