Author Insights

Building relationships for project success

Bob Dignen, author of Managing Projects, takes time to think about building
relationships, and why this is essential to international project success.
Why talk about relationships?
Ask most business professionals what enables them to be successful, and sooner rather than
later people will mention relationship building. Yes, technical competence is important,
whether it be IT skills, engineering know how, finance acumen etc. Of course, subject matter
expertise is a precondition in some way for success at work. But, and this is a big but, it is
not enough. Business is a people business. At the end of the day, we need to work with and
interact successfully with a huge range of unique individuals, with whom we have to
establish trust, create commitment and engagement, build team spirit, establish credibility
etc, constructing a kind of emotional network which underpins and facilitates what we do
and what we are trying to achieve.

But what exactly do you mean by relationship?

Now this is an interesting question. While everyone agrees that relationships are important,
theyre not necessarily talking about the same thing. Between individuals, and across
cultures, views on the meaning of professional relationship can differ enormously. For
some, a relationship means something akin to friendship: close emotional ties, lots of
sharing of personal information, spending time with the other person and possibly
associated family members and neighbour networks, as a context and support for working
together. For others, relationships are based much more around the working context. Its
about ensuring that tasks are done as effectively as possible, which means sharing data as
transparently and as quickly as possible, clarifying roles, meeting deadlines. Feelings dont
really come into it that much; professionalism is about getting the job done to the right
quality at the right cost in the right time. And then we have the complications of hierarchy who has the right to initiate and direct the relationship? In some contexts, there is a
democratic underpinning. In others, rights may fall to a more select group based on
corporate position, gender, ethnic group, religion, age etc. In fact, there are many
permutations on what relationship means, how to get there and how to maintain it. Thats
the beauty and the challenge of working across cultures.

2012

What makes building

international projects?

relationships

challenging

when

working

in

There are particular pressures at play in an international project landscape which need
attention if relationships are to be established and nurtured effectively. Here are just a few:
1. Time
Projects are per definition temporary in nature. Temporary can mean anything from a
couple of months to five or more years. But the time limited aspect of an assignment
means that people can psychologically commit less to establishing solid and meaningful
relationships. After all, its short term. Why waste precious work and social time investing
in people with whom, once the project is over, its likely that there will be no further
contact? When this mentality is in play in a project team, commitment, effort, creativity,
productivity of teamwork etc. all suffer.
2. Linguistic
International projects are primarily done in English. When a foreign language is used
between human beings, either as a non-native speaker or as a native speaker with nonnative speakers, intimacy reduces. Most non-native speakers do their best to
communicate their sense of selves and understanding of others in a base vocabulary of
around five thousand words or less. The nuance and sophistication which any native
speaker brings to the process of relationship building is similarly lost. In this context, we
get B1 or B2 relationships formed they work but are without depth.
3. Cultural
Just to clarify, culture is not just national culture. Culture is a word which alerts us to the
issue of diversity and a plurality of dynamic and interactive sets of values and practices
driven by gender, age, professional background, regional and national identity corporate
values etc. When we go international, plurality increases, and with that increase comes
greater excitement and interest (we are curious animals) but also the risk of alienation
and stigmatisation of the other (under pressure, it is seldom my fault but usually their
fault that things went wrong). Relationships often exhibit a kind of honeymoon effect in
project teams at the beginning people embrace each other with open arms and
optimism. Once the hard work kicks in, resources become scarce and deadlines loom,
initial collectivism can quickly degenerate to a kind of combative individualism.
4. Virtual
International also generally means virtual working at significant distance (often with
different time zones), having to communicate mainly through electronic means such as
email and telephone conference calls. Distance and the use of electronic media
undermine both communication and, eventually, relationships. Distance means that
communication tends to just take place in very formal and task-based contexts
meetings, for example. We lose the chat around the coffee machine, the quick catch-up
in the corridor. Electronic media takes away body language, looking into the eyes of the
person to assess whether what was said is really what was meant. It means clarification
becomes more vital and yet emerges as more difficult. Email and conference call

2012

meetings are mainly for transmission of messages rather than for discussion and effective
exchange of ideas.
5. Organisational
International projects are curious animals. When I started working more closely with
those leading projects, it quickly became clear to me that conflict management skills are
a vital skill. Many big projects in major corporations are about change. This change can
be harmonisation. It can be about innovation. Whatever, its about change and by and
large, people resist change, at least at the beginning. And those working in projects have
to deal with this resistance. And while relationships inside the team may be relatively
harmonious, stakeholders outside and around the team may be far from in agreement
with what the project is trying to achieve. This means those involved in projects need to
be great influencers, expert sellers of their project, superb networkers and deal doers to
secure support and agreement at critical moments of a projects life cycle. But, as clients
often say, when is there time to do all of this soft stuff what does networking actually
mean, how can I influence, is playing politics part of relationship building? Interesting
questions!

