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Relationship quality is a cornerstone of a healthy existence, surprisingly this extends far beyond just our family and friends to colleagues and even that guy or girl on the bus. Fostering these relationships will increase happiness and contentment, and that office table-tennis tournament might add eight years to your life.
Some of the greatest sources of knowledge and insight come from those in whose footsteps we follow. Bronnie Ware took this notion to its logical end in her memoir 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying' where she turned to those at the end of their lives for inspiration on how we could better live out our own.
One of these learnings is particularly pertinent in this time of Zoom and doom, where it feels as if a constant barrage of ever-greater calamities are vying for our attention spans.
I wish I'd let myself be happier.
If happiness is the key to life, what is the key to happiness? Psychologist Sabina Reed believes a quote by Belgian-born psychotherapist Esther Perel holds the answer we seek: "The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives."
Relationships are vital to human happiness. According to Reed, research indicates that an unhappy relationship can increase your chance of getting sick by 35 percent and can even shorten your life by four to eight years. Astoundingly, relationships even ranked 20 percent higher than salary as peoples' motivation for coming to work.
So, to say relationships are important is an understatement, and not just the ones we choose. Reed says the importance of relationships can clash with the atypical nature of lawyers. "Lawyers are the most atypical occupation on the planet. On average lawyers score high on skepticism, a need for autonomy, urgency and abstract reasoning, and low on sociability and psychological resilience."
"The possible implications with that kind of profile are that you're going to be trained to look for the negative. Each of us have a set of antennae on our head that scans the world. And it's the view of the world which we see through those antennae which we inhabit. So, if your antennae are looking for what's not working well then that is what you're going to see and say."
While these antennae help lawyers to be excellent at the minutiae of their work, often they close lawyers off. Being cognizant of this and consciously opening up may be the key to avoiding what is a common regret. Even if entering the staff table-tennis tournament or making time in your busy schedule for a catch-up with a colleague doesn't feel the most lawyerly thing to do.
Reed says clinical psychologists John and Julie Gottman's key findings of what they term relationship "Masters" and "Disasters" is particularly relevant to lawyers and can offer insights into how they conduct themselves in the workplace.
"Masters of relationships show interest in their partner's world, who they are, what they do. They respond to bids for attention 86 percent of the time. They avoid criticism and blame and instead think about how they have contributed to whatever problem has appeared. They maintain a five to one positive to negative ratio in any exchange, particularly in periods of conflict. So they are feeding the good things in the relationships all the time."
Relationship disasters are accompanied by the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling (emotional withdrawal). Crucially, disasters respond to bids only 33 percent of the time.
Clinical psychologist Karen Bridbord extrapolated the work of the Gottman's to fit the workplace context, creating the sound relationship workplace, which has seven pillars. First is to develop colleague maps, essentially the extent to which you know and engage with your colleagues on a personal as opposed to professional level. More than superficial watercooler chat, making a conscious undertaking to know your colleagues and what makes them tick.
The second pillar is positive engagement and about replicating the 5:1 positive exchange ratio in the workplace.
Respond and engage is the third pillar, which closely mirrors the Gottman's theory of bids. "We're all making bids in the workplace for each other. They're not always overt, so we want to be aware of what those bids look like. We have a choice when anyone bids for us or our attention, we can either turn away, turn against or we can choose to turn toward each other.
"Think about how many bids you've ignored or rejected from people you work with. Stakeholders, clients, colleagues, team members. We know why we do it, often it's because we're exhausted or frustrated, or we've got nothing left in the tank. But this has an accumulative impact in the workplace and in our relation capacity," says Reed.
Perception plays a significant role, too. "Perception becomes reality, how positively or negatively you and your colleagues feel about each other is what actually becomes your reality," she says.
That reality plays a massive part in how we resolve our differences. "What we know about conflict is that 69 percent of couple issues are unresolvable. That probably doesn't bode well through a legal mind. There is no neat place of arrival where two people are going to be on the same page. How we dialogue around those differences is more important than any end point," Reed continues.
The final part of this sound relationship workplace is facilitating career advancement. In reality, this encompasses much more than just suggesting people for promotions or pay rises. It should be a supporting of each other's dreams, goals and professional development. Reed says, "That's something you can all do for each other, support each other's triumphs."
As with everything in life, it always comes back to people. While positive relationships are not likely to solve all our woes, reaching out will improve your quality of life at home and at work. And may spare you that dying regret.
From connected legal to connected people.
