Interrelational skills stand for long-term performance – particularly in technology oriented firms

Due to recent prominent bancruptcies questions have popped up if not the respective boards have been responsible, too, to say the least. But could better controls and better decisions actually have avoided these failures? Rather yes is the reply of a Swedish-Israelian scientific paper where interviews with 336 board members out of 200 publicly listed firms have been analysed. Crucial is according to the study leadership of the head of the board – extraordinary reputation, brilliant expertise in the field and exceptional networking contacts are particularly in volatile times not sufficient. This resonates especially with technology-oriented firms.

The researchers recommend leadership trainings to establish and enhance interrelational skills.

Nahum/Carmeli/Uman, “On the Power of Professional and Relational Respect of Chairpersons”. In “Psychology of Leaders and Leadership, 2025, vol. 28, Nr. 1, 65-95.

From the praxis:

What are interrelational skills? Well, the capability to communicate respectfully, to build up trustful relationships and to motivate toward constructive cooperation. When dealing with alpha animals – and we can assume each of the members of a board is one of these – it is key that professional leadership applies and steers the best processes beyond any possible differences in opinion. That´s the only way to create respect for each other and therefore to provide an atmosphere where an efficiently working board can get to bold decisions if necessary.

Ok, but why is this so important for boards in the technology-oriented field? Because there – even up to my own observations over decades – social skills and so also interrelational skills are upgradable both on the operative level and in the boards which control. I am offering leadership training for head of the boards for more than 10 years. So I am a bit proud that now my move is confirmed by science.😊

More damage than benefit, also for yourself

If you monitor change in short intervals the project and even yourself will not profit. This is precisely because those control freaks cannot help but notice with each check only small to smallest progress. This has got 3 consequences: 1. They are convinced that everything is changing way too slow = they are not satisfied. 2. They produce not highly motivated employees but make them unhappy and uncertain. 3. In case they are themselves responsible for the development, they perceove themselves the more they monitor the more as a failure.

Monitoring Frequency Effect (MFE) has labeled an American-European research team this phenonmenon in their in-depth study which was recently published.

Vaz/Mata/Critcher, “A Watched Pot Seems Slow to Boil: Why Frequent Monitorin Decreases Perceptions of Progress”, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2025, vol. 154, Nr. 4, 895-918.

From the practise:

Right! We can observe the MFE and its impact also during everyday life: the more we got onto the scale, or the more we watch our stock rates or the more often we double check the productivity of collegaue and staff the more we feel troubled unhappy and the more we would be allured to establish completely wrong, negative opinions.

Of course: continuous monitoring has its merits and needs to be executed from time to time, particularly in times of crises and threathing moments. For normal everyday life please let´s have in mind once again the dose.

Or at least we shall not forget the big focus and the main targets.

Motivation & commitment are starting long before workday 1

The time slot between the job confirmation and the first workday is more important than expected: communicating with new employees in high frequency, personalized and via various media ensures motivated, committed and more satisfied newcomers. These are the results of a new US-survey focussing on the question how employers can strengthen staff retention.

The time slot between the job confirmation and the first workday is more important than expected: communicating with new employees in high frequency, personalized and via various media ensures motivated, committed and more satisfied newcomers. These are the results of a new US-survey focussing on the question how employers can strengthen staff retention.

If you aren´t interested in the answer, don´t raise a question

Boomeraskers raise questions, don´t react on the responses, though, but reply to their own question quickly and detailed. Boomeraskers are people who utilize questions as a trick in any small talk for presenting oneself in the absence of any interest in them and their perspectives. (“Boomerask” means a question raised that retunrs boomerang-like back to oneself) . These type of networkers don´t do themselves any good: according to a brand new study by Harvard Business School they appear to be more unsympathetic than those who try to dominate and influence the talk openly from the very beginning. To not react on an answer at all, bespeaks of complacency and insincerity.

Brooks/Yeomans, “Boomerasking: Answering your Own Questions”, in: “Journal of Experimental Psychology: General”, 2025, vol. 154, Nr. 3, 864-893

From the practise:

I do confirm. Questions alone does not make a good impression per se – and that´s finally the only goal to achieve in any small talk and in any networking. To run a conversation in a way that next time the other one is cheering and not trying to leave the room or hang on. Due to my experiences this means: Please do listen carefully how someone is responding to your questions. That´s the only way to ensure follow ups like raising additional clarifying questions, asking for examples or question a wording which is noticeable for you. That´s also the only way to make your interlocutor believe that you are really interested in her/his stuff. And not before now please bring in your own response. Not always but in the majority of cases. If you don´t expose yourself, too, it even might appear like an investigative interview.

