Workplace Relationships

Workplace relationships are critical to your success. And so many professionals struggle with questions like, should I really have friends at work? Should I share my goals and aspirations with my coworkers? Who can I really trust? Who can I get along with? Here's the deal. Relationships are critical to your ability to succeed in any environment. Whether you're working in a corporation, a nonprofit or an academic setting or a hospital setting, you need other relationships in order to maximize your success. And obviously just like in your personal life, you don't manage all of your friendships in the very same way. Then in your work environment, you may choose to manage those relationships a little bit differently. Now, the good news is people will pretty much tell you who they are. And when somebody reveals who they are and you feel like that's the person I can really trust, then you deal with that accordingly until otherwise notified. If you get the feeling of, I'm not so sure. I want to trust my innermost secrets with that person, trust yourself and then deal with that person accordingly until otherwise notified. But you want to be able to share who you are authentically to all the people that you're working with, because that's the only way you're going to be able to see whether or not that is a superficial surface relationship for you or whether or not it can be something a little bit deeper. Now I'm a big fan of starting off with extending my hand and sharing who I am and to see how people are going to react. I have learned not to wait for people to befriend me, because here's the thing that I've also learned is that many times people are as afraid of you or as you are of them. So if you're both waiting, then nothing's going to happen. So I like to start off and say, Hey, I'm Carla. What brought you to this organization? Here's why I joined. What area do you work in? Here's what I'm doing. And if it's your coworkers and they were there before you were say, Hey, all right, I'm new girl on the block. So tell me what it is. I need to know because I'm here to make sure that we're all successful in whatever way that I can. I know that I have a lot to learn, but I think I'm a pretty fast learner and I'll do you proud if you'll take the time to show me how I need to do whatever it is I need to do. And don't be discouraged if you run into a couple of people who are not so forthcoming or are not willing to train you where one person won't, another one will just keep going person by person until you find that person that is willing to show you the ropes that's willing to answer your questions and always be that woman or that man that's interested in investing in somebody else's success. I will tell you that after over 30 years on wall street, I have learned that when you extend your intellect, your experience and your relationships on behalf of somebody else, it comes back to you in ways that you could not have imagined. Your network always pays you back. So invest, be that guy, be that gal that's willing to invest in somebody else's success. And by the way, don't ever forget that people are watching you. So when you position yourself as that person, somebody is taking notice even if they don't tell you. Now when you have workplace conflict or let's say you're walking into an organization that there's a lot going on, I mean a lot going on, lots of politics, lots of fear, rumors of a restructuring. I always tell my mentees, you are Switzerland. Mm hmm. You're a Switzerland. Make sure that you are not a part of the negative chatter in any way. If people are bringing it to you, then your response is mm hmm. Mm hmm. Wow. But do not engage because when it gets articulated that there was a conversation about this, that, or this thing, you don't want anybody to be able to say, Oh, Carla said or Carla mentioned and it was negative because you don't know who it will be repeated to. And you want to be on the record as saying, I did not say that. I did not contribute this and being very clear about what you said and how you said it. And the way that I've been able to make sure I'm not a part of those conversations is that I do not contribute to negative conversations. So when there is conflict, you make sure that you are the constructive voice or you are no voice at all. And if there is conflict and there is something to be said, again, you always say it in a way that will bring things back together. Well, while there was conflict, here's how I'm thinking about it now in order for us to move forward. Or my point of view was this and Jerry's point of view was that I think that we can meet in the middle and do this, but always come to the conversation where the conflict is being debated. Always come to it with a constructive point of view. Make sure that your emotion is out of the room. If you're angry, if you are upset, walk the halls, walk around the building, go get yourself some coffee, but make sure you digest that so that when you can come to the conversation, you can come in a calm, dispassionate, productive manner, not one from emotion that will not serve you well there. Every time there's a conflict, a conflict can be resolved. You want to be seen as the person that can resolve it. And sometimes it can be resolved in the moment, but it's not finished. And if you know that you're in one of those situations, take the momentary resolution, run with it until it arises again, and then you'd be prepared to deal with it. Every organization, even those that call themselves a tight knit family will have conflict because all families have disagreements, but you want to be positioned in your organization, not as the person that is stirring up the conflict, but as the person that can always figure out a way to resolve it or at least not contributed to it going forward. Now what happens if there's conflict on your team and you are the leader that I'm a big fan of managing in a one-on-one fashion, going to each of the people in your organization and try to understand their point of view. Chances are, if you have five people reporting to you, three of them will probably have a very similar story and you can get to the crux of what's really going on. And then as the leader, I do believe it is your job to resolve the conflict, to get everybody aligned again, not to point fingers, but to come up with whatever the solution is to move everybody forward. If there is one person in your team that is consistently causing trouble, you have to first make sure that this person is not the person that's really telling the truth and is really bringing the truth to you as the leader. But if they are not that person, you want to make sure that you start to think about how you can get that person off of your team. It's going to take a little more investigation to make sure you get to the heart of things, but it's important that you quickly resolve the conflict so that you can realign the team around the objectives at hand and be able to move forward with executing whatever you are responsible for executing. That's a critical thing for you to do as a leader. Don't leave it for them to resolve. Don't leave it for it to go away because chances are it will not and it will impair your success as the leader of that team. Go get them.