Sophia Demetriades Toftdahl

You can predict success and failure in business and personal relationships with 87.4% accuracy, right from the start!

How?

Self-Awareness.

Learning from relationship researcher and marriage expert Gottman’s (2012) formula to predict marital stability and divorce in couples, we can predict with 87.4% accuracy if a marriage will last in only 4 minutes, and we can apply this to all our relationships.

Here are the 4 major relationships killers:

1. Avoidance 

The first and most often employed tactic in destroying relationships is avoiding conflict or people. When you avoid conflict – either because you are unaware of your own feelings or afraid of arguing – a situation can escalate. Rather than confronting the issue with your partner, you disengage the conversation, and when this happens repeatedly, the problems tend to accumulate.

Solution: open communication and constructive feedback

2. Criticism (blame)

Different from having an opinion or complaint, criticizing others is a form of attack that chips away at their confidence and self-esteem. A complaint would go like this: “You’re an hour late, I was starting to get worried – can you call me next time you’re running late?” This is criticism: “You’re late again. I was worried! You never think about how your behavior affects other people. Would it kill you to think about someone other than yourself for once?”

Solution: constructive feedback focussing on the situation and not the person

3. Defensiveness (excuses)

It’s natural to be defensive when you feel like you’re being accused of something. However, defensive communication generally creates more tension. When you excuse your behavior rather than take responsibility, and say things such as ‘I was busy at work/the bus ran late/My training ran over’ instead of taking ownership as to why you’ve not done what you promised, you reinforce that your reason (work/traffic/gym) is more important than them.

Solution: know what/who is important and value time management to avoid fire

4. Contempt

It’s a direct disrespect to others to believe you are more important than them. We often use unhelpful body language such as eye-rolling, or use sarcasm or ridicule un knowingly. This can make others feel worthless and unloved, and rarely moves the conversation forward in a positive way.

Solution: gain awareness of your body language by asking for feedback

Awareness of general mistakes means that you can avoid them and transform your relationships. Having a clear understanding of how others perceive you as genuine thus provide a scientific strategy for the success of your personal and professional relationships.

A long term strategy in short; self-awareness and self-observance can save relationship breakdowns in any area of your life.

A Game Changing insight!

A relationship Manager is a professional who works to improve relationships. Relationship Management is generally divided into three fields including businesses relationship management (BRM), customers relationship management (CRM), and between individuals  as interpersonal relationship management (IRM). The latter describing a modern practice combining human resource management, coaching and mentoring, and public relations. All three fields share the common goal of facilitating effective relationships such that the business or individual  maximizes the value of their relationships and maintain a good reputation over all.

Relationships have traditionally been regarded as an intangible aspect of business that was inherently difficult to assess or manage. Relationship Managers are part of a movement that seeks to use a scientific approach to gain greater control over business and personal relationships. Relationship Managers seek to define, quantify and analyze relationships so that they are not left u up to chance.

In 2010, Sophia Demetriades released a white paper that helps people understand, solve and decide upon common issues in the sphere of business to business marketing, business to customer marketing, internal stakeholder relations and interpersonal relationship building. The paper is based on interviews with more than 300 entrepreneurs, SMB owners, employees, interns and students and surveys of her mentees and clients over the last 7 years.

More recently, Demetriades (2012) has published several articles and papers on how these issues interact across three fields and which she believes will merge over the coming 10. With the backdrop of this research, she predicts a future landscape where entrepreneurship, human resources and public relations together shape a new trend for education of the individuals of the 21st century. Please note that she has chosen to define public relations also on scandinavian terms. Thus, the definitions must be understood in context prior to embarking upon her interpretations, which came to life during a study of small business communications.

Demetriades believe that current HR practitioners will move away from their recruitment offices and become coaches and mentors – and thus replace, or at the very least reduce, the presence of the university in our current society. After all, due to technology and the internet, western societies have  greater access to knowledge and may not need the university on the same level as previously. We may see that the university will return to its origin where small groups or student teacher relationships become the norm. Imagine the early days of Plato and Aristotle, walking through the university hall in Athens, depicting the true meaning of university, designed for advanced learning for people as part of ‘the whole’, or ‘the society’.

The merging and emerging fields of human resources, public relations and entrepreneurship

The recent changes in the landscape of relationship management has been suggested as a result of three over arching factors (Demetriades 2010). The factor include; the last decades evolvement of Human Resource Management (HRM), the last 50 years development of the Public Relations (PR) field (including socialist interpretation of PR), and the increased global increase in entrepreneurial ventures. Together with the development and availability of technology and the internet, these three fields are affected by and affect public education. Using communications and management theories to interlink the three fields, we can look towards a future trend shaping the education landscape. More specifically, examining how management and communications theory introduces relationship theory as they become the practical solution to our existence.  Continue reading →

Living in Sydney is like being head over heals in love with a beautiful person. On a good day, you can spend hours admiring their beauty, gazing into their eyes, dreaming about their wonderfulness. On the weekend, you can explore their mysterious lane ways and buy them flowers and jam at the saturday markets. Amazing time will pass by.

On a grey day, you can’t help but pick at their flaws, look for mistakes and feel frustrated that one and the same can be so incredibly beautiful and yet so incredibly annoying. You know inside that its not Sydney’s fault, yet you cast blame for all your own incapabilities. You don’t want to blame, its not Sydney’s fault, and blaming is not nice. You just can’t help needing to project your own dark side onto the city that kicks you when you are down, even though you know that it’s yourself thats kicking. You never leave because it embraces you when you are high. When you are away, your heart will carry the memories.

It can be so shallow, and it can be the most profound, the deepest love. So deep that it stabs you on the inside. Out loud, you say that you are completely platonic in your admiration. Purely spiritual, free from sensual desire. Everybody knows the truth, that you have fallen, head over heals. How can you not, when it’s licked your naked body in public, making you soar above its high rising buildings, between its dark warehouses, under its rich offices.

It has the ability to make you feel like a sophisticated socialite drinking champagne in the harbor on Fridays, a foxy lady in KX on Saturdays, or like a coffee drinking Boheme in Surry Hills on Sundays. A secret is not a secret if it is shared. That is the only thing that sets your relationship with Sydney apart from any other. You can share a secret, and it’s exciting, and it’s right in front of you, you’re living in it. And the theme music changes every day, depending on the the street your on. I thought I would never say anything as ridiculous as this: whilst it ruthlessly rips me apart, Sydney completes me.  

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