Humor That Works » Learn with Humor

Humor in Presidential Elections

David Tarvin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:19:00 +0000

Note: This article was written by David Tarvin, a PhD student at Louisiana State University and the newest addition to the Humor That Works team. To find out more, check out his bio.

Recently, a friend and I were discussing the potential GOP candidates for this year’s presidential election. He told me wished Sarah Palin had run for office only so Tina Fey could reprise her role every week on Saturday Night Live (SNL). We laughed, but ultimately, I agreed. Tina Fey’s Palin impersonation was so believable, Fox News used a photo of the SNL star instead of the politician on accident in one of their broadcasts (see the clip here).

In fact, we began to wonder if Sarah Palin’s popularity could be partly contributed to her likeability as a “common clown” or “fool,” that was amplified and personified by Tina Fey.

The Role of SNL in Presidential Elections

In an Argumentation and Advocacy article, Chris Smith and Ben Voth (2002) address the use of humor in the political arena and its results on presidential elections. In particular, they analyze the role SNL had in the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore (a low quality clip of the skit can be found here). Using Kenneth Burke’s poetic categories (epic, tragic, comic, burlesque, grotesque, didactic, elegy, satire), Smith and Voth demonstrate how a comic perspective “allows society to confront problems” and “allows for a new form of understanding that is otherwise not possible” (p. 111).

They provide a chronology of the polls showing how SNL and the candidates’ reaction to SNL drastically changed public opinion. Originally, Gore was leading by a two point margin. After SNL’s parody of the first Presidential debate, however, the polls quickly shifted in favor of the Texas Governor. But why?

Entertainment-for-News

More and more research shows that people are relying on comedians for their sources of current events (which is why there was recently a boycott of the number 7 because it was heard that it 8 9… sorry I’m a professor not a comedian). Smith and Voth cite the Pew Research Center for People and the Press to state, “47% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 obtain most of their political information from late-night entertainment outlets” (p. 110).

Other studies, like Don Waisanen’s study on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as “comic rhetorical critics,” demonstrate the over increasing reliance on entertainment-for-news by U.S. audiences. Smith and Voth state, “Willing or not, late-night television comedians are an important disseminator and arbiter of information for political officials, marking an era where humor could potentially act as a valid form of political argument” (p. 110).

Rather, they are showing humor that works.

How to Handle Being Parodied

Humor that works, however, is contingent upon acceptance and rejection. Smith and Voth contend that Bush accepted his role as the “common clown” or “fool,” and that his acceptance of this role allowed him to come off more honest to the public and more down- to-earth. On the other hand, Gore rejected his parody and used it “in order to correct his perceived haughty and pompous behavior” (original italics, p. 117).

In the subsequent debates, Gore continually used SNL to shape and correct his mistakes. In every debate he was a new man–a new man the U.S. public didn’t know or trust. His rankings in the polls quickly shifted. Smith and Voth show that it wasn’t until Gore embraced the comic frame (realizing the important role humor plays) before he began to climb again in the polls.

Humor and the Upcoming Election

This year’s election is sure to bring amazing skits and parodies from SNL and other late-night comedians, and the candidates’ behaviors and reactions will definitely shape the final outcome. Ultimately, we know the results of the 2000 election and see how humor affects politics. Smith and Voth conclude, “The manner in which the Bush team used comedic mockery of the Texas Governor to their strategic advantage illustrates how humor and comic actions deserve consideration as a valid form of political argument” (p. 126).

The 2012 candidates will have to embrace this new form of political argument and accept their parodies on late-night television. Although Tina Fey will not get a chance to reprise her role as Palin is no longer running, we can hope comedians poking fun at the candidates’ clownish behaviors will be exemplified in the same brilliant manner, showcasing humor that works.

Further reading:

Burke, K. (1959). Attitudes Toward History. Los Altos, CA: Hermes Publications.

Smith, C. & Voth, B. (2002). The role of humor in political argument: How ‘strategery’ and ‘lockboxes’ changed a political campaign. Argumentation and Advocacy, 39, 110-129.

Waisanen, D. J. (2009). A citizen’s guides to democracy inaction: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s comic rhetorical criticism. Southern Communication Journal, 74 (2), 119-140.

How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

Andrew Tarvin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:38:15 +0000

photo by raja4u

With the New Year right around the corner, some 100 million Americans will be making Resolutions for the year. Sadly half of them won’t keep those resolutions more than 6 months. However, for those that do make resolutions, they are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t make any resolutions at all. (source)

In a three part series, I’ve shared my process that helped make 2011 one my of most productive years yet. Each part builds off the other (so it’s important to start at the beginning) and by the end, you’ll have a system in place to help make sure you keep your resolutions and achieve your goals for the upcoming year.

