Building Relationships – Entry, Dialogue and Closure
In nearly forty years of working with, researching, and refining the
use of Social Styles, Wilson Learning has developed many tools and
concepts for organizing the process of relationship building. One of
the most useful concepts is to think of relationships developing in
three stages: Entry, Dialogue and Closure. Keep in mind as you read
Three Key Concepts for Productive Communication
While you may find it easier to remember these concepts if you learn them as
stages, in practice you’ll soon find yourself moving among them, as tasks, events
and your relationship dictate.
Entry
• Create comfort to focus on the task
• Establish a trusting climate
• Identify a specific task
• Reduce relationship tension
Dialogue
• Identify needs and/or mutually solve problems
• Listen to learn
• Explore
• Integrate ideas
• Balance relationship and task tension
Closure
• Conclude with a clearly understood plan
• Agree on the resolution
• Implement your decisions
• Reaffirm the relationship
• Increase task tension
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Building Relationships – Entry, Dialogue and Closure
about each stage that this is not necessarily a sequential or linear model. Although you will see Entry is often the logical first phase in establishing an interpersonal connection, you may find it beneficial to
move in and out of the different stages constantly as your relationships evolve.
ENTRY
Entry is the phase of a relationship in which you work on building
trust, comfort, and creating a sense of credibility so you can begin to
focus on tasks. If you haven’t earned trust and credibility from another person, you really don’t have a relationship that can be very productive. In this stage of building a connection with another person,
you should be focused on reducing or eliminating relationship tension.
As you recall, high relationship tension depresses task tension and
productivity drops as a result.
Purpose, Process and Payoff (PPP) Statements
One of the most important Entry tools in Wilson Learning’s kit for easing relationship tension is the use of Purpose, Process and Payoff statements (called PPPs). They are especially useful when meeting a person
or a group for the first time, but also at the start of subsequent discussions, meetings and documents. In the upcoming individual Social
Style chapters, we’ll include recommendations about how the content
and delivery style of these statements should vary depending on the
other person’s Social Style and depending upon where you are in the
process at the moment – Entry, Dialogue or Closure. The basics of these
statements, however, will remain the same:
• Purpose. One of the first things you want to do when you initiate
contact with someone is to clearly state why you are meeting – or
calling on the phone, writing, etc. The Purpose statement lets people know the specific reason for your contact and what you hope to
accomplish together.
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