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Trust, Candor, and Accountability
Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships presents readers with a thoughtful and highly practical exploration of the critical role relationships play in achieving professional success. Why was Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships an important book for you to write?
Relationships are the heartbeat of business—and life. Early in my career in finance and leadership development, I saw time and again that it wasn’t technical skill that made or broke success. It was how people navigated the human side of work. Who they trusted. Who they avoided. Who had their back—or didn’t.
Cultivate was my way of capturing the patterns I saw in teams and leaders around the world—and offering a clear, practical path forward for building the kinds of relationships that elevate performance, trust, and impact.
The pandemic brought this need into even sharper focus. As we navigated remote work, hybrid environments, and the fundamental reshaping of our workplace connections, the principles in Cultivate became not just important but essential. That’s why I’ve expanded the second edition to address these new challenges and opportunities.
What ideas were important for you to share in this book?
First, that relationships are not a “nice to have”—they are mission critical. Second, that we all have a Relationship Ecosystem™—and whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re constantly influencing and being influenced by the people around us.
I wanted to help readers diagnose the health of their relationships, understand the dynamics at play (Ally, Supporter, Rival, or Adversary), and most importantly—equip them to shift those dynamics with intentional action.
The Ally Mindset at the heart of the book shows how five essential practices—Abundance & Generosity, Connection & Compassion, Courage & Vulnerability, Candor & Debate, and Action & Accountability—create the foundation for transformational relationships. These concepts were so powerful that we expanded them into their own book, You, Me, We: Why We All Need a Friend at Work (and How to Show Up as One!), which serves as a perfect companion to Cultivate.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about building relationships in a professional environment?
That it’s about being liked, or that it’s all just “soft stuff.”
In reality, the strongest professional relationships are rooted in trust, candor, and accountability. You don’t need to be best friends with everyone at work—but you do need to be willing to show up with integrity, listen generously, and have the tough conversations.
Another myth? That relationships happen organically. The truth is, high-trust, high-impact relationships are built intentionally. This becomes even more critical in our hybrid and remote environments, where the natural touchpoints of in-person interaction are limited. We must now deliberately create the conditions for connection that used to happen in hallways and break rooms.
Perhaps the most damaging misconception is that investing in relationships takes time away from “real work.” The data proves otherwise—teams with strong relationships are more innovative, more resilient, and deliver better results. As I explore in both Cultivate and You, Me, We, relationship-building isn’t separate from the work—it’s what makes the work possible.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from Cultivate?
That you have more influence than you realize. Whether you’re an executive or a new team member, you have the power to shape the culture and health of your relationships.
It starts with one conversation, one check-in, one moment of courage. Start there—and the ripple effect can be profound.
In today’s workplace, where technology often creates the illusion of connection, I hope readers take away the understanding that genuine human relationships remain the cornerstone of success. We must all work to create cultures of connection in a world that often feels disconnected, one conversation and one relationship at a time. Because we truly are #BetterTogether.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | LinkedIn
New & Updated Vibrant, Practical, and Unapologetically Real
Success in business isn’t just about what you know—it’s about how you connect. In today’s fast-paced, tech-driven world, genuine human relationships are the key to unlocking peak performance, strong teamwork, and lasting success. Cultivate is your go-to guide for turning everyday interactions into powerful, real connections.
Are you finding it tough to build trust in virtual and hybrid work settings? Do colleagues sometimes come off more like competitors than supportive teammates? And do those difficult conversations seem too risky to tackle? This book shows you how to break down those barriers and transform team and communication challenges into genuine opportunities.
In this expanded second edition, Morag Barrett – founder and CEO of SkyeTeam – introduces her groundbreaking Relationship Ecosystem™ model, giving you the practical tools to:
• Strengthen Your Communication: Cut through the noise and build authentic trust in every conversation.
• Tackle Tough Talks with Confidence: Learn how to approach challenging discussions in a way that clears up misunderstandings and builds stronger bonds.
• Transform Workplace Dynamics: Turn quick chats into lasting connections that boost your day-to-day impact and set you up for long-term success.