There is another absolute no-go when raising questions, though: If you don´t even let the other one respond at all, but answering right away yourself. “How are you? Well, aren´t you?” And yes: all this applies also to private talks.

Claims on Social Media: Apologies alone are not sufficient

The rhetoric principles by Aristotle – stating that Logos (substance) can succeed only together with Pathos (Emotion) and Ethos (morality) – are vivid and valid also for the online-complaint-management of the 21st century. The 3 principles are the most effective way against shit storms because one-dimensional communication is for sure not sufficient. Only  argueing or only apologizing falls short to calm frustrated or angry customers on Social Media.

These are the outcomes of a recent Netherlandish scientific paper. According to the researchers organisations are much better off if they combine various communication strategies: to say sorry AND to express explicitly understanding for the complaint AND to offer proactively solutions, compensations or concrete promises. In doing so organisations can rebuild trust not only with the complainants but also with the by-standers of postings.

Van Mulken/Heslenfled, “Improving Complaint Handling: The Rhetorical Turn in Defensive and Accomodative Strategies”, in: Business and Professional Communications Quarterly, I-22, 2025.

From the practice:

Isn´t that interesting? So often are we the key differences in communication styles of old and young ones, of Digital Natives vs. Baby Boomers, differences between the spoken and the written word, the analogue and the virtual settings or the defensive vs. the accommodative complaint management.

And today it seems that knowledge from 2350 years ago in how we should cope with conflicts constructively still applies. May wordings, ductus or volume of internet communication vary from traditional talking: the principles of interpersonal conduct have not changed. Nice.

Men have got risk taking, women empathy as their source for new ideas

Mixed teams are a good idea due to a lot of reasons. A current US-Chinese meta-analysis demonstrates that this is particularly key for processes of creativity, though. Why? 1. Men and women complement each other perfectly: Men are creative based on their tendency to take more risks, women do so since they can better put themselves on somebody´s place. 2. Therefore female creativity comes across as more useful. They are focusing more on workability and not only on the passion per se to develop new ideas. 3. “Usefulness” or “Workability” should according to the researchers be much more often taken as the criteria for judging and selecting inputs of creativity. By doping so automatically much more women will be invited for brainstorming sessions of any kind.

Kim/Vaulont/Zhang/Byron, “ Looking Inside the Black Box of Gender Differences in Creativity: A Dual-Process Model and Meta-Analysis”, in: Journal of Applied Psychology, 2024, 109(12), 1861-1900.

From the practise:

In challenging times as today the funniest innovative ideas are not necessarily applicable shortly. That given women could be motivated to knock louder at the doors of boards that are desperately looking for solutions due to these new scientific insights. And that´s terrific.

Independently I´d like to add on based on my multiple experiences as a moderator in workshops designed for the development of new ideas: you always need criteria for coping efficiently and properly with the bunches of creativity you are expecting.

Without any criteria you are inadvertently triggering ideas that you surely did not want to proceed – and thus disappointing from the very beginning those who have trusted on you and your alleged 100% open space creativity. Believe me: this is not a limitation of creativity since there is still an abundance of ideas possible. You are just focussing better and are still getting a lot.

Gap between PR-theory and Practice: Still Space for Improvement

Depending on the communication strategy managers, politicians or celebrities alike phrase their words highly different: Those who deny responsibility, instrumentalize figures to present their innocence, those who want to put the crisis into perspective, work with terms of unsecurement (“possibly”, “I believe”, etc.) and those who apologize, don´t shy away to express also verbally emotions like sadness or shame.

And: Phrases that hide the own involvement (ie “The accident took place due to ….”, “There were losses”) are still pretty popular – not really a signal for transparency.

These are the results of a recently published study from Belgium after having analyszed 179 audio-visual, on average 4-minutes-long crisis statements. The researchers point also to a gap between theory and practise when looking at the well known PR academies. There each student learns a lot about diverse communication strategies in the case of crisis. But what that exactly means in terms of wording for the speakers involved is not taught and not described anywhere.

Fannes/Claeys/Van Gorp, “Phrasing Crisis Communication: How are Distinct Crisis Response Strategies Put Into Words?”, in: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, I-26, 2024.

From the practice:

Everybody knows – at least in theory: the accurate wording is essential in the case of crisis. That´s why I am particularly engaged to support my clients in advance by so-called crisis communication workshops. And the need is tremendously high: there are a lot of crisis plans in a lot of drawers, though, but much rarer the management is prepared for challenging communication moments and has trained any potential crisis interview with an external trainer.

