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Published in Employee Benefits Planner, Third Quarter, 1999 Relationship Management; Employees with Personal Balance are More Effective (continued) transferable to others. I took notes, I observed. I read books. I discussed and explored relationship-management strategies with executives, managers and their employees. At a certain point, I believed that I had found the answer. I noted that individuals with excellent relationship-management skills had certain qualities in which individuals with poor relationship-management skills were deficient. Individuals with good employee-relationship skills seemed to be—not what the acronym spells—Empathetic, Modest, Partnering, Loyal, Original, Yielding, Endearing, Empowering and Sensible. I studied those positive attributes and found other relationship-management skills involving customers, vendors and the community in general. Once I believed that I had found the critical keys in each area I began emphasizing them to my clients. But I employed the concepts with little effect. Ultimately, I learned a difficult lesson: The concepts, though valuable, were all secondary keys. I was missing the primary key to success. That key was personal balance. Why personal balance? The Real Thing It occurred to me that most people seemed to have poor coping skills and terrible listening skills. Almost all the managers I talked to seemed overwhelmingly egocentric. They seemed plagued by permanent personal problems, and their preoccupation with their issues had a harsh effect on their ability to associate constructively with others. I began to see cycles of self-destructive behavior that permeated organizations, surfacing periodically with all individuals. For some, it would last for hours—for others, days, weeks or months. Sometimes the self-destructive behavior lasted years. The problems were rarely generated in the workplace. But, employees' illnesses, poor personal-investment decisions, unrealistic expectations of themselves and others, mourning for someone close, unhappiness in companionship, personal trauma, humiliating experiences, activities that dominate time and were incompatible with personal interests and life goals—such person issues seemed to be at the root of most self-destructive Page 2 |
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