Here’s how to do it:

Part 1: Why People Fail New Year’s Resolutions

Part 1 sets the stage for keeping your resolutions by sharing the five main reasons people fail at keeping them.

Part 2: Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions Using Quality Days

Part 2 introduces the concept of Quality Days and the five components that make it successful.

Part 3: How to Set Up Your Quality Day System

Part 3 walks you through the five steps to establishing daily habits through the Quality Day System.

If you have any questions or ideas for improvement, feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email. Have a great productive year!

How to Set Up Your Quality Day System

Andrew Tarvin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:11:56 +0000

Note: 5 Steps to Establishing Daily Habits is the third of a three part series on creating and sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions. Before continuing, check out Part 1: Why People Fail New Year’s Resolutions and Part 2: Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions Using Quality Days.

Now that you know why people fail new year’s resolutions and the theory behind how to make sure you keep yours this year, it’s time to create your system to establish daily habits. As a reminder, the five steps to keeping your resolutions are:

Think Quality and Perfect Days
Pick Five (and Only Five) Habits
Make the Results Binary
Track Daily
Review Weekly / Monthly

The five steps for establishing daily habits stem directly from these steps. Let’s take a look at how to complete each one.

photo by moorhigan

Step 1: Create your goal for Quality Days in 2012

The first step is easy because I’m going to assign it to you. Your goal for 2012 is to reach 250 Quality Days. If you want a second, more advanced goal, you can also shoot for 125 Perfect Days (which also count as Quality Days).

Now I know what some of you overachievers are thinking, “But Andrew, I’m an overachiever and awesome at this, shouldn’t I shoot for 300 Quality Days, or even 366?” And the answer is “No” for 2 reasons:

If you set the goal too high, it seems unachievable and can be de-motivating. If your goal is 366 and you miss one day, mentally you feel like you’ve failed since there is no way you’ll be able to achieve your goal.
The daily habits should be challenging and therefore unlikely that you’ll be able to do them everyday. If you can already go a year without hitting snooze, then don’t have “don’t hit snooze” as one of your habits. These habits are meant to challenge you, help you grow and align with your long-term goals and resolutions.

So, step one is already complete: shoot for 250 Quality Days.

photo by LittleMan

Step 2: Choose 5 Daily Habits

The second step is to decide on what five habits you would ideally complete every day (or at least 250 days of the year). As mentioned above, these should be things that challenge you and align with your longer-term goals.

If you’re having difficulty coming up with your habits, here’s a list of the most common New Year’s resolutions. From your long-term resolutions you can create your daily habits. As an example, if your goal is to lose weight, you can have a daily habit of exercise.

Just as above, for you overachievers, no, you can’t have more than five habits. More than five is harder to track on a daily basis and you’re less likely to complete any of them, let alone all 7, 8 or 15.

For those of you new to setting goals, you could set fewer than five, but I challenge you to shoot for five (and even if you only ever achieve three in a single day, it’s still a quality day).

photo by mexikids

Step 3: Make the Habits Actionable

The third step is to phrase your five daily habits in a way that they are actionable and binary–meaning it’s easy to say “yes” or “no” you completed them. The more defined you can make them, the better.

For example, “Eat healthier” is far too vague to be actionable or trackable. “Eat at least 3 servings of vegetables” is much better because it is quantitative and you can easily say at the end of the day if you’ve completed it. This does take some thought because you have to make the goals specific to you. For you, eating healthier could mean cutting back on fast food or limiting your salt intake.

The basic formula for a simple actionable goal is VERB -> QUANTITY -> NOUN. E.g. “Eat 3 servings of vegetables,” “Exercise for 30 minutes,” “Hit Snooze 0 times.”

That last one, “Hit snooze 0 times” sounds a bit weird (rather than “Don’t hit snooze”), but where possible it’s better to frame the habit positively rather than negatively. The reason is that studies have found that it’s harder to “fix” a habit than it is to just start a new, healthier one.

So if you always eat chocolate after dinner, the habit might not be “don’t eat chocolate” but “eat 1 piece of fruit after dinner.” Sometimes this is difficult to avoid, such as when quitting smoking, but when possible, frame the habit positively.

photo by bjearwicke

Step 4: Create a Tracking System

The fourth step is create a system that allows you to track your progress on your daily habits on a daily basis. That’s right, you should track how you are doing every single day.

Since this is something you’ll be doing a lot, the tracking system should be as simple and easy as possible. It should take less than 5 minutes to track so you don’t have an excuse not to do it. Once you get the hang of it, most systems take less than a minute.

