Catherine

Good morning everyone, I hope you have all enjoyed listening to Maria and Jac and those other guys over there!

As MAria stated Real change occurs when relationships are formed and nurtured. It is not just about getting the same job done year after year. Organisations need to be getting better all the time, and this requires relationships to be formed and nurtured. It's not just about the initial relationship that you form with people it is the ongoing relationship that makes the difference.

Boleman and Deale Reframing Organisations (2003) High perfoming teams develop a common commitment to working relationships. Effective teams take the time to explore who is best suited for a particular task as well as how individual roles come together. Achieving structural clarity varies fro team to team but it takes more than an graphic organiser to identify roles and responsibilities which pinpoints ones place in the official hierarchy. Most teams require a more detailed understanding of who is going to do what and how people relate to each other in carrying out diverse tasks.

Let's put this into the context of a school. Once there was a classroom teacher who loved science. She stated this in her interview but due to structuring of the school she was put into prep where science is not a large part of the curriculum. Relationships were not formed with this teacher and she went about doing her job. Imagine how much the school and students could have gained from this teacher if relationships were formed and nurtured and her love of science could have been shared. When staff form good working relatio0nships, the best person for the job is chosen and students benefit.

To go back to jac's point about Jesus! From what I know about Jesus (and I know that's less than the rest of you becuse I'm not catholic!) he didn't hire the disciples because of their ability to perform tasks, he hired them because of a relationship he had formed and a vision of what they could become. He wasn't a dictator who handed out tasks but he showed others how to act and treat others. He taught them about empathy, integrity, trust and a willingness to communicate and together they develop ad grew. Now who wouldn't be happy with thr growth of that company?

In conclusion, there is no way that organisations can perform without relationships. How many people that you know have been to a team building day or staff retreat. Now why would companies spend thousands of dollars to do this if it wasn't a proven fact that the relationships that people have impact on productivity.

'Organisations are webs of relationships, requiring all parties to work together in order to get the job done'.

'If you understand what people want and why they want it, you can usually find a way to make progress together'.

'Respect is the foundation for a strong relationship – and this means respecting yourself as well as others'.

'When someone listens to you, both your own sense of worth and the worth of the listener increase and create new ideas and understandings'.

Nick Heap