So what can we do as trainers to help people manage relationships in

projects?
Did you notice the subtle difference in terminology building relationships becomes now
managing relationships. It reflects the fact that building relationships is not simply a
question of small talk, engaging in polite conversation around the dinner table after the
quarterly project team meeting. It is that but its a lot more. Its really about managing the
people side of projects.
In Managing Projects, youll find a range of stimulating and tried and tested activities which
will enable people to truly develop their people skills for international projects in English.
Here are a few ideas from the book.
1. Mapping your relationship network
Students are asked to visualise on a relationship map who they need to form a
relationship with, and then think about how best to do it. Its a simple exercise but
very few project professionals do it explicitly. They tend to do it intuitively and,
therefore, under-manage it. Its also great for you as a trainer as it takes you much
more deeply into the working lives of the people you work with, and can make your
training ever more relevant.
2. Understand differences in relationship building across cultures
Many people are not aware that their own definition of relationship can come across
as unprofessional to others in some form. Building awareness of others ways of
defining relationships, thereby stimulating open-mindedness to cultural diversity, is
a tough trainer challenge. But activities in the book help you go there and achieve
potentially fundamental mindset shifts.

2012

3. Managing a relationship is not just about being nice to someone. In business part of
managing a relationship means convincing someone to support your point of view.
The book provides a series of activities which enable students to think seriously
about a range of influencing strategies and how to apply them with different people
in different contexts. In Managing Project, Ive included a favourite warmer activity
called the Diamond Exercise which kicks off an examination and practice of
influencing skills. It goes like this.
Simply form groups of three or four. One person pretends to hold a very expensive
diamond in their hand. Another person in the group has three minutes to influence this
person to give them the diamond.
The observer(s) should follow the conversation and take a note of which influencing
tactics are used, and which seem to be the most successful.
After the conversation, stop and discuss. Then change roles and repeat the exercise.
When you have finished, decide which influencing tactics were most effective, and why.
Ive done the exercise a thousand times and it always engages. It always stimulates useful
insight about communication, influencing, the connections between manipulation and trust,
and how important persuasion is to the way we interact with people at work.

Interested in learning more about supporting people to be effective in

projects?
The international project is a fascinating context to study human interaction. It can be very
complex and challenging. Enabling people to collaborate across continents to achieve a
common goal requires the communication skills to build and manage relationships expertly,
which in turn demands forms of sensitivity and emotional intelligence which many
professionals tend to overlook in favour of technical competence.
As Business English trainers, we have a huge role to play to enable people to manage
relationships in English. It means sometimes we have to stretch beyond traditional forms of
business English teaching, beyond vocabulary and grammar, to the dynamics of
interpersonal communication. In a sense, were doing a lot of that already. Managing
Projects gives you a stronger framework and a reliable set of activities and resources to
refocus your own training more to the interpersonal, and really give clients a set of skills
which will enable them to do their jobs better.
If you would like to read more about international project management and topics
associated with project communication, the following references will prove useful.
If you have any questions or comments about this article, please contact me at
bob.dignen@york-associates.co.uk.

2012

Further reading
Publications:
1. Dignen, B. with McMaster, I. Effective International Business Communication (Build your
interpersonal skills). Collins, 2012
2. Gunn. R Matrix Management Success - Method not Magic. Infinity Publishing 2007
3. Herrero, L. Viral Change. Meeting Minds. 2008
4. Porter, Elias. H. Relationship Awareness Theory. Personal Strengths. 1996
5. Portney, S. E. Project Management for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons, 2000
Websites:
1. http://www.business-spotlight.de/tags/bob-dignen?page=1
Bob Dignen speaks to camera about interpersonal communication.
2. http://www.keithferrazzi.com/uncategorized/the-5-best-ted-talks-about-relationships/
Great TED Talks about building relationships.
3. http://www.dalecarnegiewaysf.com/2012/09/20/carnegies-6-principles-of-relationship/
Some great fundamentals from Mr Carnegie.
4. Professional bodies associated with project management
www.ipma.ch (International Association of Project Management)
www.pmi.org (Project Management Institute)

2012