The picture above shows my most important relationships. The ones that are priority and only come second to my relationship with God. Pictured are me and my husband on our wedding day last year, with my two sons, my mom, my dad and his current wife, my sister-in-love and her husband, her mother-in-law, two of their sons and one of their son’s girlfriends. There were many more gathered with us later that day.
Husband/Wife Relationship = The Most Important Partnership.
My husband taught me not just what it means to have a relationship with someone but also what it means and how it feels to be in a true partnership with someone. When you are in partnership, you make communication a priority. You make mutual decision-making a priority. One always knows what the other is doing. It is about respect and truly caring about how your actions impact the other. It is about understanding the other person’s temperament (Ferguson, 2020), communication style (de Vries, 2013), and love language (Chapman, 1992). Not only understanding the styles and languages but intentionally utilizing them for good to keep the relationship/partnership strong and able to weather the storms and enjoy the sunshine together.
Workplace Relationships/Partnerships
Workplace relationships that are partnerships and not competitive is an essential factor for my personal job satisfaction. I am not naturally a competitive person. I prefer a work environment that involves people working together toward a common cause as opposed to an environment that emphasizes individual accomplishment and has an atmosphere of constant competition. One way to cultivate a cooperative work environment is to help each person find their strengths and the strengths of others, then utilize everyone’s strengths in ways to move the team forward. A previous workplace that strove to cultivate this type of culture used Tom Rath’s StrengthFinder system (Rath, 2007). The goal was to see where your co-workers might have an area of strength where you may not be as strong, then work with that person on the type of tasks that might be a challenge for you. This encouraged each person to build a working relationship with someone they might not have interacted with in that way.
Characteristics of Partnerships
Through a book club I conducted with early childhood leaders in my area, we explored Daniel Coyle’s book called The culture code: the secrets of highly successful groups. It was refreshing to explore a book not written for the early childhood community and attempt to apply its principles to our workspaces. The book identified and explored three skills that produce extraordinary cultures (Coyle, 2018). I believe these three skills also represent the characteristics of effective partnerships.
The first skill is Safety
An effective partnership is one in which all parties feel safe to express their needs, ideas, as well as disagreements. The participants feel safe to explore new ideas and techniques and understand that failure is part of the process to get to the goal. Coyle writes that highly successful cultures are energized and engaged and that it is a misconception that they are always happy and lighthearted places. This is true of an effective partnership. It will not always be happy and lighthearted. When you are truly engaged in the partnership, there will be tough times, tough conversations, and you have to feel safe to have those conversations with respect. (Coyle, 2018)
The second skill is Shared Vulnerability
In a partnership, all parties must be willing to be vulnerable and accept the others’ vulnerability. “People tend to think of vulnerability in a touchy-feely way, but that’s not what’s happening. It’s about sending a really clear signal that you have weaknesses, that you could use help. And if that behavior becomes a model for others, then you can set the insecurities aside and get to work, start to trust each other and help each other. If you never have that vulnerable moment, on the other hand, then people will try to cover up their weaknesses, and every little microtask becomes a place where insecurities manifest themselves. (Coyle, 2018, p. 104)
The third skill is shared purpose
Having a shared purpose helps define the partnership and why the partnership exists. It is important not to lose sight of that purpose. The purpose should be revisited regularly to make sure everyone is on track. This is important in every type of relationship, personal and in the workplace.
Early Childhood Professional
As early childhood professionals, our work is all about relationships and partnerships. To be effective, we must build positive relationships with children, families, coworkers, stakeholders, and the community. To partner with all of these persons and groups, we absolutely have to build safety, express vulnerability, and understand our purpose.
References
Chapman, G. (1992). The 5 [five] love languages : The secret to love that lasts (1st ed.). Chicago, IL: Northfield Publishing.
Chapman, G., & White, P. (2011). The 5 Languages of appreciation in the workplace: Empowering organizations by encouraging people. Chicago, IL: Northfield Publishing.
Coyle, D. (2018) The culture code: the secrets of highly successful groups. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
de Vries, R. E., Bakker-Pieper, A., Konings, F. E., & Schouten, B. (2013). The Communication Styles Inventory (CSI): A Six-Dimensional Behavioral Model of Communication Styles and Its Relation With Personality. Communication Research, 40(4), 506–532. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211413571
Ferguson, G. (2020). Temperament (psychology). Salem Press Encyclopedia of Health.
Rath, T. (2007). Strengths Finder 2.0. New York, NY: Gallup Press
Inette's Journey in Early Childhood Studies 
Inette,
I truly appreciate your blog post on relationships. Your blog post was very insightful and organized well. I truly agree with your view of the work place relationships. When I think of the work environment, I think of the acronym TEAM T(together) E(everyone) A(achieves) M(more). As educators, it is a positive atmosphere when everyone can work together as a team and develop strategies which are the best strategies for the team. As a special education teacher, my colleagues enjoy collaborating about the students and implementing research based strategies and helping all children to learn. Each of my colleagues have a variety of strengths as well as ideas and it’s important to recognize those strengths as we work together as a team.
Jacquia F.
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Inette,
Your photograph and description of a family, relationships, and partnerships is of model quality. A common word that continues to arise this week is reflection. The exquisite way that you define partnership through your marriage is deserving of reflective eyes in search of guidance.
Thank you for this post.
Travis
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Inette,
I really enjoyed reading your post. I particularly like the description of the three building blocks of a relationship. I completely agree. I also liked the idea of using a skills inventory to find people you work with that are compatible. I currently work on a campus with over 55 classroom teachers. A tool such as this would expand my network of peers that would help my professional development as well as building relationships with people I would never have known!
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