• Enhance Your Leadership Impact: Become the go-to colleague who not only drives results but also inspires others—fueling your success today and paving the way for a thriving career tomorrow.
If you’re ready to step beyond surface-level interactions and truly make a difference in your work life, Cultivate is here to help you build relationships that work as hard as you do.
Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships
In Cultivate, Morag Barrett presents a thoughtful and highly practical exploration of the critical role relationships play in achieving professional success. Barrett, drawing on her extensive leadership development experience, introduces the “Relationship Ecosystem,” a clear, actionable framework that categorizes workplace relationships.
What sets Cultivate apart is its balance between strategic insight and practical application. Barrett moves beyond theory, offering readers diagnostic tools, self-assessments, and concrete strategies to both strengthen beneficial relationships and repair challenging ones. Rather than focusing solely on building alliances, she emphasizes the importance of navigating difficult interpersonal dynamics, making the book both realistic and immediately useful.
Barrett’s writing style is clear, engaging, and conversational, making complex interpersonal concepts accessible to a wide audience. She supports her advice with real-world examples that resonate across industries and organizational levels. Particularly timely is her updated focus on relationship-building in hybrid and remote work environments, ensuring the book remains relevant in today’s evolving workplace.
Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships is an insightful, practical, and empowering read that offers lasting value for anyone serious about leading and thriving through the power of human connection. It is particularly valuable for executives, team leaders, and emerging professionals who recognize that technical skills are only part of the equation—relationship mastery is equally essential.
Pages: 270 | ASIN : B0F2NVKYNP
There’s Just Life
What were some ideas that you felt were important to highlight in You, Me, We: Why We All Need a Friend at Work (and How to Show Up As One!)?
The most important idea that we wanted to highlight is that workplace relationships are the single biggest influencer of happiness, engagement, and productivity at work.
Morag Barrett’s first book, Cultivate – The Power of Winning Relationships, introduced the four relationship dynamics (Ally, Supporter, Rival, and Adversary) that make up the Relationship Ecosystem™. We’ve been leading workshops on the Relationship Ecosystem™ ever since, and kept getting the question, “How do I get more allies?” The short answer isn’t always what people want to hear, but it’s true: To have an ally you need to be an ally.
In You, Me, We we wanted to provide a guide that helped readers understand, practically, how they could do that. After more than a decade of research, interviewing thousands of leaders about what it means to show up as an ally to our colleagues, and creating a self-assessment tool that outlines what comes more naturally to people, we created a practical guide that would help readers to make intentional choices in how they show up in workplace relationships.
Central to the book is what we call the Ally Mindset, and it is made up of five practices; Abundance and Generosity, Connection and Compassion, Courage and Vulnerability, Candor and Debate, and Action and Accountability. We created the Ally Mindset Profile (available at skyeteam.cloud/youmewe) to provide readers with a solid foundation when deciding how to make intentional investments in critical stakeholder relationships.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about work friendships?
There are many misconceptions about workplace relationships. It’s been said that workplace friendships are not professional, that they can lead to favoritism, or that they aren’t even genuine (they’re misperceived as politicking and empire building). Some also argue that they will distract from productivity, or lead to complications when one friend inevitably leaves the organization.
While human beings are messy, and no two workplace friendships are alike, most of these ideas just don’t hold up in the real world. These misconceptions come from a place of scarcity. What we argue in the book is that beginning from a position of abundance, and showing up as our true authentic selves, workplaces flourish when friendships abound. People hold each other to a higher account, they tend to be more engaged, and measurably more productive when engaged in friendships at work. Our research and experience has shown that the health of our professional relationships is the most important factor when it comes to success in business and in life.
What is one piece of advice someone gave you that changed your life?
We spend a majority of our adult lives working, and the stresses of daily life are always in the picture. Eric used to struggle with worrying about personal things while he was at work, and then fretting about work things when he wasn’t. A mentor of his helped him to understand that there’s no such thing as work/life “balance.” There’s just life. A big old garbled mess of all things work, personal, and everything in-between. When you allow yourself to show up in every frame as your true self, everyone is better off. This isn’t to say that you should wear your emotions on your sleeve and share everything with anyone who will listen. It means that you acknowledge what’s going on on the inside for you, honor that, and let it be, versus trying to fit the entirety of human experience into discrete containers or labels like “work” and “home.” The most powerful lever in this mindset is leveraging the most important relationships you have around you, to support you, and to remind you that self-care is paramount. True allies have your back, no matter the circumstances, and that is a complete game changer!
