Relationships Are Alive

Posted on July 7th, 2009 by Keith Ferrazzi

Greenlight Community Ambassador Tami Conner, who has also worked with FG as an instructional design consultant, came up with a great guest blog of “relationship truths,” organized around a cool insight: Relationships are alive. Now here's Tami:

Living Relationships
By Tami Conner

Relationships, like humans or plants, are "alive" and thus require:

1) Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state. This refers to the cohesion, or balance, of a relationship, and involves expressing needs, trustworthiness, loyalty, asking for and giving help, working through conflict, owning up to bad behaviors and fixing them, and regular conscious interaction.

2) Organization: Structural composition. There are different types of relationships that serve different purposes and fulfill different needs. All relationships are different, and all relationships are personal.

3) Metabolism: Transformation of energy. Interpersonal interaction. Relationships, like plants or humans, have varying nutritional needs. Feed them what they need, and they will grow.

4) Growth: A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. If only one area of a relationship grows, i.e., the transactional business component but not the interpersonal intimacy component, it will wither and die when that one component is neglected or no longer needed. Think of it this way - if you don't know someone beyond their immediate business need, which you quickly fill, why should that person continue to care about you and the relationship?

5) Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. I like to think of my lifetime friendships (or lifeline relationships, as Keith calls them) as being highly adaptive. These are the folks that grow and change with you. A generous and candid relationship adapts itself to your life, over time, as the individuals in the relationship progress through this journey we call "our life."

6) Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms. For example, responses to deeper intimacy, reciprocal generosity, increased candor, and greater accountability.

7) Reproduction: The ability to produce new relationships.

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One Response so far | Have Your Say!

  1. Great post Tami.
    Quality relationships have the same effect as looking at a beautiful flower ^^
    Thank you for sharing this organic perspective.
    Seb

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