JT23 | Maita Gaerlan On Building Friendly, Yet Effective Work Relationships

If you are like me, you might wonder why everyone likes to do so much small talk before they get to the point. Why not just get down to business and just get the work done? So efficient, right? But what you gain from a transactional conversation with someone and what you might gain in the short term is actually hurting you in the long run?

So today we talked with Maita Gaerlan, head of Australia, network optimization for Sendle, whose ability to build quick claws and long-lasting work relationships. It’s something I’ve always admired. She seemingly is able to work with literally anyone, even those whom we might consider difficult to work with. So I’m going to ask her today how she does it so we can learn something from that and see how best we can do it ourselves.

Discussion Topics: Maita Gaerlan on Building Friendly, Yet Effective Work Relationships

• Why build relationships at work
• How do you start a relationship when you’re a newbie
• Earning the respect and trust mutually
• Building relationships while working remotely
• Maintain positive relationships while giving precise feedback

Transcript: Maita Gaerlan on Building Friendly, Yet Effective Work Relationships

If you’re like me, you might wonder why everyone likes to do so much small talk before they get to the point. Why not just get down to business and just get the work done? So efficient, right? But what you gain from a transactional conversation with someone and what you might gain in the short term is actually hurting you in the long run?

So today we talked with Maita Gaerlan, head of Australia, network optimization for Sendle, whose ability to build quick claws and long lasting work relationships. It’s something I’ve always admired. She seemingly is able to work with literally anyone, even those whom we might consider difficult to work with. So I’m going to ask her today how she does it so we can learn something from that and see how best we can do it ourselves. So with that said, Maita, welcome to JobTok. It’s a pleasure to have you with us today and maybe we could begin with a shorter Introduction.

Thanks so much for the invite, Amit. I think any opportunity to speak with you, I’ll jump on. For the rest of the audience here, Hello, my name is Martha. I always introduce myself as having been born and raised in the city of Manila in the Philippines. I’m a proud Filipina, but have since also relocated abroad for exciting opportunities. Professionally, I started in beauty marketing. Then I took a leap into tech and operations and  it absolutely opened the door for me to start working on and in other markets. So this opportunity eventually got me to my first international stint, which is Singapore and then turn into another opportunity for me and got me to Australia, where I am now. In parallel to all of this professional progress, made me got out of my comfort zone but also met new people and made a lot of new friends.

Yeah. Thanks for being here, Maita. You mentioned something about making friends along the way like you meet people on a personal level and you might connect with them and you make friends with them and hopefully those will be lifelong friendships, but I’m the kind of person who likes to dive in and get the job done or get to the point. So I’ve often wondered why at work, do we need to build work relationships versus everybody just be transactional, ask your question, get your answer and move on?

How much time would be saved, right? Yeah. So building relationships, I think I’ve witnessed and observed from my parents. I’ve seen them going beyond, extending help and support for people who they no longer worked with. Many years later, I’ve started learning that they are the doorways to many opportunities. In almost all contexts, if you leave the concession as an exchange, you will be missing out on the opportunity to widen your network, to learn something new and to learn about yourself. You get a reflection from other people and that’s how you learn about yourself. For someone who relocated from a comfortable place with friends and family, these transactions allowed me to make lifelong friendships. I think building relationships will cost us time, effort and energy but in the long run, you just don’t know what the payoff is. So, it’s something for us to really consider.

I think that’s a really good way of putting it, which is, if you leave things as a transaction, they just stay where they are versus you have the opportunity to learn more about a person and you don’t know where that would lead you. So, If you are joining a company and you’re obviously the new person on the block, how do you get started at doing that? Because I’m sure that’s something, everybody struggles with when you walk into a room and everybody knows everybody else and you know nobody at all.

I think you can start by knowing the company’s product and doing great interactions in the interview stage. So, when you land up, at least you will know 2 or 3 people that you’ve met during the interview. Not to encourage stalking but there are tools out there you could harbour yourself with information about the people you will be meeting. So, prep work is part of the process. Day one, definitely talk to the manager or even manager’s manager to get a sense of what exactly your role is and where it fits in. This also sets the stage for them to tell you who are the people you might want to connect with. From there, drop a note introducing yourself and line up sometime to meet with them and learn about what they do.

That’s a neat tip to drop a note before sending the random calendar invite.

