Work relationships: Complicated and Ever-changing

Does this sound familiar? People you felt connected to suddenly drop you. Close connections become distant. Friendly becomes cold. Changes in relationship dynamics can leave us spinning with "what happened?" Shifts in professional relationships are hard. There are often hurt feelings, disappointments and feelings of betrayal. The realization that you may have read the relationship wrong is a difficult pill to swallow.

Let's face it -- shifts are bound to happen. People leave employment. Memberships in groups and clubs end. Day-to-day schedules change and with it the circle of people we do professional life with. With change in circumstance comes a reordering of relationships -- and those shifts can be difficult.

To manage these changes, it can be helpful to understand the different types of professional relationships. These relationships have various degrees of familiarity and loyalty:

✔️ Acquaintances are individuals that know each other's names and maybe what each other does. The relationship may be new, slight and/or transactional.

✔️ Connections have an understanding of the capacity, networks and business needs of each other. Connections make referrals back and forth and swap business.

✔️ Colleagues are individuals in your everyday life. You run in the same circles, see each other at events and meetings and are in each other's day-to-day professional life.

✔️ Strategic allies are people you remain connected to after the day-to-day involvement, connection or business wains. A strategic alliance is forged with strategic allies when you have common goals and interests and there is mutual benefit to stay connected.

✔️ Friends forge the divide between professional and personal. Friends enjoy mutual edification, connection and personal bond.

Some of the hardest relationship moments are realizing you defined the relationship wrong. A person you considered a friend sees you only as a strategic ally. A "work friend" disappears from your life, has no interest in staying touch and you feel abandoned. Connections become acquaintances when you leave a common group and it feels like rejection. So what do you do?

✔️ Know that re-ordering of relationships is part of the process in work relationships. It is hard, but it is to be expected. It feels personal, but it isn't.
✔️ Manage expectations. Consider the professionals in your life and take inventory on who fits where on the work-relationship scale.
✔️ Be diligent in relationship. If you see a work colleague as a friend, say so. Work at the friendship outside of the professional environment.
✔️ Manage work culture. If you desire a relational work culture then relationships must be nurtured and encouraged independent of work performance.