Abstract
An often-quoted Harvard study recently concluded that the main source of human happiness lies in the quality of our relationships (Waldingar & Schulz, 2023). Considering how much time many people spend with coworkers throughout their lives, forging positive relationships in the workplace then seems a laudable goal. Making Working Relationships Work provides practical, research-based strategies for improving or maintaining positive working relationships and rapport with peers and managers.
The authors bring considerable academic credentials to this topic, with recent publications mainly in the area of intercultural communication, such as Intercultural Politeness (Spencer-Oatey & Kádár, 2020), Global Fitness for Global People (Spencer-Oatey et al., 2022), and Intercultural Interaction (Franklin & Spencer-Oatey, 2009). They provide a multidisciplinary approach to intercultural relations, mainly based on pragmatics and psychology. These credentials and publications provide the grounding for Making Working Relationships Work. The main target audience is not academics but professionals who are looking for guidance in crafting their skills around relationship management in the workplace. It ventures toward the genre of self-help or rather self-development, though remaining firmly based on academic research. Different from other publications with a somewhat similar focus, it does not aim to convince the reader of some all-encompassing idea or concept, such as Emotional Intelligence (Wall, 2008) or Psychological Safety (Edmundson, 2018), but rather to get people involved in the habit of reflection upon their communicative exchanges in the workplace. It does so with a plethora of reflective exercises and case examples.
A refreshing aspect of the book is that the authors situate their discussion in the global workplace, rather than having a mere Western, Anglo-Saxon, or even U.S. focus as many other publications do. They provide case studies and examples from different parts of the world, often in diverse or international contexts. The book takes relationship management as a general challenge as point of departure, yet infuses this with discussion of cultural and individual differences, as well as topics generally related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), such as (implicit) bias, microaggressions, and psychological safety.
The book consists of four sections. The first section introduces the main concepts, such as working relations and rapport, and the book’s tool: the TRIPS rapport management framework. The latter serves as the model for reflection and stands for the Triggers, Reactions, Interactions, People, and Settings relevant to a communicative event. Section two applies these concepts to several recurring relationship challenges in the workplace, such as irritation with colleagues, conflict, being sidelined in meetings, division and exclusion, issues with managers (“managing up”), and leading others. Every chapter brings in other reflective frameworks to either focus on specific elements of the TRIPS model (e.g., the GAAFFEE overview of triggers) or to focus on specific domains or challenges (e.g., the participation management tool). The third section further details aspects of the TRIPS framework providing depth and academic background, including literature references for further reading. It is here that potentially more contentious topics such as microaggressions (here called micro-insults), cultural difference, and psychological safety are further discussed and conceptualized. The final fourth section provides further templates for all the tools and suggested answers to the many reflection exercises and case discussions. As such, this structure works well, although readers with an academic interest will need to wait for the later chapters to satisfy their need for more academic discussion and conceptualization.
For those interested in developing their professional skills, the book offers a wealth of reflective tools, exercises, and case studies that at times can feel a bit overwhelming. As the authors recommend, these tools and exercises provide the most benefit when discussed with a colleague or partner, or within a structured course format. Yet even if one doesn’t take all the tools to heart, they can encourage readers to adopt a habit of reflection on their communicative exchanges from a rapport perspective. Reflection-on-action then creates reflection-in-action (Munby, 1989) through sensitization to the different reflective areas. The provided discussion of topics is nuanced and pragmatic: this is not the kind of book that aims to revolutionize the way most readers think about issues such as conflict or exclusion, but its recommendations feel pleasantly intuitive, while adding structure, depth, and alternatives to one’s prior understanding. In this sense, it seems to offer the most benefit to the audience of professionals, especially communication, leadership, or intercultural trainers that could use it as a basis or in addition to their learning interventions.
That said, it is interesting to consider Making Working Relationships Work as well as an intervention in the field of intercultural communication and DEI. In the light of recurrent criticism of essentialism and stereotyping (Dervin, 2011; Holiday, 2011; Pillar, 2011) toward many mainstream approaches of intercultural communication (Hofstede, 1991; Meyer, 2014; Trompenaars, 1993), one could consider this book as an attempt to “normalize” intercultural interactions into communicative exchanges between diverse individuals (Rathje, 2006). The book then offers a refreshing outlook on the role of culture by foregrounding interaction and communication and considering the impact of cultural and individual characteristics as a natural part of the reflection process. Presenting this within a global and diverse context without specifying this a priori further contributes to this normalization.
From a DEI perspective, it is interesting to observe how the authors relate to issues of power, such as implicit bias, microaggressions, and psychological safety. In a sense, they strike a balance between a deterministic understanding of the relation between structures and individual interaction and a naïve focus on merely interlocutors’ skills and traits without due attention to their societal positions. Such a perspective provides ways to explore when, how, and why broader discourses and narratives impact on people’s interactions (Gallois et al., 2018). A critique could be that this may not always be effective to make the average reader sufficiently aware of the full scope of inequality and injustice in today’s professional world to pay attention to this truly. But perhaps the authors are counting on those who pick up the book to be as naturally empathetic to this as they are.
All in all, this is a remarkably compact yet complete guide for those looking for reflection on their working relationships, as long as they are willing to put in some effort besides merely reading about them.