Yeah, back in the day, you can just tap the shoulder of the person you needed to sit down and say, I’m about to set 30 minutes with you next week. If that’s okay, I’ll check your calendar and give a bit of context to what that meeting is all about. I think you should also have, softly put, agenda and things you want to get from the meeting so that the person doesn’t feel like it’s a waste time. Maybe you could start with introductions, go through the background and then you learn what the person does in the company, what KPIs do you watchand then you could start edging into how the person interact with your team specifically in the current forum what’s working and what’s not working. You may get some intel on how does this person work, his or her thoughts around how your team works and you become more mindful and insightful even in the early stages. I love inserting something a little personal in my intro rather than just the purely about work. And the reason for that is you don’t know if that could trigger another area for you to start connecting on.

I like your thought process about making it more intentional or more structured because it makes sure that the person feels like  there is some boundary to this whole conversation and because that’s the easy way to get started. And with some personal introduction, things are more than just a work meeting and let’s introduce ourselves.

So this was your first day or your first week and you kind of got to know people and things like that. And now it’s time to actually get into the flow of working and stuff. So you mightbe working with other people and your team who are probably not so friendly. So how do you build relationships with new stakeholders or people that you’ve not worked with before?

I think at the very beginning, it’s a conversation about that shared goal. Because then the investment from both side will make sure that the shared goal is delivered and achieved wih clear roles. I often suggest regular catch-up and I have them dictate how regular that could be. But it wouldn’t matter if you have regular engagements, setting expectations by being transparent and honest about challenges, progress, updates or success is critical. In fact, use the time with the stakeholder to brainstorm and workhop, and I think ultamately to gain real respect and trust, you have to show that you’re delivering.

You’re right. Most times, when you meet a new stakeholder, you feel like your job is to make sure that you’re in control or give that impression but what you’re saying is you should be building that on a foundation of trust. That means I’m succeeding at some things and not at some. Let’s go create the solution together. First of all, as a foundation, they trust you and second of all, you include them in the work and they become co-creator rather than the stakeholder to whom you’re reporting.

I just realized that with the exercise of exposing yourself or your weaknesses and collaborating, workshopping, it then started blurring the authority or seniority and people become just equal coworkers trying to solve a problem. This is a personal trick because I’m easily daunted by authority and I like to impress if someone is senior but if I expose myself and then see how they feel, it makes me realize that this is just another person and I should be really open about how I could help or how she or he could help me with that situation.

So, from your side, you can certainly do all the works but the person has to meet you halfway. How do you make sure that it doesn’t become just transaction? What if the other person has the reputation of being tough to work with?

There are 2 ways that could happen. One is you find out the person’s reputation prior to your engagement, and then the other way would have been you realize that after you started working with them. If you knew beforehand, I think first learning how each other work with a one-on-one check-in before work project is important. You could give them the power and the input to learn how that person usually like engaging with others during the collaborative projects or how they make sure they are aligned with the people working with them and how you could do to ensure that things go smoothly. Down the line, if things don’t work out, you can always go back, get feedback and do something differently.

The second one, you need to find out how the person like to give and receive the feedback instead of thinking I’ll give constructive feedback and the person will receive it. You could learn from their style of giving feedback and maybe customize the way you provide yours.

I think a lot of what you’re saying is you shape your persona in tune with the person you’re talking to. I like your point of how people don’t start wanting to be difficult or a blocker. Their working style doesn’t match with a lot of people but if you take an effort to understand, you might be able to make things better. Now, let’s talk about remote working. When people meet in person in office, you can see the body language and all but how do you do this remotely? How do you make this happen?

I think the principles remain the same but you have to put more effort and intention. You will have regular engagements but why don’t you have them while you’re walking or outside in your garden which could give a sense of relaxation to the heavy conversations and instead of saying I like walking, you’re talking to them while you’re walking which is more engaging. With virtual set ups, companies now have interest channels like music or articles or climbing, etc. Take time to go through these and those could become topic of conversation and when you end up working with these people you interact, you’ll have the prior engagement. You can also start your own channel of interest, nothing’s stopping you. I feel a bit forced to hangout with colleagues in a HR setup virtual game or hangout but if you have time and energy, go through these sessions.

If you’re working remotely, you have to find ways to express your individuality. So others can get to know you beyond whatever you’re doing at work. And you get to know others in a similar way. And it’s just like what you would have done in person with just a little more intentional. Okay. So, we’ve been talking about ourselves and how we should approach all of these things. Now take the place of a persona who is in the company for a long time, and is now trying to work with somebody who is new or bringing in somebody who is new. And this is something I’ve seen you do extremely well back when we used to work together. So, how did you do that and how should one approach this in their own lives?

I think everyone can empathize with new team members. We’ve all been new at some point and for a few times in our careers. One thing I found very helpful is to sit down and show them around and give them more context when the new team member joined. Following that, I set up times to do an introduction with the team or the group and use the trick of exposing areas of interests. I think it would be good to establish how this person again, is expected to contribute and support the rest of the team with the project.