There are 3 ways you can track:

1. Using a Paper Calendar

This is how I started tracking in 2011, using a big calendar that I hung on my wall. My roommate and I shared the calendar, where we marked each day of the week which of our five habits we completed.

I created humorous symbols for each of my goals to make it a little more fun while tracking. As an example, my symbol for having done at least 20 minutes of physical activity was OK, because if you tilt your head to the left, OK looks kind of like a stick figure.

You could do the same thing with your personal calendar or even a notebook, it’s just important to have a spot for every single day of the year.

2. Using Excel

Half-way through the year, I switched to an Excel document to make the calculations easier. I created a single tab Excel document that had a row for every single day of the year and a column for each of my five habits. I would then mark an ‘X’ for each habit I completed that day.

From this I could create an easy formula to tell me which days of the week I had a Quality and Perfect Day, and the quantity of each for the week.

3. Using an Online Tool

Finally, towards the end of the year, I switched to an online site for tracking. The biggest advantage to using an online site was that I could log in from my mobile phone and update my tracking. This meant I could check off each habit as I completed them throughout the day, not just at the end of the day when I was home.

I currently use 42goals.com. There are others out there, but this is the one I prefer. There’s a free and premium version of the service, but I’ve been using the free version with no issues whatsoever.

One word (OK, a few words of warning): the site lets you enter as many goals as you want and you can add fancy tracking options (such as time spent doing something or the total number of occurrences). I beg you to keep it simple and limit yourself to five habits and define them as we did in step 3. Trying to get fancy is a sure way to make the system too complicated for you to actually stick with.

photo by shadowkill

Step 5: Review Weekly & Monthly

The fifth and final step is to create a process to review how you are doing on a weekly and monthly basis. This is probably the hardest step because it requires the most discipline to maintain after you’ve started.

To help me, I already have time on my calendar marked for weekly and monthly reviews. Sure, they’re likely to change, but since they are on the calendar I’ll simply move them as needed, rather than not do them at all.

The weekly review is pretty simple. I do mine on Sunday evening (right now I do it while watching Sunday Night Football). It takes me about 10 minutes; I simply go back and review how I did for the week, filling in any days that I might have forgot to track (shh! don’t tell anyone).

I then think about if there are any adjustments I want to make. Have I been hitting snooze a lot and therefore need to consider going to bed earlier? Have I missed my daily goal for fruits and vegetables all week and need to go to the grocery store?

For the monthly review, I spend a little more time to really make sure I’m on track. Usually on the first of the month I’ll spend around 20-30 minutes reviewing the previous month and looking at larger changes I may need to make.

Again, doing a review takes discipline but it’s incredibly important that you do it. These reviews are what allow you to make adjustments, or if you’ve been succeeding, allow you to be proud of what you’ve accomplished. There’s nothing wrong with spending 10 minutes each week giving yourself a pat on the back for actually completing your goals.

The Quality Day System

That’s it. Those are the five steps to establishing daily habits and setting yourself up to keep your new year’s resolutions. If you have any questions or suggestions on how it can be improved, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or shoot me an email. Here’s to having a great 2012!

Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions Using Quality Days

Andrew Tarvin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:55:02 +0000

Note: Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions Using Quality Days is the second of a three part series on creating and sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions. Check out Part 1: Why People Fail New Year’s Resolutions, or check back soon for Part 3.

In the last post, we talked about five reasons people fail New Year’s Resolutions:

They have an all or nothing mentality.
They make too many resolutions.
Their resolutions are not specific.
They don’t track how they’re doing.
They don’t make adjustments.

So how do you avoid these mistakes and keep your New Year’s resolutions? By establishing “Quality” and “Perfect” days. First a little history…

photo by ba1969

A New Year of Resolutions

At the beginning of 2011 I decided there were five things I would ideally do every day, five daily habits I wanted to establish:

Wake up without hitting snooze.
Complete a task for Humor That Works.
Do at least 20 minutes of physical activity.
Eat at least 2 fruits and/or vegetables.
Spend at least 30 minutes strategically disengaging.

In years past, I would have considered a day “successful” only if I had done all five habits that day (the all or nothing mentality). The problem is that the #1 habit on my list is the hardest habit I’ve ever tried to instill AND it happens first thing when I wake up.

If I had an all or nothing mentality and hit snooze once in the morning, the rest of my day would be toast. There would be no point in completing any of the other four because I couldn’t be “successful” no matter what I did.

But logically we can see that doesn’t make sense. Doing the other four things, or even one of them, would be better than none of them. So I developed a system that worked for me, one that involves five components.

photo by michelini

The Five Components of the Quality Day System

1. Quality and Perfect Days

Rather than try to strive for perfection every single day, my goal was to shoot for achieving a majority of my daily goals: 3 out of 5. If I completed any 3 out of the 5 habits, I considered it a “Quality Day.” If I completed all 5, I considered it a “Perfect Day.”

