Your colleague spends the first ten minutes of your meeting asking about your weekend. You're thinking about your deadline. They're thinking about your relationship.
Both matter. And if you work with someone strong in Relating, understanding their style helps you connect in ways that improve both the relationship and the work.
I was facilitating a team alignment session for a tech company in Singapore not long ago. The engineering lead -- very task-driven, very efficient -- complained to me during a break: "My project partner wastes so much time on small talk. We could finish meetings in half the time." I asked him what happened the last time there was a cross-team conflict on one of their projects. He paused. "She sorted it out," he said. "She always does." That's not a coincidence. That's what Relating-dominant people do -- they invest in relationship capital that pays off exactly when you need it most.
The Work You're Not Seeing
Relating-dominant colleagues prioritize human connection. They build trust before driving to tasks because they know -- whether consciously or not -- that trust enables better collaboration.
What looks like small talk is actually relationship maintenance -- the investment that makes everything else work. I've seen this play out across dozens of teams: when pressure hits, the teams with strong Relating members navigate conflict faster and lose fewer people. That's not luck. That's the result of someone quietly maintaining the social fabric all along.
A Relating colleague checking in on how you're doing isn't avoiding work. They're laying groundwork for more effective collaboration.
How to Connect So They'll Collaborate
Start with connection. Take a moment for human acknowledgment before diving into business. It doesn't need to be ten minutes. Even thirty seconds of genuine "how are you doing?" makes a difference.
Consider impact on people. When discussing decisions, include how they affect team members. This is the lens they see the world through.
Be authentic. They read emotional undertones with remarkable accuracy. Pretending everything is fine when it isn't creates disconnect -- and they'll know.
Appreciate their contributions. Acknowledge the interpersonal work they do, even when it's invisible. A simple "Thanks for smoothing things over with that client" goes a long way.
Make space for feelings. They factor emotion into decisions. Dismissing this dismisses their perspective. And frankly, in my experience, the teams that ignore emotional data make worse decisions -- they just don't realize it until later.
What Pushes Them Away
Purely transactional interactions. Treating every exchange as just business erodes the relationship they need to do their best work. But how many of us default to this when we're busy? I know I have.
Dismissing emotional data. "Let's focus on facts" excludes legitimate information they bring. Emotions are data. They're telling you something about how a decision will land, how a team is holding up, whether a change will stick.
Rushing past people concerns. Their questions about team impact deserve real consideration. When a Relating colleague asks "How will this affect the team?", they're not being difficult -- they're flagging something you might have missed.
Cold efficiency. What feels productive to you may feel dehumanizing to them. And here's the thing: if they feel dehumanized, you'll lose their discretionary effort, their early warnings, and their bridge-building -- the very things that make your projects run smoothly.
Making Projects Work Together
When collaborating on projects:
- Include them in stakeholder communication where relationship management matters
- Consult them on team dynamics before reorganizing or reassigning
- Use them as a sounding board for how messages will land -- they're remarkably accurate
- Value their conflict sensing even when issues haven't fully surfaced
One of my clients, a regional bank in KL, had a project manager who consistently surfaced team tensions two to three weeks before they became visible to anyone else. Her manager initially dismissed these as "overthinking." It took one project derailing from unaddressed team conflict before he started treating her observations as early intelligence. Now she's the first person consulted before any team restructuring.
When Things Get Tense Between You
If you're clashing with a Relating colleague:
- Check if you've been too task-focused at the expense of connection
- Ask directly about relationship dynamics -- they'll appreciate the inquiry
- Acknowledge their perspective even if you weigh it differently
- Invest in repair when interactions have been too transactional
Sound familiar? Most friction with Relating colleagues traces back to one thing: they feel the relationship has been neglected. The fix is usually simpler than you think -- genuine acknowledgment, a real conversation, a moment of human connection. That's often all it takes to reset.
The Bridge-Builder You Didn't Know You Needed
Relating colleagues are your early warning system for team issues and your bridge-builders when conflicts arise. They maintain the social fabric that allows work to happen.
The engineering lead from that Singapore session? I checked in with him a few months later. He'd started their weekly syncs with five minutes of non-work conversation. "It felt awkward at first," he admitted. "But our projects run smoother now. And when things go sideways, she's the first person I call."
The investment in relationship -- however inefficient it seems -- pays dividends in loyalty, collaboration, and a teammate who has your back when things get hard. What they're building isn't visible on a project plan, but it's essential to everything working.
