Does it help to understand your colleague’s motives?
December 18th, 2009 | Published in Measuring Performance
In this article from the Guardian, the writer recommends trying understand colleagues’ motives as a way to better working relationships.
Here’s my response:Â It is all about perception, which is why it’s so hard to have these conversations, and why it’s so important to try to see oursleves the way others see us. If you’ve got a really damaged relationship already, it is difficult to sort out, but there are a lot of things you can do on a day to day basis to keep your working relationships good.
Ask for feedback, ask for it often, and make it specific. That way you, and your colleague, can think about real life examples and put it in the context of ‘in that situation, I would have preferred if you had done X’, rather than ‘you are such a control freak, I can’t bear to work with you another day’ (or words to that effect).
And if people are reluctant to give you face to face feedback (and there may be a good reason for that!), get some anonymous 360 Degree Feedback. There may be some useful messages in there!
Here’s a link through to an article about what happens when someone doesn’t want to hear the feedback they’re getting…which happens a lot too!
http://www.track360feedback.com/2009/10/07/changing-abrasive-behaviour-with-feedback/
