Random Jottings

How to Encourage Better Staff Relationships
By Markus Taylor

Positively stimulating interpersonal relationships inside an Organization can often lead to an increase in productivity, a warm working atmosphere that can expand with a happier workforce.

1. Keep everyone Informed

A simple notice board, company newsletter or for large Organizations a Magazine keeps everyone informed on upcoming events, changes within an organization and helps everyone feel part of a team.

2. Canteens

Larger Organizations usually have a canteen whilst small scale organizations should have a refreshment area, with a microwave and a place were employees can relax, and mix together.

3. Resource Centers

Access to resources are as important as the job itself, resource centers could be a simple computer that could be accessed by all employees or in much larger organizations a library or center.

4. Social or Activity Clubs

Encouraging Social or Activity Clubs inside an Organization can often encourage employees to socialize with each other in a positive environment. In an economic recession, this could help employees substitute vacations with more localized activities.

5. Celebrations

Birthdays, Festivals like Christmas, Idul Fitri or other religious holidays could be celebrated after work. This often shows a company does care, and helps motivate Employees.

6. Counseling Services

These are particularly important in times of economic change, when a company may have to cut working hours or even lay-off staff. Counseling could help employees affected by this change to accept in a positive way, an unwelcome change.

7. Quality Circles

Allowing members of your Organization to discuss in the open issues around work in an informal setting, often brings positive results, and can sometimes solve issues before they become too serious.

Encouraging Interpersonal relations inside an Organization creates a more positive, and open environment many employees should feel comfortable in. During economically hard times, this could be the difference between a smooth transition, and a rough volatile transition.

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Relationship Repair - Why Relationships Go Cold and How to Make It Warm and Cosy Again
By Lucy O’Brien

You know when you’re in a good relationship; it feels warm and cosy like an old slipper. You feel a sense of belonging and closeness. You can depend on him everything feels good. If this feeling is slipping away from your relationship, perhaps it’s time for some relationship repair. Read on to find out why relationships go cold and how you can make it warm and cozy again.

When you first meet, it’s easy to be nice to each other. You are happy in his company and it seems easy to meet each other’s needs. However, in many relationships, somewhere along the way, the warmth and cosiness fades away and eventually what is left are 2 people feeling lonely and isolated. The honeymoon period is definitely over and deterioration is setting in. Often the point at which it started to go wrong went unnoticed. You just both woke up one day to find that you weren’t even quite sure that you liked each other anymore.

There are various factors that can strangle the love in our relationships. It is said that relationship experts can quickly tell which relationships are doomed by the way that couples treat each other in the early stages. By far the biggest killers are anger, resentment and contempt. If you regularly have these types of feelings towards your partner then your relationship may be doomed in the long-term, even if you think it is OK now.

So why do we exhibit these traits in relationships? Well, often when we first meet, our partner seems perfect but as we move past this phase, we become acutely aware of all his imperfections. This disappointment can be unexpected and hard to bear. Often the things that were endearing to us in the beginning turn out to be the things that irritate us so much when we get to know him properly.

Many of our responses are to do with how we expect our man to behave in the relationship and these expectations and reactions are often learned from our parents. When we were growing up we saw how our parents handled their relationships and now we carry the behaviours and patterns that we learned into our relationships.

Resentment starts to accumulate in relationships when our man does not act according to our expectations and therefore we feel that we are not getting our needs met. Often we are simply expecting too much and we can’t expect him to meet our needs when we don’t know how to communicate them effectively.

If we have learned to exhibit anger as a response, then we may have become a naturally angry person. If we learned to repress this anger, we may accumulate resentment but are not able to express how we feel. Resentment is often hidden but may be displayed openly or subtly in the form of contemptuous gestures such as eyebrow rolling, ignoring or criticising. It is inevitable that we will continue these behaviours in our closest relationship, even though this may not be appropriate.

When we exhibit anger and contempt, our partner becomes defensive and pulls away. He usually does not know how to communicate his needs or what he is feeling. This builds barriers in relationships and leads to mistrust and isolation. A partner who feels hurt often feels justified in hurting the other and so a negative cycle of destruction begins.

So, what can we do in relationships to stop communication break down and our relationship needing repair? Well, firstly keep in mind that a relationship takes work to foster good habits and communication. If you ignore it, the good times will start to drift away. Accept that your partner isn’t perfect and stop expecting so much. Use appreciation, affection and respect instead of anger and contempt to keep it warm and cosy. And finally, learn good communication skills so that both partners get their needs met. If you want a good relationship, don’t leave it up to your man. Take responsibility for creating the strong, loving relationship that you want today.

If you want a strong, loving relationship, then you need to understand what really makes a man feel good. There is a certain type of woman that a man is irresistibly attracted to. She knows how to captivate him and communicate with him to draw him close and get him to respond in the ways that she wants. You can learn to be the type of woman that men adore and never want to leave. For more information on how to keep your relationship going strong please feel free to visit my website.

