Having good work relationships is the key to enjoying your work and being successful in your role
Identify Your Relationship Needs
Look at your own relationship needs. Do you know what you need from others? And do you know what they need from you? Understanding these needs can be instrumental in building better relationships.
Schedule Time to Build Relationships
Devote a portion of your day towards relationship building, even if it's just 20 minutes, perhaps broken up into five-minute segments. For example, you could pop into someone's office during lunch, reply to people's postings on Twitter or LinkedIn, or ask a colleague out for a quick cup of coffee. These little interactions help build the foundation of a good relationship, especially if they're face-to-face.
Focus on Your EI
Also, spend time developing your emotional intelligence (EI). Among other things, this is your ability to recognise your own emotions, and clearly understand what they're telling you. High EI also helps you to understand the emotions and needs of others.
Appreciate Others
Show your appreciation whenever someone helps you. Everyone, from your boss to the office cleaner, wants to feel that their work is appreciated. So, genuinely compliment the people around you when they do something well. This will open the door to great work relationships.
Be Positive
Focus on being positive. Positivity is attractive and contagious, and it will help strengthen your relationships with your colleagues. No one wants to be around someone who's negative all the time.
Manage Your Boundaries
Make sure that you set and manage boundaries properly – all of us want to have friends at work, but, occasionally, a friendship can start to impact our jobs, especially when a friend or colleague begins to monopolize our time. If this happens, it's important that you're assertive about your boundaries, and that you know how much time you can devote during the work day for social interactions.
Avoid Gossiping
Don't gossip – office politics and "gossip" are major relationship killers at work. If you're experiencing conflict with someone in your group, talk to them directly about the problem. Gossiping about the situation with other colleagues will only exacerbate the situation, and will cause mistrust and animosity between you.
Listen Actively
Practice active listening when you talk to your customers and colleagues. People respond to those who truly listen to what they have to say. Focus on listening more than you talk, and you'll quickly become known as someone who can be trusted.
Difficult Relationships
Occasionally, you'll have to work with someone you don't like, or someone that you simply can't relate to. But, for the sake of your work, it's essential you maintain a professional relationship with them.
When this happens, make an effort to get to know the person. It's likely that they know full well that the two of you aren't on the best terms, so make the first move to improve the relationship by engaging them in a genuine conversation, or by inviting them out to lunch.
While you're talking, try not to be too guarded. Ask them about their background, interests and past successes. Instead of putting energy into your differences, focus on finding things that you have in common.
Just remember – not all relationships will be great; but you can make sure that they are, at least, workable!