The mentality behind this system is that even if I hit snooze in the morning, I still had something to shoot for: a Quality Day. Sure it’s not perfect, but it is significantly better than accomplishing 0 out of 5, or even 3 out of 5 and feeling bad about myself. I changed my mindset to say I don’t need to be perfect, I just want to be “Quality.”

2. Five (and Only Five) Habits

While there are a number of other things I’d love to do every day (play guitar, stretch, and hundreds of other things), I knew that if I tried to do too many of them, I’d likely end up doing none of them. Tracking them would be a pain and there would be no way I could consistently complete 10+ goals every day.

Instead, I decided to be selective and choose the five goals most important to me. Why five? First, it’s a small enough number to easily remember (I can count them on one hand, and yes this was taken into consideration). Second it was a large enough number to challenge me and diverse enough to cover the important facets of my life (business, health, personal).

Finally it gave me variety. Some days you just don’t feel like exercising. On those days, I had four other things to choose from to still get a quality day.

3. Binary Habits

The only criteria I had for creating or specifying my goals was that they had to be binary–I wanted to be able to say at the end of the day, without any thinking, either “yes” or “no” I completed each habit.

This forced me to make specific, yet simple goals. Rather than just say “do physical activity” I specified that it was “20 minutes of physical activity.” That way I didn’t waste time trying to decide if whatever I did was “enough” physical activity to count. Was it at least 20 minutes of physical activity? Yes or no.

Similarly I specified that it was at least 2 fruits and/or vegetables a day, but I didn’t count how many I ate. Sure there were days I had 4, 8, 12 servings of fruits and vegetables, but I didn’t want to add the cumbersome process of tracking how many I actually I had. At the end of the day I just ask, did I have at least 2, yes or no.

4. Daily Tracking

By using binary goals, it was easy to track my progress for each day. At first I started tracking on a paper calendar in my office. I created an icon for each habit and would mark that icon for each day I completed it. Half-way through the year I switched to using Excel (this allowed me to calculate the number of Quality/Perfect days more easily). Now I’m using 42goals.com to now track my daily progress (more on 42goals in the next post).

The point was I wanted a system that would allow me to quickly and easily track my progress for a day. For the most part, I tried to track my status at the end of each day (when it was fresh on my mind), but I’d be lying if I said I did it every day. There were many a-time where I had to go back and add how I did for the last 6 or 7 days (another advantage of only having five to track was actually being able to remember what I completed).

5. Weekly / Monthly Reviews

The last part of the system was to review my current progress during my weekly and monthly reviews (I take 20-minutes every Sunday night to review the week / take a peak at what’s to come the following week; I take about 40-minutes to review my progress on the first day of every month).

By tallying up the totals and reviewing them by habit, I could see which habits were consistent and which ones were tougher to complete. As a result, I could make adjustments.

During one particularly bad stretch of hitting snooze, I decided to make sure I was going to bed earlier just to try to get back on track (more intentional focus on that habit). It meant missing out on physical activity on one or two nights, but I wanted to make sure I gave dedicated attention to snooze so I could re-establish my no-snooze ways. And since I was shooting for “Quality Days” it was OK for me to miss some physical activity in lieu of more sleep.

photo by Egahen

The Success of 2011

So has it worked? Considering I’m writing an elaborate article on what I did, you probably already assumed that it did, and you’d be correct.

My goal at the beginning of the year was 250 Quality Days. Notice that it wasn’t 365. Again, I didn’t want to miss one day and then never come back to it because I couldn’t achieve my goal.

Why 250? Because that’s the assumed number of “work days” in a year (if you assume 5-day work weeks and 2-weeks of vacation, you get 5 days a week X 50 weeks = 250 days). That would give me license to take off the weekends if I wanted to.

Also I didn’t set any goals for Perfect Days. I didn’t want to put undue pressure on achieving perfection, I merely wanted to track it for analytic purposes (what was my hardest habit, easiest, etc). It’s nice to know but it isn’t my goal.

So, with a goal of 250, how have I done this year? Not counting today, there have been 348 total days in 2011 so far. Of those 348, I’ve had 345 Quality Days (99%) and 175 Perfect Days (50%). The three days I missed were days I was sick and couldn’t have cared less about completing three of five goals.

But this hasn’t just worked for me. I’ve shared this idea with some friends and family and they too are finding success. Not everyone is accomplishing everything they want, but they’re all making progress towards their goals and they’ve all said it’s been a helpful process.

