Leaders Letters A Leadership Resource
Play Well With Others: Develop Effective Work Relationships By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide
Edition 13. June 2010
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Compliment, recognize, praise, and notice contributions. You don't have to be a manager to help create a positive, motivating environment for employees. In this environment, employees do find and contribute their greatness.
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Never blind side a coworker, boss, or reporting staff person. If the first time a coworker hears about a problem is in a staff meeting or from an email sent to his supervisor, you have blind sided the coworker. Always discuss problems, first, with the people directly involved who "own" the work system.
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Share credit for accomplishments, ideas, and contributions. How often do you accomplish a goal or complete a project with no help from others? If you are a manager, how many of the great ideas you promote were contributed by staff members? Take the time, and expend the energy, to thank, reward, recognize and specify contributions of the people who help you succeed. This is a no-fail approach to building effective work relationships.
These are the top ways you can play well with others at work. They form the basis for effective work relationships. These are the actions you want to take to create a positive, empowering, motivational work environment for people: •
Bring suggested solutions with the problems to the meeting table. Some employees spend an inordinate amount of time identifying problems. Honestly? That's the easy part. Thoughtful solutions are the challenge that will earn respect and admiration from coworkers and bosses.
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Don't ever play the blame game. Yes, you may need to identify who was involved in a problem. But, not my fault and publicly identifying and blaming others for failures will earn enemies. These enemies will, in turn, help you to fail. You do need allies at work.
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Your verbal and nonverbal communication matters. If you talk down to another employee, use sarcasm, or sound nasty, the other employee hears you.
Regularly carry out these actions, and you will play well with others and develop effective work relationships. Leaders Letters are produced by the Corporate and Finance Division. They are distributed to m em bers of the Senior Leaders Group and posted to the CSSL public shared drive. For inform ation contact 368-4900.
Renewing your relationships By Catherine Freeze •
S
ome people have the same circle of friends, neighbours and co-workers through their entire life but in most cases our social support network changes over time.
You may notice a change in your social support network when you lose a close friend, if your family situation changes because of divorce or death or when you face a life-changing event such as retirement. These are times when you may need to make a change to your social support network or think about some relationships that may need to be improved by making an effort to reconnect. We all need a little help at times to reach out and strengthen our social support network so here are some basic tips to improve your support network:
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Don’t be afraid to take a risk – Meeting new people and making new friends can feel uncomfortable. Don’t worry, most people feel that way but remember that everyone has social support networks and the person that you meet may also be looking for a new friend to add to their network.
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Ask for help - The people that you know now can help you to meet new people, they might know someone who can help you with a problem or someone who has gone through a similar experience. They may not know automatically that you are interested in improving your social support network, so it helps to ask for the help that you want.
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Make a plan – Think about what type of new support that you need and all the different ways that you could find that help.
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Create new opportunities - Try a new class, join a book club or volunteer your time to increase your opportunities to meet people.
Reconnect - Make a list of friends and relatives that you could re-establish contact with in order to strengthen your social network. For the price of a stamp, a phone call or a brief e-mail you can let someone know that you are thinking of them and take the first step in reconnecting.
Be patient with yourself; all relationships take some time and effort to nurture and develop. Life transitions such as retirement, a change in friendships or marital status can be a time for reflection, to reconnect with people and meet new people. You will be rewarded with a stronger social network.
(L-R) Shawna Arsenault, Rona Brown, director of Child and Family Services, Becky Snow, Jordan Walker, Stephanie Keoughan, Oksana Zhukalina with Human Resources and Michelle Gill at an orientation for interns on May 6. Zhukalina led six-month interns with the Department of Community Services, Seniors and Labour through an orientation which covered topics such as employment opportunities, awards and occupational health and safety. Leaders within the department, including Rona Brown and corporate and finances director Lorne Clow, dropped by to personally greet the interns and offer words of wisdom. Not pictured is Caitlin McIntyre, communications assistant intern, who also attended.