For me a role model how to communicate properly in cases of crisis is Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa Group, in his 2nd press conference after he has been informed that the crash of a German Wings civil flight in 2016 was due to the copilot´s wish to commit suicide. Almost perfect and breath-taking how Spohr takes responsibility for the worst case ever “Employee kills 150 customers” by utilizing it to present Lufthansa as the best airline company with the best staff all over the world.

Snitching wrongdoing friends and peers stands for morality and leadership

Loyality is a high moral standard – privately and in the working place. It is switching, though, into the immoral if friends or acquaintances, peers and superiors are doing wrong and you don´t do anything. On the contrary: Snitching wrongdoing friends and peers stands for morality and leadership.

There is only one exception to the rule: when the snitcher does not like the person meant, and when he/she has a special self-interest in the snitching. These are the conclusions of a brand new, concise US-study that was being published recently. The researchers point out that particularly whistle blowers must decide for themselves from time to time if they want to be known as good friends or as moral leaders. This given Donald Trump´s call for 100% loyality among the potential members of his government creates a dilemma and shows into a grim future.

Berry/Silver/Shaw, “Moral Paragons, but Crummy Friends: The Case of Snitching”, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 30(3), 442–464.

From the practice:

I am fully with the conclusions of this study: it is also in my opinion a sort of loyality or solidarity completely misunderstood if someone is covering for a close relationship where the proponent is keeping behaving wrong. Whitewashing the situation or not drawing any consequences does not make the case better. I do believe that this is even more crucial where credibility is concerned, where taxpayer´s money is at risk, where someone´s health could be severely damaged and where it might get prosecutable.

Loyality and/or solidarity serves always to the greater good: the state, the electorate, the organisation, customers and clients, members etc.

BUT: with friends, acquaintances, peers or superiors in our first step we should always motivate them to set proactively a sign of personal responsibility – reparation or resignation – before we snitch. This is the advantage they get due to the close relationship with us. Nothing more but nothing less.

90% need more than 2 options for feeling good after decisions

Gut decisions provide ad hoc a better feeling than the ones having been made according to data and facts: 1. Because it is less complex to decide spontaneously and intuitively and 2. because gut decisions lead us apparently closer to our core, to our authentic preferences, whereas data and facts could suggest to go new ways. And new ways cost in the majority of cases particular willpower. Therefore, gut decisions are much more often applied, says at least a recently published German scientific study.

Also exciting: 90% among us need more than 2 options for feeling good after having made a decision.

Remmers/Topolinski/Knaevelsrud/Zander-Schellenberg/Unger/Anoschin/ Zimmermann, “Go with your gut! The Beneficial Mood Effect of Intuitive Decisions”, in: Emotion, 24(7), 1652-1662.

From the practice:

The paper refers to day-by-day decisions and not so much to those that are made in the working place. Still, I don´t see that many differences: even in companies, political parties, universities etc. decisions were again and again made based on personal preferences and not according to the respective facts. Additionally: In contrast to private gut decisions leaders do know mostly how they should proceed specifically, and don´t do it nevertheless.

My personal point of view: intuition ought to be found in the office, too, not in the sense of “What do I like most?”, though, but in the sense of “How do I cope with this personally and what do I have to keep in mind for communicating it in a motivating way?” In that case guts and brain support each other lovely and fruitfully

Quantity of cheerful ones beats intensity of one-on-one

Laughing is contagious – that´s common sense meanwhile. How a cheerful group evokes affective reaction in contrast to a smiling individual was analysed by a British scientist just recently, though. Three findings are remarkable: 1. The smiling group transfers its positive emotions distinctly stronger than the smiling single person. 2. It does not matter if one is focussed on the smiling group or gets their emotions only by the way. 3. A mourning group can evoke sadness in others, too, but by far not to that extent as the smiling one joy.

Qureshi/Monk/Quinn/Gannon/McNally/Heim, “Catching a smile from individuals and crowds: Evidence for distinct emotional contagion”, in Journals of Personality & Social Psychology, vol. 127(1), Jul 2024, 132 – 152.

From the practise:

Why is the smiling of a group that contagious? Because you may think: yeah, I want to join them? Or: Great, that there is something making an entire group smile is apparently awesome? Or: hey, fantastic, here I can forget my own sorrows for a moment?

In any case can these findings influence prospective social media-appearances of managers or politicians: instead of a single smiling, confident top capacity employees, customers or voters could face the entire squad on TikTok, WhatsApp etc. in the near future. My reco as a coach: Please have an eye on your authenticity! People recognize faster and clearer than you would believe if your smilies are note intrinsic and true.