No one wants to be a black sheep in a team. People are social creatures: we need and value communication, including at work, where we spend a considerable part of our time. Tense relations at work can lead to a number of problems, such as constant stress, even if you place an eSports bet, emotional fatigue, and as a result, a forced change of job. So why can not develop communication with colleagues, and how to fix the situation? Here are some tips.
Look for the Problem in Yourself
If you have repeatedly changed companies or moved several times to another unit within the same workplace, and thus always experienced problems with communication, it’s time to finally think about what’s wrong with me, why I can’t find common ground with people?
When you analyze the situation, there are likely to be explanations: either you are a non-human, or you do not know how to ask questions, or do not provide feedback, or you are such a critic that everyone is tired of you or a bad professional. There can be many reasons, but until a person takes the time to analyze what’s going on, things won’t change.
Ask the Help of an HR Specialist, a Psychologist or Colleagues
Often it is an employee of the company’s HR department who observes the situation from the outside and can help solve the problem of tense relations in the team. If there is a psychologist in your company, do not hesitate to go to him with this question – it is not a “trivial story”, it is important to solve it, your career and condition, in general, depends on it.
You can also talk directly to your colleagues. Surely there will be those among them who will help and advise what is wrong. You can ask everyone’s opinion individually, or gather some kind of round table to talk informally: buy sweets for tea and invite your colleagues to the meeting.
Work Through the Personality Traits
After the second step you identify your weaknesses, you can send out to your friends and colleagues with whom you have the most trustworthy relationships, the question: “What are my top five character traits?” Analyzing their answers, you will be able to develop your strengths and focus on them in building relationships in the team.
What do you think should be more actively developed – strengths or weaknesses? The right solution is to work on your strengths.
Map Out the Relationships
Choose three to five people who have the greatest impact on your effectiveness at work. Schedule a meeting with them to ask what they need from you at work: feedback, positive outlook, responsiveness, engagement and so on.
We recommend holding such meetings at least once a year, even if the relationship with the team has improved – such sessions help calibrate the settings of internal processes, recheck the accuracy of relationships, update work algorithms, clarify misunderstandings on non-work issues. After such conversations, the relations between colleagues usually become much better, because it is not necessary to love each other, but it is possible to agree with each other on how not to let down and not to irritate.