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Long Distance Relationships: The truth
By Terry Bytheway

Not to bore you with statistics, but between 25-40% of all romantic relationships among college students are long distance. In fact, with the rise in revolutions in modern technology, which present new ways of keeping in touch (think web-cams!), long distance relationships, including marriages, are on the rise.

The first and foremost means of maintaining a relationship where the people involved don’t live in the same vicinity (and often not even the same country) is effective communication. This is why it is extremely important for persons considering a long distance relationship to clearly communicate on all essential issues, much before hand, so as to side-step any conflict. Issues can range from simple problems like being home to receive your significant other’s call, to the more complex concerns which may involve immigration and children. Even though sustaining a long distance relationship is very demanding, if two people have made a commitment to foster love between themselves no matter what, nothing is quite impossible. What’s more is that if you share an insatiable, everlasting love for each other, it isn’t a long shot to believe that God might even intervene to play the biggest supporting role in your lives. Yes, all you cynics out there doubt this, but trust us, we’ve seen some of the most hopeless relationships breed flowers.

To get to the point, one of the biggest downsides to a long distance relationship is the lack of physical closeness, which makes it really very hard to keep the spark alive. Yet, the idea of being in a satisfying relationship is such a blessed one that often people often realize that distance does make the heart grow fonder; sometimes even helping direct a doomed relationship onto a path of success. Another problem that people in a long distance relationship have to deal with is that of jealousy. Since your loved one isn’t where you can keep an eye on him/her, it’s extremely easy to get jealous and suspicious of even the minutest happenings, especially for people who are insecure. And who isn’t? There’s always a hint of insecurity in each one of us, especially when it comes to the people we love so much that we are terrified of being hurt by them. The way around this issue is to realize that trust is an important commodity to give to your partner; if this conviction in each other is mutual, suspicious notions can easily be extinguished. That is why it’s important to be able to place your utmost trust in your partner, because if you’re not sure of that, you can’t ever be sure of anything else.

Yet another matter which couples in a long distance relationship have to deal with is that of loneliness. The obvious way of dealing with this is to physically meet as many times as possible, and to spend true quality time dedicated to each other when together. However, the rest of the time that individuals spend away from their better halves can often turn their loneliness into a case of depression, if they do not engage themselves in enough activities of interest. Thus, it is highly advisable for each distant lover to improve his or her social support system away from home (where the heart is!) Participating in leisure activities, performing social welfare duties, and indulging in artistic pursuits are recommended tools to break through the limits of lonesomeness. Lovers who cannot get together very often should also learn to be independent whilst nurturing healthy dependence upon one another. This leads to a balance of power in relationships, allowing individuals to remain autonomous while also growing as halves of the other.

Long distance relationships are also about adequately meeting the emotional needs of your partner. Even though there is a lot of room to breathe, and hardly any chance of your partner choking you out of your space (unless he/she can’t stop calling you!), there are times when you need to just be there, no matter what. Also, with so much time spent apart, partners must not expect their better halves to stay exactly the same as they left them, because circumstances and surroundings do tend to affect a person’s character.

Another thing that both partners in a long distance relationship need to understand is that it’s imperative to learn to function under understandable expectations. It is vital for a person to know what to expect of their significant other, and to do their best to meet what is expected of them. If this isn’t the case with your relationship, we suggest that you call for a warm discussion to clarify everything relational that has either been misunderstood or never been brought to the surface. Talking about it helps: We promise!

In all honesty, the secret to being happy in a long distance relationship is for the partners to ensure that emphasis is laid on their time spent together rather than the distance between them. In other words, it is best to get together, enjoy the little time one has with their distant lover in a happy frame of mind, rather than ruin the mood by remembering the times when you needed him/her and he/she was not around.

Yes, there is a great downside to long distance relationships, and everyone going through such a relationship is conscious of it. Even so, the pleasure of knowing that there is someone who cares no matter how far away they might be, tends to run over the list of pitfalls.

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Developing Reciprocal Business Relationships
By Andrew Brown

The world is a collection of communities and the business world is no different. But many times when we hear the term “community” and business mentioned together, it is reference to the area where the business is located more than the individuals and companies that keep the world running. Your “community” at its core, is your specific niche in your industry. Beyond this direct relationship, is that of your suppliers and customers.

Business to business sales offer you an opportunity to develop reciprocal relationships that can have far reaching benefits for your own company as well as your customers. Developing constructive partnerships with other businesses can help you manage your company more efficiently and provide ways to reduce your overhead.

Cultivating these relationships to a point where cooperative advertising can be done is one way to approach selecting businesses for a reciprocal relationship. If your company and one of your suppliers have complementary products and/or services, your advertising efforts will have more impact. What your customer sees is enhanced value and a more credible business presence.

