Working relationships with colleagues are crucial for a long term growth in career.
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.
Babe Ruth
Building positive working relationships with colleagues is essential to accomplish a great career success. The actions and behaviours of an employee can positively or negatively affect his career and work relationships.
When you build a positive working relationship with colleagues, you feel more comfortable with the interactions to the people you spend the significant time working with. And when you create a negative correlation, it diminishes your satisfaction with the work, your potential to advance and acquire recognition for your achievements.
However, building a good relationship isn’t an easy task for a lot of people, especially for new employees. Then, here are some useful tips for anyone who wants to build and maintain positive working relationships with colleagues.
Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.
Helen Keller
How to build and maintain positive working relationships with colleagues?
- Work with your team in projects
As a new person in the organisation, your colleagues will be keen to see what you can deliver both to broader team goals and also to projects they are working on. So, do your share of work, offer your knowledge and expertise to group tasks and find ways to help on work your colleagues are undertaking.
Volunteer to work challenging assignments, incorporate fun activities and become an icebreaker into team projects so that your colleagues get to know better. Be an encourager, praising the successes of others and inspire them to achieve more. It will not only help you exchange ideas but also change the way you usually do a task.
- Develop trust with your team
You can develop trust with your colleagues by making the points given below
- Guard confidences by do not gossip.
- Always keep your appointments and do your work well.
- Follow through on your promises. If you discover that you can’t fulfil a promise, apologise and offer to solve the problem in another way.
- Take responsibility for your mistakes than blaming on someone or something else.
- Integrity is central to trust. So, be fair and honest in all your dealings.
- Share resources and information with co-workers and promptly return the materials you borrow.
All these things demonstrate that others can count on you.
- Improve your communication skill
Better communication skill helps you listen attentively to others and speak with them clearly. If you didn’t understand what someone said to you, repeat the statement in your own words and ask whether you caught them correctly. It will help others know that you value their opinions.
Always ensure that you use correct words with people. If you use wrong words with a lack of respect about them to others, your colleagues may get hurt, and it may destroy your image in front of them.
Communicate in a respectful manner – don’t just tell your team members what you want, but explain to them why.
Jeffrey Morales
- Show respect for others
Stand on your co-worker’s shoes and be willing to examine viewpoints that are different from your own. Courteously share your perspectives. Get to know their hobbies, interests, dreams, personal lives, etc. The more you get to know them, the more your relationship will grow and strengthen.
Better working relationships will lead to better teamwork and help you to be happier, more engaged and more productive. If you regularly carry out these actions, you will play well with others and build effective interpersonal work relationships. Your colleagues will value you and bosses will believe that you play on the right team with them. It will help you accomplish your work goals, and you may even experience fun, recognition, and personal motivation.
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
– Henry Ford
