The Case for Relational Literacy

WE HAVE A VOCABULARY FOR MONEY. WE DON'T HAVE ONE FOR RELATIONSHIPS.

Building an assessment tool for workplace relationship quality generates a lot of questions about what we know and don't know about relationships. Beyond intimate relationships and attachment theory, the pickings suddenly turn slim.

The very language we use to describe relationships reveals how little we understand them. Terms like "positive" and "toxic" are opaque. They shed little insight into what's really happening between two people, how that connection can improve, and whether investing in it is worth either person's time.

Sometimes the person we work with who tells us what we want to hear feels comfortable and "positive." But the person who challenges us and makes us think might be the most positive relationship in our network. It depends on what we mean by positive, which raises the question of whether the term “positive” is a helpful way of distinguishing relationship quality.

Language matters here because people need language to make meaning of their experiences. In order to make something real in our own lives, we need language that can translate an idea into the context of our lives. Words do this for us; they make the invisible visible, creating the building blocks of understanding and reasoning. A good example of how language can transform our understanding of something in our lives is financial literacy.

In its simplest form, financial literacy is about helping people not run out of money in old age. It's a form of understanding that empowers people to see beyond their emotions and understand the practical dimensions of financial choices. Financial literacy translates the idea of having money for today into an understanding of financial security across the lifetime, in good times and in bad.

Relational literacy, in its simplest form, is about helping people avoid relational choices that cost them. The wrong relationships can have deleterious effects on a person’s mental health, physical health, confidence, and ability to act on their values. Relational literacy is a method of discerning between relationships that are generative and those that are corrosive without relying on emotions alone to detect which is which. Relational illiteracy reflects a lack of judgment and the costs of poor judgment can be significant for individuals, for families, and for workplaces.

NINETY YEARS OF EVIDENCE, AND STILL NO SHARED LANGUAGE.

In 1938, a Harvard physician launched what would become the longest running study of adult health and happiness, which continues today. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has tracked the lives of more than 2,000 people across three generations, revealing that the strongest predictors of happiness and health are not wealth, fame, or intelligence. Instead, the most consistent and reliable source of well-being is the quality of a person's relationships (Waldinger & Schulz, 2023).

But what's striking about this finding that rests on nearly nine decades of methodical data collection is that it's hard to locate any consistent description of how these relationships are built or sustained. The only option is to glean insights about relationships from reading about the study's participants.

In the Harvard Study of Adult Development, positive relationships are described with words like "warm," "close," and "satisfying,” which capture a person's experience of the relationship. They're more precise than "positive" and "toxic" but lack information that informs choice and guides behaviors.

LANGUAGE THAT UNLOCKS RELATIONSHIP QUALITY

The Anchor Relationships assessments are helping people realize that there's a lot more to relationships than being positive or toxic. Here are a few ways this assessment expands our vocabulary.

Generative capacity. Reveals whether a relationship is helping both people grow or whether it provides comfort in place of growth.

Portable confidence. Distinguishes between support that builds your capabilities and support that deepens your reliance on another person.

Self-directed growth. Clarifies whether the support you receive is advancing the goals you set for yourself or steering you toward what someone else wants for you.

Honest expression. Shows whether you can share your real views in a relationship or whether you edit them to keep the connection steady.

Values demonstration. Reveals whether a person's conduct matches their stated values, which allows you to understand the relationship through behavior rather than judgments about character.

More crisply, the Anchor Relationships assessment asks whether a relationship enables each person to grow in directions they choose; whether it supports each person’s sense of self-efficacy; and whether it creates a climate in which each person can access and act on their values. These three ways of thinking about a relationship give people a simple standard for evaluating relationship quality in ways that can help them flourish.

THE URGENT MOMENT FOR RELATIONSHIP QUALITY

In the era of AI, amidst a global loneliness crisis, the urgency to develop true competency with relationships has never been greater. That’s not an indictment on technology, it’s an observation about the essential role of relationships in helping us adapt to a changing world while staying true to our own values.

As human-agent teams become the norm and people go to AI for answers, they bypass the relational conversations that would give them the moral challenge they need. AI affirms without judging, which is exactly why people bring it their most insecure questions. Only a human relationship pushes back at personal cost.

Knowing how to form meaningful relationships might just be the most useful skill of the 21st Century. Relational literacy, the ability to discern relationship quality as opposed to relationship quantity, may be essential for the survival of the organizations where we work and the prosperity of the communities we inhabit.

The work of creating a rich and practical language of workplace relationship quality is one that Anchor Relationships can meaningfully support. The research and insights we generate are shared with a small group of Fellows, who help others elevate well-being through their own practices.

Waldinger, R., & Schulz, M. (2023). The good life: Lessons from the world's longest scientific study of happiness. Simon & Schuster