Why It Works

Is this process guaranteed to work everyone? No. This might be too simple for some people, or too complex for others. But for me and the people I’ve shared it with, it seems to work. And for good reason too.

First, it helps to re-frame the definition of success from “perfect” to “quality.” Sure perfect is great to achieve, but quality is pretty darn good too. Second, it forces you to choose your top priorities and limit yourself to a manageable number of daily goals. Third, it ensures you have specific goals that are easily measured, and fourth it creates an easy way to actually do the measuring. And finally, it allows you to see where you need to make adjustments, and gives you the flexibility to change your priorities based on your needs.

If you’re ready to give the Quality Day System a try in 2012, be sure to check our next post on How to Set Up Your Quality Day System.

Why People Fail New Year’s Resolutions

Andrew Tarvin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:53:14 +0000

Note: Why People Fail New Year’s Resolutions is the first of a three part series on creating and sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions. Check back soon for Parts 2 and 3.

The start of the new year is now a month away, which means New Year’s Resolutions are just around the corner. Sadly, most Americans who make resolutions never actually keep them, and here’s why.

photo by karlchen

1. They have an all or nothing mentality.

The number one reason people fail their New Year’s Resolutions is that they have an all or nothing mentality. They believe they have to do everything perfectly or there’s no point in doing it all.

If you’ve read my post on How to Stop Hitting Snooze and Wake Up Early, you’ll know I’ve had a long, arduous battle with the snooze button. Though I’ve certainly gotten this under control, I’m by no means perfect–there are still days I embrace the sweet embrace of the snooze. But I’m much better at returning to no snooze than I used to be.

I used to think “I hit snooze on Monday, I might as well do it the rest of the week,” or even “I hit snooze once already this morning, I might as well hit it 8 or 9 more times.” It was all or nothing, either I never hit snooze or I always did.

But now I realize it’s not about being perfect. It’s about getting back up. If I miss a step, it’s OK, as long as I start taking steps again. For your own goals, whether they are to exercise every day or never smoke again, remember the most important thing is to get back up if you happen to fall.

photo by g-point

2. They make too many resolutions.

Along the same lines of all or nothing, when people create New Year’s Resolutions, they try to make their lives “perfect.” It’s not that they just want to lose weight or get out of debt; it’s that they want to lose weight AND get out of debt AND find a different job AND get more organized AND find a significant other AND AND AND.

They try to change too many things all at once, rather than changing one or two things at a time and then moving to the next one after it’s a solidified habit. Let’s be honest, changing habits can be hard. To think that we can change every single bad habit we have at one time is unrealistic. Combine that with an all or nothing mentality and you’re almost guaranteed to fail, e.g. “well I didn’t lose as much weight as I wanted to so I might as well keep smoking and not date anyone.”

photo by rawkus

3. Their resolutions are not specific.

The goals I listed are intentional–they’re commonly among the most popular resolutions every year. The problem is that they’re all terrible. Not that getting more organized is a bad resolution, but how it’s phrased isn’t actionable. How do you know when you’ve succeeded?

Resolutions that are not specific are hard to achieve because you don’t know when you’ve achieved them. Even something like “lose weight” isn’t very helpful. Does lose weight mean 100 pounds? 10 pounds? .00001 pounds? And does it account for the fact that, depending on your exercise plan, you may put on muscle?

Better is to have specific, measurable goals that you can easily determine if you’ve accomplished. This past year I wanted to “eat better” but I know that’s far too generic to know if I actually succeeded. So instead my goal was to eat at least 2 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Is that the recommended amount? No, but I know it was a challenging but achievable goal that I could easily measure.

photo by mela

4. They don’t track how they are doing.

It amazes me how few people actually track their progress against their resolutions. They plan their goals at the beginning of the year and never really check in to see how they’re doing. Life is busy and very distracting, if you aren’t paying attention to how you’re doing, what are the chances you’re going to succeed?

As the business maxim goes, “what gets measured gets done.” At a minimum, you should review progress every month or even better, weekly. The absolute best? Daily. Daily tracking creates a habit that is much easier to sustain than once-a-week or once-a-month.

Also, it’s important to note when you’re successful and when you’re not. Not only does this keep the habit for tracking, it also gives you statistics that can help you understand when you’re successful and when you’re not. Again, it’s not about being perfect, it’s about getting back on the horse.

photo by branox

5. They don’t make adjustments.

Building off of the tracking, once you have an idea of when you’re succeeding and when you’re not, you can start to assess what works and what doesn’t. By tracking and assessing your progress, you can start to identify Motivators and Demotivators that can help improve your chances of success.