While there are benefits to developing these types of relationships, it is important to make sure that the other business has a code of ethics that is compatible with your own. Discussing customer service in depth with any vendor that you are considering is first on the list: if you cater to your customers and the other business never returns a phone call, there are bound to be problems.

If you want to establish a relationship with a large corporation, again the keyword is benefit. You need to be prepared to show how your service or product will find a specific need that will enhance the profitability of the corporation. It is not sufficient simply to say that your product or service is the best. The larger the company, the more competition you will face which makes research all the more important.

When you want to broaden your scope of community to encompass a relationship with a vendor, look for compatibility of purpose in order to make the most of the relationship. Small business owners that are working with limited marketing budgets can benefit greatly by the word of mouth advertising that is created in the process of collaborations with suppliers. Endorsements of products and services are one of the strongest sales tools available; people are more receptive to recommendations that are made by a person that they have a relationship with than expensive promotions.

Start building your reciprocal business relationships with small projects that are easy to manage without a huge time investment. Make sure that you involve all the individuals that will be affected by the project or be called into participation to make the project a success. As you work through the process of the project work, take time to discuss and evaluate the impact it is creating for both your business and that of your vendor so that it can be refined and developed into a long term, mutually beneficial method of operation.

Andrew Brown and Small Business Guru provide Coaching, Inspiration and Practical Advice for Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs. Subscribe to the free, weekly newsletter at http://www.small-business-guru.com

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Abusive Relationships: Changing Your Victim Mentality
By Karla Downing

Abusive relationships challenge our ability to take care of ourselves and leave us feeling victimized. It is important that you work on changing your victim mentality. Many of us complain that we are victims in our relationships. By claiming we are victims, we are giving up our power to do something different. We are a victim when we are truly powerless and without options. Children are victims because they have aren’t able to care for themselves by virtue of their age and the fact that they are under the control of their parents. As adults, we can be in toxic relationships with abuse, control, mistreatment, and misery, but are we truly victims?

This isn’t meant to minimize the complex dynamics in toxic abusive relationships and the difficulty in dealing with them or the real-life circumstances that leave us feeling trapped because any decision is stressful and full of negative consequences. Financial, relational, physical, spiritual, and emotional factors always have to be taken into consideration with how we respond to the difficult people and situations in our lives. Answer these questions to determine whether you see yourself as a victim and have surrendered your power to take care of yourself:

1. Do you see yourself as a victim in any of your relationships?

How you see yourself gives you insight into how you view the relationship. If you see yourself as a victim, you will not own your power to take care of yourself. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As he thinks in his heart, so is he” (NKJV).

2. Do you take responsibility for your choice to stay in a difficult relationship or do you feel stuck?

If you see yourself as choosing to stay for whatever reasons, you will feel more empowered. Viewing yourself as “stuck” perpetuates your victim mentality.

3. Do you recognize you have choices in how you respond to mistreatment?

When you recognize all the choices you have in how you can respond to mistreatment, even if you don’t have the strength or resolve to do them, you will recognize that you are a master of your own fate and will be encouraged to work on getting stronger so you can make different choices.

4. Do you believe God wants you to suffer by being mistreated and will reward you for it?

This martyr mentality is a misunderstanding of Scripture. First Peter 3:17 tells us, “It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil” (NIV). Suffering for the gospel is sometimes God’s will, but suffering at the hands of an abusive person isn’t the same as suffering for the gospel. In a toxic relationship, we often suffer for good by standing up against what is wrong. The suffering that comes from tolerance of wrongdoing is really suffering for evil.

5. Do you blame others for your feelings and choices?

Taking responsibility for ALL your feelings and choices, even if they are in response to another person’s mistreatment, is key to owning your power to make changes.

6. Do you spend time trying to convince others they are hurting you?

It is important to speak the truth in love but when you believe you have to convince other people they are hurting you BEFORE you can do something to take care of yourself, you give away your power and make yourself a victim.

7. Do you doubt your own feelings and perceptions and minimize how you are being mistreated?

Convincing yourself to trust your own feelings and perceptions is often the key to owning your power to take care of yourself. You victimize yourself by doubting yourself.

You can change your victim mentality in your abusive relationships. Recognizing how you need to own your power to make choices for yourself is the key to getting strong enough to take care of yourself. It isn’t God’s will for you to suffer needlessly; if you must suffer, work on letting it be because you have taken a stand to take care of yourself.

If you need more practical tips and Biblical truths to help you change your relationships, get my FREE “15-Day Relationship Challenge” designed to give you back the power over your life.

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Karla Downing is an author, speaker, licensed marriage and family therapist, and Bible study teacher. Karla’s passion is to help people find freedom in Christ in the midst of their difficult relationships and circumstances through Biblical truths and practical tools.

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