Speaking of project, how do you get them into the flow of the project?

It’s a lot of investment in this person at the early stages which means that I’d probably set up time with them more often than not and I can see if they are overwhelmed or not and maybe debrief the details of the project and see if there were any questions.

So, what happens if similar to the difficult stakeholder who is new to the whole thing and not certain of themselves? How do you make sure that they feel comfortable enough to open up and actually say what are the challenges and issues they’re having versus trying to look great?

For extrovert, you just have to ask how they are and they will speak and you can just listen to them but for introverts, there is a process of showing your vulnerability and show them you’re comfortable talking about your learnings and mistakes in order for them to start feeling the safe space and that they can be vulnerable too.

So, we’ve talked about peers and stakeholders. How do you build a relationship with them when you are the manager of that team? Can you really become a friend or do you need to keep a distance of some kind? And how do you balance between them?

So there’s a certain level of maturity that needs to be present in both the manager and the team member to allow a friendship to co-exist with a work relationship. And this maturity should allow the individuals to separate what is work ‌and what is not. It’s important to remember that trust between two individuals, a manager, and a team member doesn’t have to be because of friendship. It could be because you suddenly see your manager as mentor or a coach but the trust is built and one thing remains is inherently there’s some authority figure, mentoring someone who’s still growing and learning.

What you’re saying is you can still be the authority and be perceived as it is but in a softer authority sense, mentor or coach who’s trying to make you better. So speaking of coaches and mentors and stuff like that, obviously a large part of the work of a manager is to get the best out of the individual which means you have to give feedback and not always going to be a rata cheerleading kind of thing. How do you do that and still maintain a positive working relationship?

A couple of things stood out and really worked for feedback was they were given in a timely manner, they were concise and specific. The feedback session was the opportunity to hear from both parties. I think the timely part is important because you don’t want to hold back feedback or observations and let it accumulate to the point where you overwhelm the individual. Being concise is also critical because you don’t want to beat around the bush and need to ensure that your intentions come across in the words but straightforward doesn’t have to be sharp and painful words but choosing the right words in that context and being specific. Once the feedback has been given, let that stew a bit with the individual you’re speaking with and make sure they know it’s a safe place where they can ask questions and clarify as needed.

Maita, before we close, I have a philosophical question here. So in the process of working with so many stakeholders, do you end up actually becoming like a vanilla version of yourself and you lose your own individuality while trying to build these relationships?

Admittedly, there’s a survival mode where I could downplay who I really am to make sure to get work done and things are flowing.  I think in federal though, every interaction or connection you’re making is actually an opportunity or it brings you through introspection. So if these interactions start having effects on you emotionally or mentally, one thing you have to do is really assess that situation and if that relationship is good for you, especially if you’re doubting yourself. There are 2 ways you could see them in. One is the relationship is unhealthy but by continuing the interaction, you get the work done with this person but the other is you could see a part of yourself that you can learn more about and improve. And in the latter, which is growing in these relationships, you’ve come to realize that your survival masks started to peel off and as you get deeper into these connections, you’d become your fuller more authentic selves with these individuals, whether they’re workmates or individuals elsewhere.

We shouldn’t think of this as losing our individuality, but more as in discovering or in building that relationship, we discover areas where we could improve as well. So it gives you a mixing, maybe more well-rounded at least as a professional.

Yeah. Maita, thank you so much. This was all extremely insightful. So would you like to close with a few points that you think we can leave our listeners with and which maybe they can start applying from tomorrow.

Our conversation, I think, has allowed me to also reflect on all the experiences and truthfully miss all our teammates. To summarize, I have a few points here. One is to treat every transaction as an opportunity to connect and because that connection could translate to any new learnings, new friends, your opportunity to grow. I would also say don’t shy away too much about presenting your full, authentic self. Because that means you could consider revealing a bit more about yourself to really nurture and start off these connections. Relationships are investments and not every investment is the same. You have to be open to risks and spend time on them. But in the end, these relationships as investments will eventually pay off. Fourth point here is feedback, good or not so good, it’s part of nurturing a relationship, and we need that honesty and openness to really establish that trust. And I think the final point you were touching on is to continue working on yourself and because in establishing many relationships in your life, you’ll realize the good about yourself and the parts that might need some work. So in the process of building relationships, you also have to be open and honest about who you are and then take it from there and grow.

So thanks a lot Maita for joining us today. For everyone listening, we were Maita and Amit with JobTok. See you next time.