As an example, one of my goals this year has to work on at least one task for Humor That Works every single day. At the beginning of the year, I noticed I was failing this daily goal more often than I would have liked. I thought about the days I was successful and the days I wasn’t, and tried to find root cause for both. I learned that there were certain things that motivated me (e.g. looking through reader’s comments, checking Google Analytics) and things that demotivated me (thinking about all of the tasks I “had” to do or browsing ESPN.com in the morning).

Once I tweaked my behavior, I became much more successful at accomplishing this goal. Not every day was perfect, but again that’s not what’s important (sorry to beat a dead horse, but seriously, it’s the number one reason people fail).

So if these are reasons why people fail their New Year’s Resolutions, what can you do to be successful? That’s the topic of the next post, Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions Using Quality Days.

How to Build Relationships

Andrew Tarvin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:48:29 +0000

The final post in our series on relationships is on how to build relationships. If you’ve missed any of the previous posts, it’s worth checking them out first:

Unfortunately, there’s no magic process to building relationships, whether professional or personal. But by having a strong understanding of the concepts above, you’ll be on your way to building stronger relationships, not just at work, but in all walks of life. To help you in the right direction, here are 10 Tips to Building Relationships:

Listen more, talk less. Rather than constantly force your ideas on others, listen to what they have to say and build from there.
Pay attention to non-verbal cues. In one-on-one interactions, up to 93% of communication is non-verbal. Pick up on how someone is really feeling to truly understand what they are trying to / wish they could say.
Learn the other person’s name. Use it. Often a person’s favorite word in any language is their own name, use it to show that you care enough about them to have learned it, and that you’re trying to connect with them.
Follow the Platinum Rule. Treat others how THEY want to be treated.
Be honest. Just be honest about how you feel. Lying is more difficult and instantly breaks any trust you’ve built.
Keep your commitments. If you’ve said you’ll be somewhere or do something, be that somewhere and do that something. Breaking your commitments is a form of dishonesty.
Walk in their shoes. Try to truly understand where they are coming from and how it makes them feel. Empathize with them.
Have a sense of humor. Not only is humor a great way of establishing and maintaining relationships, it’s also a great mentality to have when things become tense or stressful.
Don’t forget about yourself. The best relationships are the ones where two independent people come together. If you don’t work on your own issues, problems and insecurities, you’ll never support the other person as much as you truly could.
Divorce your non-friends. Not everyone deserves to be around you. If the person is detrimental to your work or well-being, find a way to not be around them (whether through finding a new job or choosing not to hang out with them).

How to Build Relationships By following these tips and building the qualities of meaningful relationships through to the Continue stage, you can build relationships that will improve your work, increase your workplace satisfaction and make life more fun.

7 Qualities of Meaningful Relationships

Andrew Tarvin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:34:48 +0000

In order to learn how to build relationships, it’s important to understand what makes for a meaningful relationship. That’s the topic of this next post in our relationship series (see also: The Importance of Relationships, 7 Types of Work Relationships and the 5 Stages of Relationships).

A meaningful relationship is characterized as a relationship that is of personal significance, is healthy, caring, and long-lasting, and is one we couldn’t do without. It’s with a person who helps us grow, supports and encourages us and is there for us when we need them. This is what it means to be in the Continue stage, and is indicative of a mentor/mentee relationship or life friends.

In order to be in a meaningful relationship, it must exhibit seven key characteristics, aka the 7 Qualities of Meaningful Relationships.

#1. Communication
What: Communication is the expression and receiving of the thoughts, ideas and feelings of another person.
Why: It’s critical to relationships because it’s the only way people connect. It’s instrumental to the other qualities listed below and is often the first thing to go when a relationship starts to deteriorate.
How: The key to strong communication is expressing yourself clearly and honestly and fully listening to the other person, seeking to understand what they are communicating (both verbally and non-verbally).

#2. Respect
What: Respect means to hold someone else, their ideas and existence, in high esteem and in a positive light.
Why: Without respect for oneself and the other person, a relationship cannot thrive with honesty and interdependence.
How: To show respect, follow the Platinum Rule: treat others how THEY want to be treated.

#3. Honesty
What: Honesty means your words match your actions–you are truthful about what you do.
Why: Honesty is critical to meaningful relationships because it is one of the pillars of trust, and without it, the relationship is likely to fail.
How: Being honest involves communicating clear expectations of yourself and the other person, admitting to any mistakes and expressing how you honestly feel.

#4. Dependability
What: Dependability includes integrity, and means your actions match your words–you do what you say what you’re going to do.
Why: Dependability is the second pillar of trust and is a crucial show of support for the other person.
How: To be dependable, keep your commitments and promises and be present for the other person, both physically and mentally.

