Whether you’re CEO, manager or just plain old employee, maintaining good relationships with your co workers is vital to your collaborative efforts.
Here’s a few tips to help you build and maintain great relationships with your coworkers…
Stop trying to be fun all the time
I’m all for making work an enjoyable place to be, but there are times when you need to pull together to get something done. When you’re working to a tight deadline, dealing with a sensitive or personal issue or giving some critical feedback, it might be time get serious.
Inc writer, Jeff Haden, believes that maintaining good relationships with your colleagues means that sometimes, you need to dial it down a bit…
“People who build great relationships know when to have fun and when to be serious, when to be over the top and when to be invisible, and when to take charge and when to follow. Great relationships are multifaceted and therefore require multifaceted people willing to adapt to the situation–and to the people in that situation.”
Don’t be a David Brent. Have fun in the office when you can but make sure your colleagues know that they can rely on you when times get tough.
Don’t be afraid to give feedback
While workplace friendships are likely to make you more productive and happier at work, don’t forget that they’re different to regular friendships.
Author and consultant specialising in behavioural skills, Liggy Webb, believes that feedback is crucial in maintaining good relationships…
“The ability to provide constructive feedback to others helps them to tap into their personal potential and can help to forge positive and mutually beneficial relationships. From your own personal perspective, any feedback you receive is free information and you can choose whether you want to take it on board or not. It can help you to tap into your blind spot and get a different perspective.”
Don’t be scared to give feedback to your colleagues, even if they’re more senior than you. Being open with your coworkers will help them to trust and understand you, strengthening your bond in the future.
Don’t lose focus
While workplace friendships have many benefits, don’t forget that you’re colleagues too, and while you’re in work, the most important thing is to get things done.
Leadership and Business speaker and authors, Ken and Scott Blanchard, believe that too close a personal friendship can result in a lack of focus on results…
“If a relationship starts to focus mainly on emotional support, both parties may forget that work is about getting something accomplished. Many work relationships are ineffective because they have become detached from achieving organizational objectives.”
There’s no need to dial back the friendship, but in the office, use your relationships to work together and get stuff done, try to save the emotional stuff for outside work.
Save venting for outside work
No matter how much we love our jobs, we all need to vent sometimes. And who better to vent to, than the people who’ve been through it all with us?
Writing for TechRepublic, senior systems administrator and writer, Scott Matteson, explains the issues behind venting about work, at work…
“Getting paid to complain about work while you’re at work is a little over the top and just fosters an unhealthy victimhood culture. If there’s something you can do, do it. If not, address it through the healthiest means possible.”
If you’re having problems at work, try to make sure you discuss it with the right people. Explain your concerns to your manager, and try to come up with ways to resolve issues. If you just need a good old fashioned vent – fine. But try to keep it outside the office!
How do you form strong working relationships? Share your experiences in the comments below.
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