What is one thing you hope readers take away from your book?
We want readers to find at least one piece of practical advice that they can use to make intentional investments in their most critical workplace relationships. The book serves more as a field guide than a linear narrative. We hope that people pick it up and flip to the chapter that most fits their current circumstances. If they’re having trouble being vulnerable, jump to the chapter on Courage and Vulnerability. If they find themselves employing a scarcity mindset, open up the section on Abundance and Generosity. Each chapter ends with a set of real-world tips, called Look Up, Show Up, Step Up, that readers can use in their workplace relationships today! While the stories in the book are compelling, they don’t need to be consumed like a novel. We hope this is a book that readers come back to time and time again. We want it to be that ratty, dog-eared, marked up book on desks that people use throughout their lives to help make their lives, and the lives of those around them a little bit lighter, a little bit better.
Author Links: Website
One of the most important indicators of individual, team, and organizational success is the presence of an ally mindset. When we have best friends at work—people who are with us, in good times and bad, and who help ensure we make it through together—we thrive. When we don’t, we flail, and eventually crash and burn, leaving only a smoking hulk of debris behind as evidence that they were ever even there.
Through their extensive work with clients that include Google, National Geographic, Microsoft, and many more, the authors have discovered the framework for an ally mindset includes five key parts:
– Abundance and generosity
– Connection and compassion
– Courage and vulnerability
– Candor and debate
– Action and accountability
In You, Me, We, they share valuable lessons on each of these aspects, to show you how to be a better friend at work, and how doing so leads to greater happiness, collaboration, and business outcomes.
You, Me, We.: Why we all need a friend at work (and how to show up as one!)
You, Me, We masterfully illustrates potent strategies for cultivating a spirit of kinship within any professional environment. Our modern work culture, often marred by individualism and isolation, can inadvertently foster an atmosphere of emotional detachment and gradually escalating conflict among team members. This book underscores the fundamental principle that prosperous professional relationships form the cornerstone of career success.
In order to cultivate such relationships, one must exercise intentionality. The objective should be a reciprocal connection, where both parties are invested in mutual growth. The authors highlighted the importance of proactive relationship building, highlighting a particularly notable section on transforming adversaries into allies. Adversarial relationships can often be traced back to mundane incidents, which, when recognized and addressed, can pave the way for constructive collaboration.
Embodying empathy and devoid of judgment, You, Me, We acknowledges the ease with which one can let negative relationships fester, ultimately staining the fabric of our professional lives. Through the lens of Fiona’s story, it delivers a cautionary tale, illuminating the destructive power of unchecked interpersonal issues at work while simultaneously reinforcing the notion that a strained relationship requires a concerted effort from both parties.
Framed through engaging, real-world narratives, the book feels akin to a conversation among friends. Its accessible language, corroborated by empirical evidence, reinforces its credibility and resonates with logic. You, Me, We is a harmonious blend of practical advice and thought-provoking insights, delivering an invigorating and rewarding reading experience that carries the potential to transform one’s professional life.
This narrative serves as a call to all professionals. While it applauds the merits of hard work, it emphasizes the value of camaraderie and mutual support in the journey to success. Leaders are prompted to foster an environment that encourages allyship, necessitating transformative actions at both individual and organizational levels. A thriving work culture hinges on leaders who genuinely support and collaborate with their staff as allies.
Written by Morag Barrett, Eric Spencer, and Ruby Vesely, this timely masterpiece serves as a gentle nudge to reembrace our social instincts as we navigate the post-pandemic work landscape. You, Me, We is an essential read for anyone seeking to purge negativity from their relationships, whether professionally or socially. Its messages are relevant to those desiring a more positive, fulfilling interpersonal existence.
Pages: 304 | ASIN : B09XV17RFW
LITERARY TITAN 