Have you ever tried to reset a relationship? It’s not as easy as it seems

Last week I had a fascinating experience where I had 2 business development meetings face-to-face, one after the over.

Now, that’s not very fascinating I hear you say!

What was interesting was that the first was with someone I had known for 15 years and the second was someone I was meeting for only the first time. Both were to talk about a potential new piece of work so very important to me and Shiageto Consulting (my start-up consulting firm).

The first meeting was with someone who had previously been my boss (I last worked for them about 10 years ago but hadn’t spoken to them since then although the working relationship had been great) whereas the second person I didn’t have any historical connections to.

Aside from that the 2 people were of approximately the same demographics (age, gender, cultural background, etc) and they worked in offices about 5 minutes from each other [nice and easy for me to combine the 2 meetings].

Considering the previous history, I was probably slightly more excited by the first meeting than the second but by the time I had finished both meetings, it was clear that I valued the second meeting much more.

A tale of two meetings

When I turned up at the first meeting, I should have seen the signs. My old boss turned up 10 minutes late, didn’t apologise, didn’t offer me anything to drink and instead went straight into talking about the opportunity to work together.

This would have been fine but there was something about the way that he talked about the opportunity that didn’t quite feel right.

He said things like:

“I need you to do this, this and this by this timescale”

“I’m sure you’ll make this a priority piece of work and I’ll expect you to hit these deadlines”.

He then went on to say: “Obviously, we won’t want any of those mistakes you used to make when you work on this. You’ll report into Person X and you can present the final product to me at the end”.

Once he had finished talking, there was no small talk, no questions about me or my level of understanding. Instead, he told me that he would be in touch when he was ready, wrapped up the meeting early and ushered me back to reception to be shown out by an assistant.

Contrast this to the second meeting where my new contact met me at reception, offered me a drink, started off by thanking me for attending that day, spent time to build a rapport, asked me to explain a bit about my background and what I was interested to cover in the meeting, had a 2-way conversation not assuming he knew what I would say, got me excited about the work, agreed some clear next steps and then showed me round the new office with the time we had left before escorting me personally out of the building.

All day, the 2 meetings ran through my head. Not only did I feel that the second had gone much better but the first made me feel a bit angry and I couldn’t work out why.

Ah, that’s where you’ve gone wrong, I’m not a kid anymore

It was only at the end of the day that it suddenly hit me what the feeling I had experienced reminded me of: it was exactly the same feeling as the times when you meet a distant relative for the first time in a long time and they still remember you as a child so treat you as a child even though a lot of time has passed since then (I mean I’m 6'2'’ now, have my own house, and plenty of new hobbies so no, I’m not still into dinosaurs surprisingly).

That old boss hadn’t acknowledged this and couldn’t see me in any light other than as his direct report of 10 years ago. He had missed the fact that a lot of time had passed and that in the interim I had gone on to have a range of experiences leading up to me running my own business. We were now peers so it felt strange to be treated in the old dynamic.

The second person I had met, had treated me on an equal footing; he had no preformulated relationship dynamics with me so treated our first meeting as an exploratory one, investing in building it from scratch.

Now, this isn’t a criticism of my old boss. It is far too common for people to slip back into pre-existing relationship dynamics that are historic and may have served a purpose back in the day (be it parent-child, boss-employee, romantically involved and now not so, etc). In fact, it’s very rare, and would be weird if people started off from scratch in a relationship each time they met, [I mean imagine if you reintroduced yourself to your partner every morning].

I do it myself, sometimes taking relationships for granted; rely on system 1 “lazy” thinking to always act in a previous manner without asking myself what is different and how should I treat this person now.

The reverse is also true; if you are on the receiving end of a historical relationship (particularly if it was negative previously) it is very hard to reset this dynamic. This is why people often find it easier to stop seeing the other person rather than fix the dynamic.

What’s the best thing to do if you find yourself in this situation?

Whether you are on the receiving end of a no-longer functioning historic relationship dynamic or are the propagator of the relationship dynamic, the best thing to do is to periodically check in with both parties to see if the dynamic is still functioning well for both of you (don’t just rely on how you feel about it).

Once you’ve done that I recommend identifying what has changed and some small steps that you might do differently in the relationship (this can be in the form of giving each other feedback that highlights specific things that work and don’t work). I wouldn’t necessarily outline big steps straight off as these may seem too arduous and have the reverse effect.

The good news is that no relationship dynamic can not be redefined. I think back to a whole host of relationships that have been pretty shocking where I have been able to not only reset the dynamic but turn it around completely.

This doesn’t mean you have to do it for every relationship (you may decide that some are just not worth the benefit) but I do advise thinking through all your key relationships and identifying if the dynamic is working for you both — you’ll be surprised that it is often the ones that are most important, and most close, where you may have a bit of a blind spot.

This is up there on the upper echelons of EQ so start slow and refine your abilities and you’ll be amazed at the improvements that can be made.

Right, I’m off to ring my old boss…

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness.

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