Developing good work relationships

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WORK relationships tend to be transactional because the environment in the workplace forces you to go to people only when you need something. This is especially true for support work relationships like Human Resource or Information Technology where you go to them only when you need something. And then there are those that you work with only because your project is dependent on their output, or the other way around. But to create a great working environment, you need to develop trustworthy relationships where everyone looks out for each other.

When your team has good work relations with each other, they become more productive. People also speak up more and contribute meaningfully to discussions because people understand that the success of one person is the success of the team. This means that teams can collaborate and come up with solutions faster. In all of these, the leaders play an important role in cultivating an environment where everyone works well together.

Whether you are in a leadership position or a team member, you need to develop and maintain good work relations with your coworkers. If you are going to successfully navigate corporate life and avoid the negative effects of office politics, you need to know how to handle the different kinds of people you work with.

It all starts with good communication practices. One is knowing the formal communication channels that you should use for different types of work. When I was still in another organization, we could go directly to our leaders all the way to the Senior Vice President because that was an acceptable way to communicate within the organization. In another organization, I went directly to someone I know from another department. My manager reprimanded me because he said that it should have been the head of our department who should have written to the head of the other department. You need to know the communication protocols in your organization and follow them. This way, you do not disrupt communication channels and you reinforce the acceptable culture.

You can still utilize informal communication channels to get the pulse of the organization. Water cooler conversations and lunch discussions can be used as a way of getting to know how people feel and think about certain issues. Just a caution that a few people’s impressions and opinions do not necessarily reflect the entire workforce.

In communicating with people in the organization, have the integrity to follow through. If you say you are going to do something, be trustworthy enough that you will push through to its completion. I once worked with a software development team who kept pushing back the launch of the application that it took more than a year for the application to be functional. Because of the missed deadlines, we lost productivity hours that could have been used in other projects. Needless to say, we did not work with that software development team again. Develop good work relationships by being dependable. Other departments need to know that they can rely on you to do your work especially if they rely heavily on your output. Make sure you deliver your part so that they can do their work properly and on schedule. When they know that you will always deliver, you strengthen the work relationship. But if you do make mistakes, admit what your error is but also provide a remedy. One of the things people forget when admitting their mistake is to make amends. If you are truly sorry for your mistake, the least you can do is to develop alternative solutions. Recommend a course of action so that the other party knows that you still have their best interest at heart. If you have free time, make use of it by attending training sessions. If possible, volunteer to help your peers who may be struggling with their work. Offer to help but do not take on the entire work as this may also make them think it is okay to offload their work to you. Help by teaching them your best practices, or doing a part of their work so it becomes easier for them to complete on their own. But if you are going to take on an entire project, make sure your manager knows so that the credit for the work goes to you.

There is nothing more irritating than someone who disturbs you for something that they could have researched by themselves instead of asking you. If