When I end a coaching engagement with a client, I make a point of following up a few months later to find out:

• what they’ve learned sice we stopped working together. Retrospect is such a great thing, and I am generally amazed at the new things that unfold for these amazing leaders once we’re done working together.
• if the changes they made while we worked together are “sustainable”; do they continue to do the things they committed to?
• what I can learn. Selfishly, the time period between our last meeting and this “check up” can bring my former clients new insights that are good for me to pass along to other clients in similar situations.

Last year, I had begun working with a highly successful scientist and director of a medical laboratory in a large health care organization. He had a big job ahead of him: in a lab with long-service technicians, he was charged with modernizing the lab with new, and more efficient, equipment. He was faced with a huge change management challenge.

Interviews with his manager and those around him indicated that he was not connecting with the people in the lab, and they were resisting the changes that needed to be made. It became obvious that he was working much too hard to implement the changes. So we set about to create a plan to make it easier.

Some of the strategies outlined in his action plan seemed to be very simple. He made a plan to set aside time to regularly walk through the labs, while stopping and talking to people, asking open-ended questions, and listening deeply. Indeed, this man found what he called “small talk” to be a powerful tool in getting to know others and allowing them to get to know him. As an introvert, small talk was not his strength, yet he was courageously willing to try it in service to the large and highly visible project his organization needed to implement.

He also engaged the staff in implementation solutions, regularly asking for (and adopting) their opinions. He set up project teams to work on the major parts of the implementation.

Success! Several months after our work together is completed, I heard him tell that the changes went relatively smoothly thanks to his reaching out and improving the relationships he had with the individuals in the labs. When asked what he would do differently next time when there is a project in his area of this magnitude, he said “I will make it a priority to develop great relationships with the people who do the work”.

I have no doubt that he will be successful with that next, even more significant project, whatever it may be.

What are you doing to intentionally improve your work relationships?