Interpersonal Relations in Business Arena

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Introduction

Cordial relationships with people at workplace are undoubtedly an important required quality for employees. Likewise, interpersonal relationships play a vital role in the growth of businesses. This aspect should be viewed in its broader horizon with various dimensions such as employee to employee, manager to sub-ordinate, firm to firm, managers to stakeholders, and firm to customer relationships. Accordingly, these communications are influenced by various factors such as personal characteristics, worker perceptions of firm and co-workers, and overall workplace environment.

A number of studies have been conducted on the importance of interpersonal relationships in the success or failure of a business. Three important studies have been mentioned here.

In a study conducted by Murry and Heide (1998) to observe personal communications between boundary-spanning personnel and the influence of organizational factors in effective inter-organizational exchange, it was found that incentives and close personal interactions positively affected co-operation, while monitoring influenced in a negative manner (1: 314).
According to a study by Price and Arnold (1999), persons involved in business-to-business (B2B) relationships can easily differentiate between business friendships and other marketing relationships (1: 314). It becomes imperative in the context that maintaining strong friendly relationships helps in improving businesses while making a B2B interaction to be perceived beyond materialistic strategies (1: 314).
Bolton et al. (2003) observed the influence of social and economic resources on interpersonal and inter-organizational satisfaction (1: 314). They found that social interactions had greater influence than economic resources in achieving customer satisfaction from the interactions with company representatives (1: 314).

Discussion

Thus, the above studies indicate the importance of interpersonal relationships in three important dimensions: business success, employee perceptions and satisfaction, and customer satisfaction. Accordingly, it is imperative to focus on the activities requiring such relationships and personal characters that are needed to maintain such relationships.

Before that, it is necessary to focus on the effect of kinds of business settings to analyze their influence and requirements on interpersonal relationships. A business setting may be one confined to a local or regional market, or the one working on a global basis. The size of a company in this context is very important as it has potential influence on various factors such as the organizational culture, workplace diversity and customer base. Moreover, the importance of and need for interpersonal communication increases with a company’s size.

To be precise, organizational culture of a multinational company may be different for an employee when he/she observes it with his/her perceived knowledge of regional workplace settings. Also, cultural variations require strong interpersonal communications to overcome barriers in clearly exchanging information and working towards a common purpose, which is the growth of the company. Moreover, the requirements of customers from diverse geographical, cultural, social backgrounds may vary significantly. Hence, a stereotypic and straightforward approach may not be applicable to satisfactorily deal with such a broad range of customers. Furthermore, perceptions and activities of companies may vary greatly depending on their size and nativity. Therefore, stronger interpersonal relationships are important for maintaining effective business interactions and give an advantage over rival companies in achieving growth.

Most importantly, communication and interpersonal relationships are very important towards an effective teamwork that is essential for improved output and success of the business.

Team Work

As stated above, teamwork is very essential towards effective functioning in an organizational entity. Accordingly, it requires certain interpersonal skills for better interactions among workers.

Communication and relating efficiency (2: 8)
Consideration and respect for views and perceptions of others (2: 8)
Effective self-evaluation of performance and relationships (2: 8)
Implementation of active listening skills and empathy towards managing conflicts in the workplace (2: 8).

Consequently, interpersonal relationships are dependent on developing intimacy with co-workers and exchanging information with them while attempting to discover a shared purpose. For a positive and sustaining relationship is greatly influenced by the expectations and interests of engaged individuals. Accordingly, a successful relationship in the business context depends on various elements such as self awareness, self confidence, positive personality, excellent performance, communication skills and interpersonal competence (2: 13).

Self-Awareness

It is very essential to be self-aware of one’s own personal characteristics to identify their positive or negative impact on others, thereby modifying the behavior accordingly. In

general, the behavior of a person is quite natural to him/her. However, it may not be accepted by others in the same manner. Inability to identify it may make a person be left alone from others as some of the aspects of his behavior may not be acceptable for co-workers. That leaves the person with ‘blind spot’ in a way that his/her peers may not want to exchange information or maintain intimacy with him/her (2: 14). Hence, it becomes very important to have a clear idea on self-behavior.

Furthermore, self-awareness helps in modifying one’s behavior towards improved interactions with others through a process called self-regulation (2: 14). In this process, a person can tend to positively modify his/her behavior based on periodic feedback and suggestions from either family members and friends, or by taking help from a professional counselor (2: 15).

Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is one’s belief in one’s own positive strengths and abilities. It helps a person towards excellent performance by using the best of his/her capabilities. To be precise, a self-confident person behaves very confidently in whatever he/she is doing, and hence takes decisions and guides others in an authoritative and positive manner. It is very helpful in creating trust in co-workers on one’s strengths and competitiveness.

Positive Personality

Self-confidence and positive personal impact are greatly interrelated, as a person with self-confidence can behave more positively with others. Especially in the workplace, a person influences his/her co-workers through opinions, interactions, work, voice and silence (2: 17). Hence, reflecting a positive approach through practicing good manners, proper attire, control over self-emotions, and maintaining balance in verbal expressions helps in better interactions with others (2: 17).

