A client and I were talking about what makes working relationships effective and lasting. It reminded me of my own time in corporate environments.

As my responsibilities expanded, so did the number of people I needed to maintain good working relationships with, including supporting senior leaders, collaborating with peers across functions, and leading teams at the same time. Everyone had their own targets and constraints, and my work intersected with all of them.

I learned early on that good teamwork doesn’t happen automatically just because objectives are aligned or reporting lines are clear. If you don’t define how you will collaborate, you end up discovering expectations only when something has already gone wrong.

So whenever someone new entered the scene whom I needed to work with productively, I made a point of initiating a conversation. I would explain my role, how it connected to theirs, and then ask two questions:

First: How can I help you be successful?
Second: How would you like to work together?

The first question made our shared interest explicit. The second made the mechanics explicit: what they wanted visibility on, where they wanted input, and how they preferred to communicate when something needed attention.

It was a small investment at the beginning of a new partnership that prevented a surprising amount of avoidable tension later. And it makes sense. Most friction at work is not about intent or capability, but about unspoken expectations. The earlier those get surfaced, the better.