In this article
- Workplace relationships start with understanding the other team
- Make your requests easier to answer
- A hypothetical operations-and-finance relationship
- Offer help that is actually useful
- Address friction before it becomes a reputation
- Stay connected without manufacturing intimacy
- Start with one strained handoff
- Keep boundaries around favours
The Center for Creative Leadership discusses relationship skills at work. The practical approach here focuses on cross-functional cooperation, particularly when you depend on colleagues who do not report to you.
Being friendly helps, but friendliness alone does not solve a missing approval, conflicting deadline or unclear handoff. A strong relationship gives those issues a better place to be discussed.
Workplace relationships start with understanding the other team
Before asking how another team can help you, understand what they are accountable for. Their cautious answer may reflect a requirement that is invisible from your side.
Ask in a short, purposeful conversation:
- What do you need from us to complete this step well?
- Which requests tend to arrive too late?
- What information is usually missing?
- What can you decide, and what requires someone else?
- What is the best route for an urgent exception?
Avoid making the conversation a disguised complaint. The aim is to understand the operating context, including constraints you may not be able to remove.
Share your own responsibilities with equal clarity. Cooperation is easier when both sides know what a delay or change affects.
Make your requests easier to answer
A useful request explains the decision or outcome, the required date, why that date matters and what flexibility exists. “Need this urgently” forces the receiver to infer all four.
For example: “We need the approved supplier code by Thursday to include it in Friday’s order run. If approval is not feasible, please tell us by Wednesday so we can review the alternative.”
This gives the colleague an action and an exception path. It also makes the urgency inspectable rather than emotional.
Do not exaggerate deadlines to secure priority. If every request is presented as a crisis, your colleagues cannot distinguish a genuine exception from routine pressure.
When the request is large, ask what should be deprioritised or who needs to agree. A good relationship does not create unlimited capacity.
A hypothetical operations-and-finance relationship
Imagine an operations manager frequently complains that finance slows down new supplier approvals. The finance analyst says requests arrive without the required documents.
They review one recent request together. It turns out the operations checklist omits a document that finance must verify.
The manager updates the request checklist and agrees a realistic submission point. Finance identifies who can clarify requirements before a formal request is submitted.
Nothing in this example requires either person to become a close friend. They have made the shared work easier and shown that each side’s constraints matter.
The hypothetical illustrates a relationship built through a better interface. A coffee meeting can open the conversation; a clearer process gives it lasting value.
Offer help that is actually useful
Before volunteering, ask what would reduce friction. You may be able to supply cleaner information, share context earlier, make an introduction or warn about an upcoming workload.
Do not create unrequested work and call it generosity. A lengthy report nobody needs can add to another person’s burden.
Small commitments are useful because their completion is visible. If you promise to send a document, send it when agreed. If you cannot, update the person before they have to chase.
Give credit where it is due. In a project update, name the contribution of another team rather than presenting their work as an invisible input to your achievement.
Address friction before it becomes a reputation
If a pattern is causing difficulty, discuss the work directly with the relevant person when appropriate. Avoid building a case through side conversations that the colleague cannot answer.
Use a specific example: “The approval arrived after the order cut-off on the last two cycles. Can we review where the request is getting stuck?”
Then listen for your part in the pattern. Perhaps your team submits incomplete information, or perhaps the approval window is genuinely too narrow.
If the issue cannot be resolved at your level, agree how to escalate it. A joint request for a decision is often clearer than two separate accounts competing for senior attention.
Serious misconduct or sensitive concerns should follow the appropriate reporting route. Relationship-building is not a reason to avoid necessary escalation.
Stay connected without manufacturing intimacy
A relationship can be warm and professional without requiring personal disclosure. Respect differences in social comfort, working hours and communication preferences.
For a remote colleague, an occasional purposeful check-in may be more useful than compulsory social calls. For a busy frontline team, a clear briefing at the right point in the shift may matter most.
Do not assume a delayed reply means disrespect. Check agreed response expectations and available channels before assigning intent.
Keep contact proportionate. You are building a dependable way of working, not another layer of meetings.
Start with one strained handoff
Choose a colleague whose work regularly intersects with yours. Ask about one recurring difficulty and agree one small improvement on each side.
For broader context, read Peak Belt’s guides to leading without formal authority and trust and credibility. Find related leadership practice in TrueNorth.
Keep boundaries around favours
A strong relationship should not depend on bypassing controls, concealing errors or granting unfair access. If a colleague asks for something inappropriate, explain the boundary and offer a legitimate route where possible. Being helpful means improving cooperation within responsible limits. A favour that creates a hidden obligation or compromises another person's work can damage the trust it appears to buy.
Before asking for your next favour, make sure the colleague can see what you understand about their work. That is a more useful foundation than knowing the right words to sound persuasive.
AI-assisted researched guidance from PeakBelt. Hypothetical examples are labelled in the text. See our editorial approach.