Excellent Performance

It is a generally observed fact that recognition comes with outstanding performance that makes a person respectable in a group (2: 18). Therefore, one has to put his/her best possible efforts in whatever he/she does so as to achieve excellent outcomes that can attract laurels. Moreover, tendency towards working hard by putting the best abilities makes others feel positive about one’s sincerity in work.

Communication Skills

The ability to deal with a variety of people in varying conditions while making them feel comfortable is what is seen as best communication skill (2: 19). It comprises of various aspects such as active listening, accepting criticism, dealing with various personalities, and efficiency in non-verbal communication (2: 19).

An effective two-way communication is very essential in maintaining a mutually beneficial and long-term relationship with group members. It is particularly imperative for leaders, as they have to listen to what their followers want to say, thereby creating a sense of recognition in them. To be precise, a two-way communication means that a person should first be patient enough to listen what others are saying. It is equally important to express one’s own opinions on others’ acts and deeds for the better functioning of a team. However, assertive approach is more accepted than aggressiveness, as the first one targets the problem than the person that is in quite contrast to the second approach (2: 33). Moreover, understanding other’s behavior is as equally important as adjusting one’s own behavior to a situation. For instance, a passive communicator needs time to start a conversation, whereas an aggressive person tends to be hyperactive in expressing his/her opinions (2: 33). In the broader context of the business environment, workers, competitors, and customers may have different attitudes, such as passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive and assertive, and need to be dealt with accordingly by using relevant communication skills (2: 33).

Interpersonal Competence

Interpersonal competence can be explained with a three factor model (2: 21).

People who are good in this quality are self-aware ad are able to understand others and modify self-behavior accordingly (2: 21).
Such persons can build long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with others (2: 21).
They can deal with conflicts more effectively while finding a solution in quick manner (2: 21).

Furthermore, researchers have found that groups that work with more interpersonal

interactions achieve greater successes (3: 398). Accordingly, members of successful teams at workplace are more inclined towards teamwork and interpersonal interactions than members on unsuccessful teams (3: 398). It implies that people with a positive attitude towards stronger interpersonal relationships can be successful while working as team.

Skills for Interpersonal Relationships

Coming to the skills that are required for strong interpersonal relationships, they are interrelated can be described as follows.

Accurate analysis of a situation for adopting a better interacting approach (2: 24).
Establishing a more realistic objective so as to work on it confidently while making others also to believe in its practical realization (2: 24).
Selecting proper ways of behaving (2: 24).
Control over one’s own behavior (2: 24).
Ability to shape or influence other’s behavior (2: 24).
Monitoring one’s own and other’s behavior (2: 24).

Also, studies have found that employee behavior when viewed from the context of social and team-member exchange reveals interesting observations (4: 1). To be precise, members working in teams exert interpersonal skills towards intrinsic as well as extrinsic benefits (4: 1). They focus not only on instrumental benefits but also the development of a social bond among members, resulting in mutual understand and empathy in view of a shared purpose (4: 1). The imperative is that strong interpersonal communications in this context lead to improved reliability and mutual respect in members with respect to achieving a positive behavior widely known as ‘organizational citizenship behavior’, and work with outstanding performance and coordination (4: 1). To augment such an interaction, periodic focus on sensitive issues of group members and effective participation of outsiders to resolve issues among group members that are detrimental to group’s integrity can be helpful in further improving mutual co-ordination and overall performance (4: 407).

Furthermore, interpersonal competence that comes from strong interpersonal relational ability can be exerted by various elements such as initiating a relationship, openness/self-disclosure, providing emotional support to peers, asserting displeasure in an acceptable manner and efficiently dealing with interpersonal conflicts (2: 27). In the process, it is essential to overcome barriers to communication, which may be physical and/or environmental, language, and personal or socio-psychological (2: 27).

Interpersonal Relationship’s Role in Conflict Resolution

Conflicts arise when there is a disagreement among the involved members with respect to respective interests which may be related to physical, positional, power, and/or financial aspects (2: 33). To be precise, conflicts can occur on a worker-to-worker, firm-to-firm, and/or firm-to-customer/society bases, and the point of conflict may vary depending on the interests of respective parties. Lack of interpersonal relationships obviously results deteriorates the situation, as a mutually beneficial or compromised solution cannot be easily achieved. In contrast, maintaining effective interpersonal relationships not only help in resolving conflicts but also in avoiding conflicts due to mutual understand and agreements.

Conclusion

All in all, interpersonal relationships play a vital role in business environment, as they help in maintaining long-term and mutual beneficial relationships among various engaged parties. There are various elements from self-realization to understanding others that are required for developing a sustainable interpersonal relationship. Most importantly, reliability and respect among involved members/entities are an important requirement and objective for interpersonal relationships. Moreover, they help in conflict resolution and prevention.

References

Haytko, D. L. (2004). Firm-to-firm and Interpersonal Relationships: Perspectives from Advertising Agency Account Managers. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 32 (3), 312-328.
Interpersonal Relationships. (2008). scribd.com. Web.
Watson, W. E., Ponthieu, L. D., & Critelli, J. W. (1995). Team Interpersonal Process Effectiveness in Venture Partnerships and its Connection to Perceived Success. Journal of Business Venturing, 10, 393-411.
Love, Sue, M., Forret, & Monica. (2008). Exchange Relationships at Work: An Examination of the Relationship between Team-member Exchange and Supervisor Reports of Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.

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