#5. Empathy
What: Empathy is the vicarious experience of the thoughts, feelings and emotions of another person.
Why: A step beyond sympathy, empathy is the ultimate sign of support for the other person because you truly walk in their shoes and experience what they experience.
How: As Stephen Covey describes it: seek first to understand, then to be understand. Focus on truly understanding what the other person is going through and feeling before trying to fix it, respond to it or ignore it.

#6. Interdependence
What: Interdependence is when two independent people come together to create a strong relationship.
Why: Interdependence is stronger than a co-dependent relationship because both people are coming from a solid foundation. This has a powerful effect and leads to “the whole being great than the sum of the parts.”
How: Interdependence comes from thinking Win-Win in every scenario–find ways both independent people can benefit from each decision.

#7. Purpose
What: Every strong relationship has a purpose–a reason that the two people are connecting, associating or being involved with each other. It could be for career perspective, guidance, socializing, love or a thousand other things.
Why: The purpose helps to dictate what is expected and appropriate of the relationship; without it, a relationship isn’t worth the time or effort because it provides no value to at least one of the participants.
How: Defining a purpose includes evaluating why you are in a relationship and aligning with the other person the reason the relationship exists.

7 Qualities of Meaningful Relationships

There is more depth to each of these qualities, but the above synopsis gives you a starting point to understanding what it takes to have a meaningful relationship. By working on each of these qualities, you can grow your relationships into the Continue stage and reap the benefits of meaningful relationships.

Stages of Relationships Model

Andrew Tarvin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:15:08 +0000

Yesterday we talked about the 5 stages of relationships. To help you better understand the stages, here’s a diagram of the stages along with the key characteristics of each (click on the image to make it larger).

5 Stages of Relationships

Andrew Tarvin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:48:42 +0000

The next topic in our current series on relationships is the five stages of relationships (previous topics include the importance of relationships at work and 7 types of work relationships).

The stages of relationships (based on George Levinger’s model) help us understand how we can move from type of work relationship to another. If you want to go from co-worker to work friend, or team-member to mentor, having an understanding of these stages will help you determine what’s needed to get to the next level.

The 5 Stages of Relationships

#1. Acquaint

The first stage of any relationship is that of acquaintance. This stage of relationships houses the people on the periphery of your social circle, your co-workers. You see them at work or work-sponsored events, conversations are either shop talk or otherwise light and inconsequential.

Acquaintanceship is essentially the default stage of relationships. As a socially-adapted person, you can quickly reach this stage with just about anyone simply by being your naturally charming self and actually interacting with people. This stage is suitable for co-workers who you don’t actually co-work with often, but for any direct reports, managers or team-members, you’ll want to move to the next phase–buildup.

#2. Buildup

During the buildup phase, the two people involved have an increased level of trust and comfort with each other. In a professional context, this can take the form of an adviser role, the beginnings of a mentorship, or as members of a team or committee.

When in this type of relationship, it is possible to influence the decisions and actions of a coworker and client. In order to preserve the relationship, it is important to not only act as a co-worker but also as a friend. Get to know the other person personally and use your influence sparingly and positively. Engaging in abuse of the privileges of your friendship can easily and quickly lead to its degradation or dissolution (stage 4).

The buildup phase takes the most consistent effort as it moves a relationship from acquaintance to continuation. Extended focus in this stage naturally leads into the most friendly of the stages—Continue.

#3. Continue

In Continue, there’s a deepening of trust and commitment to the relationship, and a corresponding increase in the amount of influence both people can exercise.

This is the ideal stage to have with your managers, direct reports and mentors/mentees after working with them for a period of time. This is where you’ll reap the benefits of better communication, improved productivity and an increased satisfaction with work.

Increased effort to maintain the relationship at this level comes with the increased trust and influence. It doesn’t have to be as constant as in the buildup stage, but it does have to be meaningful. Without that increase in effort, the relationship is likely to start deteriorating (stage 4), leading to a return to the acquaintance or termination stages.

#4. Deteriorate

Despite its negative connotation, deterioration is often a natural and necessary phase of professional relationships. No one works the same job forever, and circumstances frequently lead to a change in proximity between people, or even a change in the frequency of contact. Without paying special effort and attention to its maintenance, the relationship can revert back to an earlier stage in the personal relationship continuum.

As one of the people involved in the relationship, it falls on you to consider the benefits and drawbacks associated with maintaining or allowing the relationship to lapse. Frequently, in a professional atmosphere, a change in proximity or frequency of contact should be seen as an indication that change may be necessary.

#5. End

As with deterioration, there is no need to let the End stage’s connotations influence your perception of this phase of relationships. It is extremely unlikely that you will remain in contact with everyone you meet throughout your entire professional career, and so termination will be a natural step in many of your workplace relationships.

