3 Distinct Ways To Maintain Healthy Relationships

"My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better."

- Steve Jobs

I love reading biographies. One of my favorite books is the biography of Steve Jobs. Everyone remembers Steve Jobs as a very intense individual, very emotional and hot-headed at times. We also know Steve Jobs as innovative and sometimes genius. One thing we can't deny though, is that Steve Jobs changed the world with his apple products, his vision and his dream. 

Through the thick and thin of Steve Jobs' life, there was one thing that fascniated me about him. The way he build relationships. Yes, at times he seemed too intense and at times he seemed like a jerk but there was one thing that he did frequently that allowed him to maintain healthy, trustworthy relationships with the people he worked with. Last week I discussed  the importance of having strong relationships (Read Relationships: One Of The Best Investments) and today I want to share with you three distinct ways to maintain healthy relationships.

One-on-One Time
Sometimes we think having lunch with someone or going to the movies is a good way to spend time with someone and get to know the other person. The only problems is that many of these locations are very busy and loud. Steve Jobs used to take walks with some of his co-workers. He hated traditional meetings but loved taking a walk with someone and discussing a new product, how the other person was doing or a way to brainstorm ideas. This was one thing I learned to be valuable when maintaining strong relationships. Having a one-on-one meeting with someone to just "talk" is crucial for the development of the relationships, and sometimes for the sanity of the other person. 

Take 30 minutes to just have a one-on-one meeting with your employee or a co-worker. If you're in a relationships, take a walk with your loved one and just talk. 

Measure the Questions
As I also mentioned in one of my blogs last week (Read How I Accidentally Became A Marriage Counselor In One Month), you can measure the strength of a relationship by the questions you ask the other person. The deeper the questions you can ask the stronger the relationship. The more genuine the questions are, the better. Think about what questions you ask and the questions someone else asks you. 

In no way am I suggesting for  you to cross the line at work and start asking personal questions to your boss. The way you might want to approach this is just by asking questions such as 'how are you feeling with all these changes?,' "how has your week gone so far?," or "how is life treating you?" These might be questions we ask already, but we might want to think about how we use them. Do we use them more as rhetorical questions? If you truly want to know the answers to these questions, you will have stronger relationships simply because you care more. 

Listen 
Many times the best thing we can do in a relationship is just lend an ear. The other person might not want your advice and might not want to strike a conversation about something. The best thing you can do in most instances is just listen. 

This is a very difficult thing to do if you're like me and you want to help others by giving your two cents every time. Listening, though, is a great skill to have and I recommend practicing the balance of listening and talking. You want to make the relationship a two-way street not a one way road.

I hope my suggestions are helpful and you put them to practice very soon. 

Don't forget to share this blog so you can encourage others: family, co-workers, friends. Give them something to get motivated! You never know what they might be going through. A few words of encouragement can go a long way.