How Important are Internal Relationships at Work?

Building mutually beneficial relationships is one of my favorite things to forge.

There is nothing like a win-win.

Working with a partner that is totally bought in makes it easy to stay motivated.

It becomes exciting to figure out the puzzle pieces together.

Ready to go ALL IN on the project you are working on.

This is all very satisfying.

What took me a minute to realize is that the most important relationship to foster may not be the first one you think about.

Surprise: it's your colleagues.

The people that you are working side by side with day in and day out.

Now imagine the same scenario above with your colleagues.

Thinking creatively about solutions together.

Going ALL IN.

Coming up with a win-win to tackle the project.

Now THAT sounds satisfying.

Not only does it benefit your current position with your current colleagues, it will benefit the future you as well. Promise it.

Here are a few things I have learned along the way:

1️⃣  You are all working towards the same end goal
→ for X company to be successful

2️⃣  There is a lot happening behind the scenes
→ try to not take things personally

3️⃣  You are going to disagree once in a while
→ approach the conversation with a thinking cap on

4️⃣  Most of the time everybody is a bit overworked
→ consider this when communicating internally

Thinking back to some of my most valued work relationships, I thought about the time a few of us enjoyed Disneyland together in 2019 (pictured below).

Just a reminder of how important (and beneficial) these relationships truly are.