5 Stages of Relationships

Recognizing and becoming familiar with the concept of these stages will help you to make successful transitions between teams, projects and even companies. It can help also help you move from one type of relationship to another, depending on your role, needs and interests.

7 Types of Work Relationships

Andrew Tarvin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:32:37 +0000

Now that we’ve covered the importance of relationships at work, let’s talk about the types of work relationships that exist. Understanding the different types can help you determine the role your existing relationships play, and which ones you may be lacking.

First and foremost, not all work relationships are created equal–some will help propel your careers, others will help keep you sane, and a few can even be detrimental. The more you can build strong, meaningful relationships, the more likely you are to not only succeed, but be more satisfied with your career.

Second, there are two types of work relationships: professional and personal. Professional relationships are solely for the purpose of getting your work done. They help you advance your career and would not exist if not for your job. Personal relationships at work are those you have in the workplace for social reasons. They don’t impact your job other than they improve workplace satisfaction (by up to 96 percent!) and keep you sane.

These categories of work relationships are not mutually exclusive–some people will fall into both the professional and personal categories. These are the truly important relationships that make work fun and productive.

With that understanding, let’s learn about the 7 Types of Work Relationships (in order of intimacy, from lowest to highest):

#1 Co-Workers
Type: N/A
Description: Co-worker relationships are neither professional nor personal, but merely circumstantial. They are acquaintances through your company, but beyond working for the same organization, you have very little interaction with them.
Role: Co-workers serve little role professionally or personally, but serve a valuable role in that they are often the pool of people from which other, more meaningful relationships will be established.

#2 Team-Member
Type: Professional
Description: Team-members are fellow employees who work on the same team as you. This could be the team you work with on a daily basis, a committee you’ve joined or a group working together for a single activity.
Role: Team-members are important because they are the people you actually accomplish work with. Together, you plan, design, develop, execute and track work related to your role. The better your relationship with your team, the easier it is to get this work completed.

#3 Work Friends
Type: Personal
Description: Work Friends are people who you interact with socially at work–you sit by them in meetings, go to lunch together, talk to them at work events and happy hours, and possibly even see them outside of work every now and then.
Role: Work Friends fill our social need and keep us sane from the daily grind. You likely wouldn’t be friends with them if not for your mutual employment of each other at the same company, but they serve as our support system during the corporate hours.

#4 Manager/Direct Report
Type: Professional
Description: Your Manager is the one assigning you the work, helping you succeed and ultimately impacting the work you do (and don’t do). Your Direct Reports are the ones who report to you (you are their manager). They also determine whether or not you succeed.
Role: The relationship between you and your manager is vital because they often play an important role in determining your rating, salary and workplan. They are also a large factor in your workplace satisfaction (as they say, you don’t leave a company, you leave your manager). For your Direct Reports, you serve these functions, while they serve as a way to accomplish more with your organization without you doing all of the work.

#5 Office Spouse
Type: Personal
Description: Your Office Spouse is that person you spend a significant amount of time with; they are your go-to for venting and advice, and there have probably been rumors about the two of you at one time or another (even though it is platonic).
Role: The role of the Office Spouse is to serve as your “workplace bestie” or go-to friend when you have a work predicament. They keep you from jumping off the ledge, are the person you trust with sharing your emotions and frustrations, and know you the best out of any of your workplace relationships.

#6 Mentor/Mentee
Type: Professional
Description: Mentor/Mentee is the highest professional relationship you can have. It’s similar in intimacy to that of an Office Spouse, but it serves you professionally. Your mentor is that person you go to for career guidance and help on the toughest-of-the-tough problems. Your mentee is the one coming to you for that advice.
Role: Your Mentor helps you traverse the landscape at your job. They help you think through the most challenging problems, give you perspective on how to handle your most challenging relationships, and generally guide you to success. You serve the same purpose for your Mentee, while they keep you grounded and connected to the pulse of the organization.

#7 Life Friends
Type: Personal
Description: The most intimate work relationship you can have is one that you don’t even consider specific to work–that of a friend IRL (in real life). They would be your friends even if you no longer worked at the company.
Role: These are friends who fill the same role as your normal social friends, because that’s what they are. You have fun together, laugh together, cry together, and possibly become romantically involved together. They aren’t friends you know at work, they are friends you happen to work with.

7 Types of Work Relationships

Obviously the real-world isn’t as structured as what is depicted with these differentiations in relationships. Some people fall into multiple categories (a manager and a mentor) and some blur the lines between two or three of them. However, having an understanding of the basic types of work relationships can help you determine the purpose of the relationship and how to best leverage it for helping you succeed, not just at work, but in life.