An Important Work Relationship Isn't Working Well — How to Strengthen the Partnership Before You Need It
Situation
Things that should be simple are taking too much time and energy.
You're finding out about decisions after they've already been made.
You're not always clear about who owns what.
You're making assumptions about what the other person needs or expects.
You spend plenty of time together talking about the work, but rarely talk about how you're actually working together.
There are probably one or two people at work who can make your job a whole lot easier or a whole lot harder. For front-line healthcare leaders, it’s usually your physician partner and your boss.
When those relationships are good, you can disagree without it turning into a whole thing. You know where you stand, what matters to each other, and when something hard happens, you already feel like you're on the same side.
But those relationships don't necessarily get stronger just because you spend a lot of time working together.
Sometimes you have to work on the relationship too.
What's Really Happening
There's a difference between working in a relationship and working on it.
Working in the relationship sounds like:
What's happening with staffing?
How are our metrics looking?
What are we going to do about this patient complaint?
How are we handling this new priority?
That's all important. But it's mostly about the work.
Working on the relationship sounds different:
How are we doing?
Are we clear about who owns what?
Where do we keep getting in each other's way?
What do you need more of from me?
How do we want to handle it when we disagree?
When you don't make room for those conversations, you pay for it anyway. Messages get crossed. Assumptions grow. People get different answers depending on who they ask. Two really capable people can work incredibly hard and still make each other's jobs harder.
Your most important relationships at work aren't just there to help you get the work done.
They are part of the work.
What Helps
Make time to talk about how you're working together
You don't need a two-hour retreat.
Thirty minutes, on occasion, can be enough.
You might say: "We spend a lot of time talking about the work, but we don't really spend much time talking about how we're working together. This partnership is really important to me, and I'd love to check in on how it's going."
Then ask:
What's working really well between us that we should keep doing?
Where could we work together better?
Is there anything you need more of—or less of—from me?
You're not making the relationship weird.
You're making an important part of the work explicit.
Get clear about who owns what
An org chart can put you and your physician partner side by side.
But it doesn’t tell you who decides what, what you always decide together, what you need to keep each other informed about, or what happens when you disagree.
You have to talk about those things.
Ask: "Are there places where it's not clear who owns what?"
How are we going to make decisions?
What do we do when we disagree?
Clarity now can prevent a lot of unnecessary friction later.
Talk about what you're trying to create together
A great partnership is about more than dividing up the work.
Especially with a physician partner, ask: "What are we trying to create together?"
The goal isn't only: You handle the physicians, and I'll handle operations.
It's:
We're going to create extraordinary outcomes.
We're going to build a department people want to work in.
Now you're not just two people managing your own sides of the house. You're two people bringing different expertise to something you both care about creating.
Don't wait for the other person to go first
If you know an important relationship could be stronger, don't just wait and hope it gets better on its own.
Someone has to start doing something differently.
You can go first by bringing up how you're working together and asking a few simple questions:
What's working well between us?
Where are we getting frustrated?
Are we clear about who owns what?
Is there something you need from me that you're not getting?
You don't need to make it formal. You're simply creating an opportunity to understand each other better, get clearer about your roles, and start using each other's strengths instead of tripping over them.
Come back to the relationship before something goes wrong
Don't make this a one-time conversation.
A few months from now, ask again:
How are we doing?
What's changed?
What do you need from me now?
The work changes. People change. What worked really well a year or two ago may not work as well now.
And when the inevitable crisis comes, you don't want to be figuring out how to work together in the middle of it.
Your most important work relationships are part of the work. Don't leave them to chance. Build the relationship before you need it.
Listen to the podcast episode
🎧 How to Shore Up Work Relationships That Can Make or Break You (Ep. 88)