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The Symbiotic Relationship – Mutual Benefits in the Workplace

Posted by Carolyn Thompson on Dec 17, 2018 in Thinking Positive

Having meaningful relationships with people you work with has many benefits. For starters, work is much more enjoyable when you get along well with those around you. The happier you are at work, the more productive you will be. Having good working relationships is also great for collaboration, innovation and creativity, from which the whole organisation will benefit.

So, how do you build strong, positive relationships at work? The way you treat people plays a huge role in your relationships with them. You have to appreciate the people around you, communicate with them openly, and make a genuine effort to get to know them. Through this effort, you’ll gain mutual respect, trust and admiration, which are critical characteristics of any healthy working relationship. Follow these simple tips to form a deeper connection with your work colleagues.

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Image source: Unsplash

Schedule Quality Time

 Spending quality time with colleagues outside of work is obviously the best way to build closer relationships. Create a list of colleagues that you’d like to get to know a bit better, whether it’s a team member or just someone you see in the elevator each morning. Ask them to grab a coffee when they’re free or invite them to eat lunch with you.

Try to do this on a regular basis with different colleagues. Once you begin forming deeper connections with people at work, you soon feel a greater sense of purpose and job satisfaction.

Show Your Appreciation:

 Everyone wants to be appreciated for their hard work. Take a moment during the work day to show your appreciation to the people around you, whether it’s your boss or your co-worker. Send them a thoughtful handwritten thank you note, stop by their cubicle to say thanks, or treat them to a coffee. It may not seem like much, but people feel will closer to you if you take notice of their contributions. By showing your appreciation, you will also inspire them to keep working hard.

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Image source: Unsplash

Exercise Together

 Exercising with other people is a great bonding experience. You can lift each other up and motivate each other to do better, and work towards a shared goal. Exercise has also been shown to be beneficial for workplace productivity. It can boost your mood, re-focus your mind and improve your overall energy levels.

So, find time to exercise with your co-workers during your lunch breaks. Ask them to join you for a quick workout out or a walk around the block. Through this, you’ll reap the physical benefits of exercise and also form new friendships.

Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help

If you’re stuck on a problem or need a little assistance with a project you’re working on, don’t be afraid to ask others for help. Many people avoid asking for help at work because they don’t want to be a bother.

However, more often than not, your colleagues will appreciate that you came to them because it shows them that you value their opinion and expertise. This feeling of mutual trust will naturally improve your working relationship and help you to get work done more efficiently.

Be Positive

You don’t have to be the boss to help create a positive working environment for employees. You can contribute to each employee’s greatness by being a positive and motivating force at work. As well as being encouraging and friendly when you are in direct conversation with your colleagues, endeavour to speak positively about them to other people.

For example, when talking to your boss, provide quality feedback about the people you work with. This information will often get shared around the workplace (whether negative or positive). If you do this regularly, your coworkers will value you as their colleague, and your boss will also see that you are a team player.

This Guest Post was contributed by Allison Hail. If you have a great idea for a jungle-themed post, let us know! Guest writers or requests are always welcome!

Author’s bio:

Before pursuing her passion for writing, Allison Hail worked in the corporate world for several years. Based on her experience, a great working relationship is essential to success – proven correct through her many collaborations with various sites, blogs, and businesses such as Sea Containers. You can view more of Allison’s work on her Tumblr page.

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The Fertilized Soil – Putting “Power” Back In Empowerment

Posted by Carolyn Thompson on Aug 13, 2012 in Building Confidence, Thinking Positive

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As busy professionals looking to move our practices and careers ahead, we can lose sight of how important empowering others around us can contribute to our own success.  Sometimes, we view training someone on a task or area of technical expertise as a time consuming activity when ultimately it can be a timesaving investment if we give that person responsibility for something that we don’t necessarily have to do ourselves and empower them in the process.

In the planting technique known as “companion planting”, three complimentary crops are planted close together in a cluster which fertilizes the soil and helps the plants grow stronger. For instance, grouping corn, beans, and squash is the traditional planting method of certain Native American groups. The corn acts a natural pole for bean vines to climb, while the beans add nitrogen to the soil improving the fertility of the plot. Bean vines can also help stabilize the corn stalks which keep them from blowing over in strong wind. Squash acts as a living mulch that provides shade to emerging weeds and helps to retain soil moisture. The prickly squash plants also help discourage predators from approaching the corn and beans. The large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the soil at the end of the season, to build up the organic matter and improve its structure. The plants, in effect, empower each other to grow.

In the traditional situational leadership model developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, empowerment is used as a cooperative form of personal power as compared to competitive or self-protective power. It is also proactive, positive, and constructive. An effective leader should actively seek to increase the readiness level or capabilities of those around them and within the groups they are leading.

Empowerment is the power to accomplish your own goals, or helping others achieve theirs, through the process of group potency, meaningfulness, autonomy and impact.

Groups, as a whole, profit from their members gaining the ability to succeed together and be effective as a team. The team also needs to have the perception that the tasks they perform are necessary and valuable, not menial and trite. For a group to accomplish their goals, independence allows members to voice ideas and opinions that will aid in the ultimate success of a task. Autonomy does not imply that you abandon supervision entirely, but that such supervision is not constraining to the group. Finally, the thoughts and reflections of outside individuals on the group and its accomplishments are also significant and if sentiments of the group and its work are not positive, this will eventually duplicate in the minds of the members and can withdraw empowerment.

Business owners and leaders have often withheld empowerment because they have concerns about employees having the confidence and skill to leave and take the business with them. The question becomes, if those people felt empowered by their leaders, would they leave in the first place? People need to learn and grow, no matter their job title or level. Empowering someone could take the form of transitioning a simple activity like a weekly or monthly report from your workload giving the employee responsibility and accountability for that action. Or, it could be something more daunting like turning over a portion of client service on a large account. No matter what specific tasks you choose to relinquish, helping someone else learn and grow in their current position will help your practice learn and grow over time.

What steps can you take this week to empower someone around you, fertilizing the soil, which will ultimately increase your own productivity and personal success?

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